Must be Columbo week here at TV Squad. Yesterday I talked about some Columbo trivia, and today comes news that they are starting to release the movies made from 1989 and beyond.
The movies from 1989 will be released on April 24. They include Columbo Goes To The Guillotine (with Anthony Andrews), Murder, Smoke, and Mirrors (Fisher Stevens), Grand Deceptions (Robert Foxworth), Sex and the Married Detective (Lindsay Crouse), and Murder: A Self Portrait (Patrick Bauchau). The set will be three discs and probably won't have many (if any) extras on them.
The movies aren't as good as the regular series movies from the late 60s and the 70s (though I like the Andrews episode, where he plays a murderous magician). They just aren't as clever as the older shows were, though a few from the 90s were pretty fun. Those will (hopefully) be released later in the year.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
1-25-2007 @ 5:59PM
LC said...
The worst movie had to be one from the early 90's where Columbo's niece or maybe it was his nephew's bride, was kidnapped on the wedding night. The entire movie was Columbo doing detective work in finding her.
Since it was family, he approached the case like most hard edged detectives and totally abandoned his "lull them into a false sense of security by asking questions while appearing confused" method that made the movies so successful.
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1-26-2007 @ 12:20PM
Toby OB said...
The best of the ABC batch was "Columbo Cries Wolf" with Ian Buchanan. Not only did it have a great twist to the murder, but it had excellent references back to the original series (a cameo by Bruce Kirby and mention of CS Dirk from "Dagger Of The Mind").
The worst for me was "Undercover", one of several that marked a departure from form. (I think this was optioned from an Ed McBain novel?) I guess Falk was getting bored at that point....
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1-26-2007 @ 12:47PM
David D said...
My favorite of the new ones was the one with Tyne Daly and Greg Evigan -- where the murderer was killed early and Columbo had to change directions to nail the other one.
Some of them were pretty bad, though -- long sequences where he re-explained everything to acquaintances in a diner... the supposed murder of Mrs. Columbo... and the fact that the actors playing the villains just didn't have the same bite as they did in the 70s.
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