“‘Journey’s end in lovers meeting.’” Lenox laughed. “That is not going to be true for me.”
“Yes–yes, it is true. You are young, younger than you yourself know. Trust the train, Mademoiselle, for it is le bon Dieu who drives it.”
The whistle of the engine came again.
“Trust the train, Mademoiselle,” murmured Poirot again. “And trust Hercule Poirot. He knows.”
***
“I never guess. It is a shocking habit,—destructive to the logical faculty. You know my method. It is founded upon the observation of trifles.”
***
“You know, that sounds like an interesting case. Why don’t you take it?”
“I haven’t the time. I’m much too busy seeing that you don’t lose any of the money I married you for.”
***
I worry. I mean, little things bother me. I’m a worrier. I mean, little insignificant details — I lose my appetite. I can’t eat. My wife, she says to me, “You know, you can really be a pain.”
– Lt. Columbo, Ransom For A Dead Man
“Behold, I am sending you out as sheep among wolves; be therefore as cunning as serpents and as harmless as doves.”
– Matthew 10:16
***
I have a specific axe to grind; I will not attempt to disguise my motives. It is my belief that we live in an era of entirely too many Sherlock Holmes adaptations and not nearly enough Columbo adaptations. Moreover, I believe that this modern proliferation of Sherlocks — the BBC’s Sherlock, of course, but also the recent Robert Downey, Jr. films and Elementary – is the reason we have no Columbo film franchises, no new Columbo TV series, no Columbo–Cons. If you will pardon the colloquialism, it is the Cumberbitches who are holding down the Columbros. I say this as someone who still enjoys a good trip to Baker Street every now and again: we must love Sherlock a little less, that we might love Columbo a little more.
For those of you who are not familiar with Peter Falk’s Columbo, or simply require a refresher course, a sample of his work:
Lt. Columbo has been described as “scruffy,” “rumpled,” “modest,” “schlumpy,” “little,” “inconsequential,” “anti-zeitgeist,” and “the lunchbox detective.” Do you not already love him? How many detective stories have you read, how many mystery movies have you sat through, how many rentless bummers of police procedurals have you endured where the super-sleuth’s eagle eyes are constantly flashing above his expensive, attractive peacoat? Where is he getting the money for all those expensive peacoats? Why is he constantly being invited to ducal receptions and international cocktail parties?
Not so Columbo. No dour, cocaine-addled super-brain is he; no arch and upwardly mobile cocktail-swiller, no Belgian. He is as American as American can be in the best possible sense. There is — unlike almost every other detective in the canon, from Marlowe onward — a moral lightness and an untroubled heart at the core of him, an innate goodness that resonates outward and either puts people at ease or deeply unsettles them, as their own consciences dictate. Remember in Julius Caesar when Caesar tells Antony he trusts “Sleek-headed men and such as sleep a-nights”? Columbo is perhaps the only fictional detective one can imagine sleeps soundly at night. Columbo is the detective of the people; Sherlock is a detective solely for himself. There is a great humanity to Columbo. He is as morally pure as Jessica Fletcher, although not of her social class.
And do not allow yourself to believe for even one second that there are not deeply classist, capitalist reasons Sherlock abounds in this day and age of ours, while Columbo does not. Sherlock is more often than not nowadays played as relatively young and good-looking, self-aggrandizing and mercurial and aristocratic, a troubled genius too good for the idiotic plebes that surround him; Columbo is blue-collar and humble. Real Marxists love Columbo.
From “A Cop Like No Other“:
There was always a subtle level of class warfare in each Columbo. The killers were usually rich, powerful, and openly disdainful of this blue-collar bumbler who just wouldn’t go away. To watch each of them slowly come to realize, in horror and desperation, that Columbo was smarter than they had ever imagined was pure joy.
From “Lt. Columbo, Class Warrior“:
Ever notice how this Los Angeles homicide detective never had a case in which a gas station attendant beat his wife to death or two drug dealers had a fatal shootout? The villains are uniformly movie producers, physicians, famous writers, monied gentry and globe-trotting business people. They are also usually good looking and well dressed, and look down on the rumpled, uncouth, Columbo, so clearly out of place in “their” world.
And of course we the audience know they are underestimating our hero, who despite outward appearances is morally and intellectually superior to them. They send him on wild goose chases and he doggedly checks each out (“Yes, sir, we did look into your theory of mobsters, we questioned 100 of them and none of them were involved”), because he is a dedicated working class guy who unlike the upper crust suspects, isn’t sloppy or arrogant enough to forget that one critical detail that undoes the whole endeavor. There are many conversations in the series that are suffused with class resentment. Columbo asks one villain “How much does a home like this cost?” and when he finds out says “Oh, sir, I could never afford that on a policeman’s salary.” And we love these exchanges, because we know that this working class hero is still conning his prey, and he’s going to bring that smug, rich S.O.B. down in the end.
Columbo says things like “Watch my hand, it’s full of grease. This is my dinner. Would you like a piece of chicken?” to suspects. He is deliberate. He moves at the pace of justice. Unflagging, unwearying, unrelenting; he is the Anton Chigurh of goodness. The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards Columbo. It is his fundamental goodness, as much as his native intelligence, that make him a good detective. He is not a remote genius; he is not a refined gentleman; he is a good man, and it is this that makes him not just a good detective but my detective. He is America’s detective. A good and a quiet man who brings his own lunch and will not go away until order is restored.
But how to reboot Columbo, a show (series of miniseries? String of TV movies?) so closely associated with its original star? Of course Peter Falk is untouchable by a magnitude of several light-years as the original Columbo. He need never be imitated; his legacy is entirely safe. The answer, of course, is to turn Columbo into America’s Doctor Who (but, you know, good): reboot it every five to ten years with an entirely new detective, a bit more gently grizzled than the detective who came before, but always with the same trench coat and glass eye. Fading movie stars could rejuvenate their careers with a single guest appearance as an upper-class murderer.
I dare you to look me square in the eye and tell me you would not watch Kathy Bates in a rumpled old trenchcoat trying to keep track of her notes among the young and beautiful and murderous. Or Giancarlo Esposito. Or Jake Johnson from New Girl in about fifteen years. Rhea Perlman. Sam Rockwell, that beautiful weirdo. JOHN C. REILLY. Danny Pudi, in about eight years. An unshaven Stanley Tucci. Danny Trejo. Richard Kind. Margo Martindale. John Cho. Each one would bring a different characteristic of Columbo’s to the forefront — his core kindness, his feigned absent-mindedness, his needling slyness, his love for animals, his whimsy, his native intelligence, his love for cigars.
There have been sixty mabrillion hours of new Sherlock with forty gatrangulon hours of gay ship-tease that will never be realized, and all I ask for is one perfect reincarnation of Columbo. The first re-installment could be called Just One More Thing. I am handing you perfection on a damn platter. Take it with both hands.
Tags: class warfare, columbo, detectives, heroes, just one more thing, sherlock holmes
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Thank you for the video of Columbo interrogating Agent Zed of the MIB.
I thoroughly endorse this concept, and will move into a tent and carry a sign reading “OCCUPY THE ART OF DETECTION” if need be.
I was so happy working here too. It could have been so much fun.
I wholeheartedly agree, even if the idea of anyone else playing Columbo makes me miss Peter Falk so much that it hurts.
(My initial reaction was, “Can’t we love BOTH Sherlock and Columbo? Can we not be both a Cumberbitch and a Columbro?” and then I realised that was the Canadianest Canadian response that ever did Canadian.)
COLUMBRO
No, I mean, I definitely like Sherlock plenty, there is just SO MUCH SHERLOCK these days and so little Columbo, also it’s not REALLY Sherlock’s fault there’s not a Columbo reboot, but I want to blame him anyhow.
Oh, I completely agree. We are definitely at peak Sherlock, and the lack of Columbo is my life right now is outrageous. (It’s not even in Netflix Canada! Unacceptable!) My gut response was just, “Oh no! I have to pick a side!”
The number of things I am content to vaguely and accusatively pin on Benedict Cumberbatch and Steven Moffat numbers in the hundreds, at least. It’s good for the blood pressure.
The recent inundation of Sherlock stuff has weirded me out, sort of. On my travels through Tumblr I saw there were LINES of people waiting to get into 221B Baker Street. When I went there in 2006, me and my friend were maybe all of maybe five people in there. And there was this delightful old man playing an elderly Sherlock taking us around to the different scenes from books staged with wax figures. What is it like now?? Are all the wax figures Benedict?
Aw… my beloved grandpa used to start laughing when he thought of Columbo. “Just one more thing!! hahaha”
I didn’t get the joke but he sure had an infectious laugh.
I have never even seen this show and I’m already sold on a John C. Reilly reboot.
It’s just perfect. John C. Reilly in that rumpled trench coat, and scratching his head all the time.
YES!
I would endorse a John C. Reilly reboot of anything: She-Ra, My Two Dads, LA Law…
Wim Wenders’ film Wings of Desire stars Peter Falk as a movie star and it is one of my favorite movies, definitely worth watching for Columbo fans
Yes! That is the best movie.
Don’t forget that it has Peter Falk as a movie star and ACTUAL LITERAL ANGEL.
Can we do a Kickstarter for this?
I have never watched Columbo, and am now struck by a profound desire to see both the original and all of the hypothetical futures that shall surely spring into being, now. My personal vote is for John C Reilly, who can play stupid and canny like no one’s business.
1. Wednesday night is chili and Columbo night in my house.
2. I have tried to think about how Columbo could be rebooted a million times and have never considered Stanely Tucci. I’m such a fool.
3. Jake Johnson in a few years, also great.
Oh man, chili and Columbo night sounds AMAZING and I think I need to implement it chez Soeurs immediately.
It started because whenever I watch Columbo I want chili, and whenever I eat chili I want to watch Columbo.
John Cho Columbo I want to shout from the rooftops, but also take to my room alone for a few hours first. JOHN CHO COLUMBO.
CHOLUMBO!
The answer, of course, is to turn Columbo into America’s Doctor Who (but, you know, good)
i love every word of this and i love you, mallory ortberg, BUT I ESPECIALLY LOVE THIS.
columbo hugging a dog that’s too big to be hugged is like me trying to hold all my feelings about columbo
COLUMBO COOKING FOR LOUIS JOURDAN (OF GIGI AND CAN-CAN FAME)
louis jourdan is a food critic and columbo is the salt of the earth
video here
The youtube video above is all the Columbo I have ever seen [I come from Poirot people], but I found this deeply moving and am completely on board. Jake Johnson is going to be so great in this. I need to go watch all of Columbo now.
As a former fellow Poirot person turned Columbro, I heartily endorse watching all of Columbo at your earliest convenience. You won’t regret it, I promise.
The Peter Falk autobiography is called Just One More Thing! I shouldn’t be surprised, and yet it makes me so happy. (And it’s available at the public library! Today is a good day.)
WE OWN IT. I read it while recovering from oral surgery. I don’t remember the memoir, but I remember I kept petting the cover and saying “I loooove you.”
This is good news! (Well, not the part where you don’t remember the contents because of oral surgery, but that it was good enough to make you happy.) I can’t wait to read it.
In the name of transparency: I loved Peter Falk (and Columbo) before I ever read the memoir, which is why I had it on hand for recovery to soothe me.
Can we talk about Rip Torn in this clip? Because RIP TORN!
Can we talk about Rip Torn always? Because RIP TORN!
He looks SO YOUNG.
And yet exactly the same. How?
Blue-collar, sly “bumblers” aren’t allowed to be TV heroes any more, though; someone out there might get the idea that there’s still class warfare to be fought. Similarly, all family kitchens on TV series have to have granite countertops and stainless steel kitchen appliances that some production intern must be wiping down every 10 seconds.
That being said, I wholeheartedly approve of a “Columbo” reboot with any of the casting options already suggested, or maybe Melissa McCarthy.
MELISSA MCCARTHY
I adore Columbo, have since I was a child. When I had my expected-to-be-nasty oral surgery a few years ago, I laid in a supply of soft foods, painkillers, and Columbo episodes to see me through. And they did, oh they did.
I nominate Chris Messina and/or Mark Ruffalo for the role of Young Columbo.
If you need to drag a Sherlockian kicking and screaming into the world of bourgeoise detectives, and you don’t want to start on Columbo right away for fear of inducing catatonia, I put forth Foyle’s War as lovely BBC of-the-people-for-the-people crimesolving.
I second that and add a recommendation for Detective Louis.
I got as far as this line, nodding in agreement, and then wailed:
The answer, of course, is to turn Columbo into America’s Doctor Who (but, you know, good
Do not slander my Doctor Who!
That said, I’m all on board for John C Reilly as Columbo. Bring it on.
Sent this immediately to my dad, a consummate DAD and columbo fan, whose birthday is today. He says: “Please send Mallory Ortberg a thank-you, from me, for this consummate 60-th birthday present!!!!!!”
2014 is now the Year of the Lesbian Jawline, and also Columbo, Netflix Binge.
I love Columbo, but Miss Marple will always be my favorite. Though, she isn’t technically a detective.
*sighs happily*
(Also, is there any streaming service that has the last few seasons? Netflix only has up to seven, and I am bereft.)
Mark Ruffalo would be a great Columbo.
I watched so much Columbo in my formative years. Maybe that’s what’s behind my inherent mistrust of rich people – deep down I think they’re all murderers.
THEY ARE
I KNEW IT.
That’s what Occupy Wall St was trying to tell us
Ok. But now I’m having so many wild hopes and dreams for this cultural phenomenon that will never be. Imagine the excitement around picking the new Columbo! Oh, and the Columbo reboot people are all awesome so we have plenty of women, POC, disabled and gay actors as Columbo. Imagine all the social and political issues Columbo explores. Imagine the witty but heartfelt catchphrases. And that one episode at the end of Season 2 of the third Columbo that makes everyone cry for years. This is a Doctor Who I might actually watch.
Okay I don’t know if Danny Pudi in 8 years will be Columbo material but goddamn I want him to be a television detective.
I kind of just want Danny Pudi to be in everything.
Danny Glover for Columbo.
I think it’s instructive that Patrick “The Prisoner” Mcgoohan, last century’s icy ratiocinator par excellence, showed up in no fewer than four episodes of Columbo. He always played an impeccably put-together cerebral asshole killer. The show knew its own subtext, knew the social dichotomy it was working.
I think he also directed a couple. John Cassavettes acted/directed in a couple too.
“And do not allow yourself to believe for even one second that there are not deeply classist, capitalist reasons Sherlock abounds in this day and age of ours, while Columbo does not.”
Okay, but also worth noting is that one of these characters is public domain and one is not. Although one could call that a capitalist reason.
Since the Murder, She Wrote reboot is cancelled, can I nominate Octavia Spencer? I could totally see her in a rumpled trenchcoat.
“The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards Columbo.” This is genius.
I love watching old Columbos and recognizing famous people in out-of-character roles – like, Leslie Nielsen, William Shatner, Martin Landau.
“Unflagging, unwearying, unrelenting; he is the Anton Chigurh of goodness.”
Apt! I could not love this sentence more.
That specific line gave me femslash-worthy feels about Columbo, after which I felt totally creeped out by myself. Still: 100% on point.
Are we only considering American actors, because Columbo Is America? If not, I would love to see Colm Meany.
Ermahgerd, this is what brought me out of Toast lurkdom. O’BRIEN MUST NOT SUFFER!
Keiko would never approve
Not to raise the specter of L&O (which sins in many ways), but I can’t help but think that Lenny Briscoe was VERY influenced by Columbo.
At first I was like NOBODY CAN REPLACE PETER FALK and then you said Rhea Perlman and I was all OKAY I AM SO FUCKING ON BOARD WITH THIS.
Yes.
And please, allow there to be a crossover with a Rumpole reboot. Wendell Pierce in an ill-fitting suit showing up at the police station with a bag of donuts and a fistful of coffees, to smooth things over with the cops until someone who doesn’t have a defense lawyer wanders in?
*edit*
I just realised: Peter Falk and Leo McKern each have a glass eye. Let’s hear it for the one-eyed working class legal heroes of the world.
I watch Columbo every Sunday night over the air and watch an episode on Netflix if I’ve seen what’s airing already. It is still the best show on TV, in spite of its age. It is also even more subversive than you suggest. For one thing, some of the murderers are sympathetic. Second, Columbo often befriends the murderer. True, they are always of a higher social class but they often come to respect him and even enjoy having him around. Then at the last minute Columbo catches them. The other thing that’s neat about the show is you know who the murderer is in the first half hour. They had some great actors as guest murderers. Patrick McGoohan played the guest murderer several times.
Peter Falk’s shoes would be tough to fill, but I’d give someone new a chance.
ON ME TV RIGHT?! We watch the episode even if it’s a “rerun,” but I always think we should be switching over to Netflix. My wife has already seen every episode though, and she’s the driving force.
I saw Dirk Benedict play Columbo in the play “Columbo:Prescription Murder” four years ago, and he was amazing. I’d be totally on board with him doing it on TV.
I am a big fan of Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series, and Commander Vimes is my favorite character. He is similar to your description of Columbo, but with less certainty of his innate goodness. He’s an old-fashioned copper who solves problems by determination and making the right people uncomfortable. I love that in the course of the books, he becomes an Earl and is extra peevish about being a member of the very class he hates.
I used to watch Columbo every day after school, and now you’ve made me want to go and obsessively marathon it again. Ahhhh, I love this show.
The mention of Foyles War reminds me that there;s a strong streak of recent-historical in British detective TV. And, when you look at how much forensic science drives a modern murder investigation, it isn’t hard to see how it is one way of finding an interesting story to tell.
And I find myself wondering, was Columbo’s father a cop too?
I believe that part of the “howcatchem” (as opposed to “whodunnit”) structure of Columbo was so that they *could* use famous actors without the audience guessing the ending (because why cast a big name if s/he doesn’t turn out to be the killer?).
Just one small nitpick; otherwise I very much enjoyed this: Thomas Mitchell was “the original Columbo” in the first production of the play Prescription: Murder. Falk’s Columbo began with a 1967 TV movie of the same title, guest-starring Gene Barry, several years before series production began.
What a brilliant article Mallory. Two words sum up Colombo for me: my hero.
Simon Baker from The Mentalist cited Colombo as his inspiration & I think he’d make a superb Colombo as he is almost half-way there in the irritation stakes if not quite being sartorially-challenged enough. As mentioned above Peter Falk is inimitable & irreplaceable as everything about him was perfect but I would still dearly love to see a re-birth of the legend that is Colombo.
I am a Columbo devotee, owning every episode of the original series. The more recent shows on ABC had Lt. Columbo become a kind of caricature of himself so I could do without them. The essence of the show was class warfare dressed up as police procedural. I think James Gandolfini would have made an excellent Columbo.
There was something of “Columbo” in “Monk”—none (and less) of Falk’s ease, but a lot of his social inferiority and out-of-place-ness.
I wonder if it was Columbo’s goodness, which I hadn’t before explicitly noticed, and his dislocation that urged-on Wim Wenders in casting Falk as an angel fallen, not from sin, but from caring too much about human beings, which evidently is not in their Rilean remit.
I think in theory we’d all love to see a Columbo reboot. Because if you’re a mega fan, you’ve seen them all befote, at least 10 times each. If you’re a mega fan you wonder about what it would be like to walk along a sandy beach with Columbo as you talk about the sun set. You wqnt to eat pictures of him just to feel as close to him as you possibly can,but the fact of the matter is; Columbo is Peter Falk. If we brought it back we’d be watching this hollow ghost show that’s near the mark but will always be missing that one vital piece, him. I would love to have more Columbo to bask in, enjoy, revel and rejoice, but P. Falk is gone and what we have left are these beautiful performances of a character that gives us so much. I think we fool ourselves into believing its Columbo we love and miss, when really it’s Peter.
Just one more thing…
If there was to be a reboot I’d throw Mark Ruffalo into the mix for sure.
i estimated 5 times each but i think i underestimated lol
Suprised you didn’t at all mention the reverse detective story that Columbo follows, often called ‘how-catch-ems’ instead of ‘whodunnits.’ Often Falk wouldn’T show up on screen for the first 20 minutes of the 1.5 hours episode, well after the udience watched the murdered clean-up his tracks and feel perfectly confident that all boxes were checked. IT would fall on the user to try to guess which small error the killer slipped on, rather than try to guess who (of thecast of characters) was the killer. I think this model is different enough from teh Sherlock-style detective story so taht both have their own niche in what they provide to viewers. Great article. I also like the idea of Ruffalo playing Columbo, he has te build and is a lefty in his personal life too (tons of activist-y stuff on his Twitter)! He would hit it out ofthe park.
“Fargo” had nearly all the elements of a Columbo reboot, except for the relative wealth of the suspect (not many hedge fund managers or movie stars in North Dakota, I guess). I loved McDormand’s husband (reminded me of Falk’s wife in the TV show) and his duck decoys. Substitute baby belly for the raincoat. The cross-examine scene with Macy in the auto dealership is that classic moment in every Columbo episode when you see the bad guy realize they won’t get away with it, but they decide to keep bluffing out of blind hope.
All that being said, I also am in favor of a Mark Ruffalo reboot. No dog required.
This is an excellent idea. Also, there’s more variation in the original NBC seasons than people think. In particular, the Patrick McGoohan directed episodes, “By Dawns Early Light,” “Identity Crisis,” and “Last Salute to the Commodore” show Columbo leading a band of other officers and detectives who are deferential to him and tolerant of his idiosyncrasies. (“Identity Crisis” also has him displaying several scenes of the extraordinarily heightened perceptiveness that’s the hallmark of today’s various Sherlocks and Sherlocks-once-removed, like The Mentalist and Monk) This only makes sense: the killer of the week only encounters a bumbler, but the other members of the department must know Columbo as a detective who closes every case. “Last Salute to the Commodore” also pulls one on the audience by seeming to show the murderer at the opening, but then revealing that this person is actually covering up for someone else he (mistakenly) believes to be the murderer. He was not immune to using technology (even if it was just a simple metal detector, in “The Greenhouse Jungle”) and was capable of improvising his own lab work if the need arose, as when he was on a cruise with his wife in “Troubled Waters.” He did let one get away in “Forgotten Lady,” and could be roused to anger—in fact, he is quite angry throughout the ending of the pilot, “Prescription Murder.”
A reboot could accentuate one or more of these less often seen aspects of his personality and relationships. But not too much: to stray too far from the affable bumbler who just must share one more thing with his suspect would do too much violence to Columbo.
That said, another car has to be found for him. It must be a jalopy, but it would strain credulity to have him driving the same Peugeot as Peter Falk did.
Maybe an old Volvo, Saab 99 GL or even a Saab 900?
I love all your observations about the nuances between episodes. Probably my absolute least favorite episode was No Time To Die, which strayed furthest from the formula. But my most favorite moments were when Falk was clearly not playing a dolt, like in Prescription Murder and Murder by the Book when he gets angry at the leading ladies, or when he lets the murderer know that he knows.
This is an excellent idea. Also, there's more variation in the original NBC seasons than people think. In particular, the Patrick McGoohan directed episodes, "By Dawns Early Light," "Identity Crisis," and "Last Salute to the Commodore" show Columbo leading a band of other officers and detectives who are deferential to him and tolerant of his idiosyncrasies. ("Identity Crisis" also has him displaying several scenes of the extraordinarily heightened perceptiveness that's the hallmark of today's various Sherlocks and Sherlocks-once-removed, like The Mentalist and Monk) This only makes sense: the killer of the week only encounters a bumbler, but the other members of the department must know Columbo as a detective who closes every case. "Last Salute to the Commodore" also pulls one on the audience by seeming to show the murderer at the opening, but then revealing that this person is actually covering up for someone else he (mistakenly) believes to be the murderer. He was not immune to using technology (even if it was just a simple metal detector, in "The Greenhouse Jungle") and was capable of improvising his own lab work if the need arose, as when he was on a cruise with his wife in "Troubled Waters." He did let one get away in "Forgotten Lady," and could be roused to anger—in fact, he is quite angry throughout the ending of the pilot, "Prescription Murder."
A reboot could accentuate one or more of these less often seen aspects of his personality and relationships. But not too much: to stray too far from the affable bumbler who just must share one more thing with his suspect would do too much violence to Columbo.
That said, another car has to be found for him. It must be a jalopy, but it would strain credulity to have him driving the same Peugeot as Peter Falk did.
so where are we with this idea? any takers? DO IT
how can i help you help this happen?
Ruffalo. My god, it’s so perfect.
“Real Marxists love Columbo.”
This article is everything I love about The Toast. :’)
(PS: I always thought I was imagining the class-warfare undertones! Thank God I’m not the only one.)
I am not normally gender-blind toward casting, so I am very impressed by how apropos Kathy Bates would be as Columbo. She would annihilate that role. John C Reilly would also be almost too good. Sam Rockwell would have to make a Heel-Face turn to pull it off, but it is plausible.