Thursday, June 05, 2014

“A Perfect Pairing of Actor and Role”

Contributing to the “Summer of MeTV Classic TV Blogathon,” The Classic Film and TV Café looks back at Prescription: Murder, the 1968 NBC teleflick introducing Peter Falk as Lieutenant Columbo of the Los Angeles Police Department. The ratings popularity of that movie encouraged the network to consider it as the inspiration for a series, and NBC asked creators Richard Levinson and William Link for an official pilot. “[T]hat became Ransom for a Dead Man,” explains the Café’s Rick29. “It was telecast in March 1971, with the Columbo TV series debuting the following September.”

Read the whole piece here.

1 comment:

Dana King said...

Thanks for sharing this. Columbo broke several molds. My favorite ot having the nerve to do away with the "whodunit" aspect, and show us the murder right off. The fun was in watching how COlumbo worked the killer into a corner, and trying ot guess at what point Columbo figured it out.

Oh, and just the joy of watching Peter Falk play Columbo. Truly the perfect pairing of actor and role.