Columbo Under Glass

by Sheldon Catz

Columbo Under Glass examines the Good Lieutenant from every angle. It notes the “First Clues” Columbo finds that set him on the trail of the murderer and the “Final Clue” with which he arrests the villain. The book points out those occasions when Columbo has a “Sympathetic Relationship” with the murderer, and lists those rare instances when “Columbo Gets Angry.” Read about Peter Falk’s delightful expansion of the character and his unfortunate attempt to adapt two Ed McBain novels into Columbo episodes. You can find an in-depth discussion about Columbo’s morality code, check out “The Supporting Cast,” “Colleagues and Sidekicks,” and “The Thirty-One Hats of Michael Lally” and spend time with “Bert, Barney and Dog.” The book opens with capsule synopses of all 67 episodes (and of course the pilots and live TV show and play which preceded them). The episodes are extensively cross-referenced to a series of essays that truly put the great detective, his clues and character “under glass.” With a foreword by Mark Dawidziak, author of The Columbo Phile. Sheldon Catz has been a mystery fan in general and a Columbo fan in particular for as long as he can remember. He finally caught all of the original (1970s) episodes and began making notes on them in 1989. By coincidence, this was when the series returned from a 10-year hiatus and Mark Dawidziak’s book The Columbo Phile was first published. From 1992 to 2002, Catz served as chief writer and editor of The Columbo Newsletter, a quarterly fanzine where many of the ideas explored in this book were first introduced. When not writing about Columbo, he can usually be found at his day job, writing about the law (which is not nearly as much fun). He lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, with his wife and daughter. Unlike Columbo, the Catzes have no dog (and no cat, either).

430 pages, Kindle Edition

Published October 26, 2016

Reviews

[Wesley Britton · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sheldon Catz’s exhaustive analysis of the Columbo TV series and made-for-TV movies is strictly for Columbo aficionados. The show’s 69 mysteries are indeed placed under a hot glass, a magnifying glass in fact, that requires a reader to be interested in a show that aired, off and on, from 1968 to 2003 and be knowledgeable about the cast and crew, plots, supporting players and not be bothered to be told, again and again, details like Henry Mancini wrote the theme music for ABC’s rotating Mysteries.

One puzzling aspect of this new study is that Catz is far from an adoring fan, at least in terms of his conclusions about so many aspects of the show. The first 100 pages are his hit-and-run reviews of each episode and TV movie, and most are rated as fair or poor with few branded “excellent.” He points to weaknesses in storylines, especially what clues are credible or convincingly discovered by the frumpy detective, what Catz sees as poor acting, or the “bloating” he discusses that we saw, most notably in the two-hour stories. Obviously, he watched all the mysteries multiple times with a critical eye, so obviously Catz caught details few casual watchers would have noticed or cared about. For example, he spends several pages noting the 31 fleeting appearances by utility player Michael Lally who is only seen or heard briefly, usually so quickly it took Catz watching and freeze-framing video tapes of the show to spot Lally in the background as a bartender, cop, photographer, whatever.

Still, to point out so many foibles makes one wonder—why did Catz spend so much time investigating a series he seems to find more flawed than quality entertainment? Throughout his episode guide, Catz keeps cross-referencing his discussions with the short mini-essays in the second part of the book where he looks at nearly every aspect of the stories including what sorts of endings worked, or didn’t, the morality of Lt. Columbo, how the character developed over the decades, and the continuity, or lack of it throughout the decades. He even devotes an essay to suggesting why a number of episode titles weren’t the best and offers his suggestions for improvement. In fact, he puts forward a number of suggestions on how the stories and characters could have been better as well, especially when Columbo the character could have been truer to himself.

Clearly, Catz knows his subject intimately. In 1991, he began a ten year tenure as editor of The Columbo Newsletter. He has the full endorsement of Mark Dawidziak, author of The Columbo File (1989) who wrote the foreword for Catz’s study. Columbo Under Glass is 99% told from a viewer’s point-of-view, that is, it discusses what we see on the screen but there’s precious little about how it got there. Not until page 319 do we get much about the origins of the character on stage, and that too is a short discussion. There is next to no discussion of production histories, there are no interviews with insiders or participants. In short, this is from first to last Sheldon Catz’s take on Columbo and the reader is free to compare his own feelings with those of a man who has spent a lot of time dissecting every minute of Columbo ever aired.

If you’re extremely familiar with Peter Falk’s raincoated character or at least want to be, this book is for you. If you’re a less devoted fan, this is a book to skim but not immerse yourself in cover-to-cover reading. If you’re not already a fan of the cigar-smoking investigator who is always asking, “just one more thing,” Columbo Under Glass likely isn’t for you. Most of your questions are readily available online on the websites Catz lists in his final pages.


This review first appeared at BookPleasures.com on Nov. 14, 2016 at:
goo.gl/T9f35r

[Richard · Rating 2 out of 5]

Will you like this book? Well, here is what it's like: imagine an obsessive-compulsive person given several dozen jigsaw puzzles who is encouraged to take them apart and reorganize the pieces in as many categories as he can think of. So he groups all of the pieces by color, then he groups them by shape, then size, then shape-size combinations, etc.

That's what this book is like. The author treats the episodes like jigsaw puzzles, breaking them apart and then comparing and contrasting the pieces in all sorts of ways. For example, he finds all of the pieces that have Columbo's dog on them.Then he subdivides those into pieces that have Dog finding clues and pieces that have Dog providing comic relief. Then he subdivides them again by some other scheme. And the author does this not just with Dog, but with every other topic he can think of: types of clues, types of murders, types of murderers, types of relationships between the murderers and Columbo, mentions of Mrs Columbo, guest stars, Columbo's cigars, Columbo's personality quirks, and so on and on and on. Thus a typical chapter will start by defining the category (say, "First Clue, type 1") then go for many paragraphs briefly describing all of the clues of that type, and commenting on whether or not each episode did a good job with it, or mentioning ways in which a specific instance deviates from the type, or ways in which the author thinks it could have been done better.

I found it tiring, and before long started skipping through, searching for occasional bits of trivia that were interesting. There is a minimal amount of information regarding the making of the show: the history, the actors, the writers, etc. which, I guess, is what I really wanted. If that's what you are looking for, you will probably be disappointed.

The book could also have used another review by an editor. Even just skipping through I noticed the author repeating himself; moreover, there were some sentences that were just badly written, or gave the impression of a rough draft. And the extremely frequent use of parenthetical remarks along side of parenthetical citations was often confusing.

Still, the author obviously loves Columbo, and has spent a lot of time thinking about the show. If you like this sort of analysis, this may be the book for you.

[Vincent Lombardo · Rating 2 out of 5]

I love "Columbo", but this book is for people who REALLY LOVE "Columbo". Catz really gets "into the weeds", providing much more information and analysis than I care to read -- or to know. I skimmed the book.

I prefer "The Columbo Phile: A Casebook" by Mark Dawidziak.

[Ldumovichyahoo.com]

Love this book about one of my favorite show and the character.

[Dann · Rating 4 out of 5]

Columbo Under Glass: A critical analysis of the cases, clues, and character of the Good Lieutenant is an interesting and probing look at this beloved classic television series. Divided into two sections, the first part analyses the 69 episodes; providing cast and crew credits, plot summaries, and a critical examination of the murder mystery. And the second part consists of a collection of essays that discuss different aspects of the show; from the killers’ motivations to the types of murders to the supporting characters. Author Sheldon Catz comes from a law background and at times focuses a little too much on the logic/legality of the cases, and the reviews are rather brief, and are packed with multiple referrals to the topic essays (distractingly so). Still, the essays provide a rather impressive and thorough critique of the show that’s very enlightening and insightful. A meticulous and comprehensive guide, Columbo Under Glass: A critical analysis of the cases, clues, and character of the Good Lieutenant reveals the hidden mysteries of this extraordinary series.