about a scene from the Columbo episode, “Any Old Port in a Storm”

“Any Old Port in a Storm” aired October 7, 1973, and guest starred Donald Pleasence as Adrian Carsini, a wine connoisseur who murders his half-brother to prevent him from selling the family winery. Peter Falk is, of course, Lieutenant Columbo.

Adrian Carsini's anxiety grows with each encounter with the amiable detective. In the just-one-more-thing scene (a staple of every episode), Carsini is almost begging to be caught and relieved of the pressure when Columbo mentions the detail that first triggered his suspicion: the dead man's sports car—which Carsini staged at the beach where he dumped the body—was spotless even though it had supposedly been parked there in the rain. Columbo yells his apparent afterthought—turning the screw even more—from the end of the winery's long driveway:

Columbo: Oh, Mr. Carsini! Sir! I just remembered one of the reasons they’re not releasing your brother’s body. I forgot to tell you the other day. Well, you know your brother’s car? It stayed out on that cliff for a week. During that time, it rained, and then we had some sun. But when we saw the car the morning we found the body, it looked like it just came off a showroom floor.

Carsini: What’s your point?

Columbo: No water marks. Can you explain that?

Carsini: No, I can’t.

Columbo: Well, there must be a reason for it. There always is!

Carsini: When you find it, will you tell me!?

Columbo: Believe me, sir, you’ll be the first to know!

Pleasence makes an excellent wine snob. His half-brother is handsome, athletic, an adventurer. But Adrian—short and prissy—has only wine, and his vulnerability is that his world is so small. It makes him desperate.

 

Note: 

- Peter Falk was on Johnny Carson right before the episode aired and expressed his great admiration and appreciation of Pleasance. 

- Dana Elcar has a nice little role as Falcon, a sweet-natured wine enthusiast from Texas.

 

 

about when LQ Jones was on Columbo

LQ Jones died earlier this month. He played memorable roles in "Casino" and some Peckinpah movies like "The Wild Bunch." He was also on some of the old TV shows.

One of my favorites was when he had a small role on an episode of "Columbo." He played an arms dealer named Jensen. Jensen wears a cowboy hat and Western-style sport coat and bolo, and his cover is that he sells RVs. When you first see him, he’s the RV salesman, out on the lot, pumping handshakes and pumping up the merchandise—“We've got the largest inventory west of Chicago! Super savings on every shape, every make, every model!”

The story involves a gun buyer named Devlin murdering Pauley, the broker of a small-arms deal with Jensen. Jensen eventually comes to Devlin, showing up with an RV, and pitches Devlin about making a deal—he must know Devlin is the murderer. Devlin at first does not believe Jensen is the arms dealer and says he’s not interested.

Jensen: “Brother Devlin? Don't say no before you hear my offer. I've got a sweetheart of a deal. Make your eyes pop. One look'll make you a believer. Just like I made a believer out of brother Pauley.” 

Devlin: “Indeed.”

They step inside the RV, and then Jones’ movements and line delivery take over. Jensen takes off his hat, drops it on a little kitchenette table, and turns to look around at the interior as if to absorb for a moment a bit of its greatness. Then he lets out the vocalized sigh of the weary: “Huh-ho. It's, uh, kinda nice, ain't it?”

 

That “huh-ho” reveals something. I make the sound sometimes when I’m really, really stressed and have to push myself through something I don’t want to do.

 

After the sigh, he turns around with a matter-of-fact look on his thin face, which sticks out from under long gray-white hair swept across his forehead. He says, “Yeah, I can put you in one of these little beauties for, uh—about $150,000.”

 

The price is way, way above market for an RV at the time, but the buyer is unphased.

Jensen: “I've got your merchandise, brother. I was gonna deliver to Pauley, but wouldn't you know?, he turned up dead.” 

Devlin: “Yes. Unfortunate.”

Then Jensen props one butt cheek on the little table, leans forward with a wry, humorless smirk on his face and confesses, “And I'm holding the goods. The deal all made, my middleman out of business, and no cash to feed the bulldog. So the guns are all yours, brother Devlin. Same price, same terms. Cash on the barrel head.” The animated tenor and rhythm of the salesman has softened, and you empathize with his predicament, almost forgetting he’s trying to unload a truckload of sub-machine guns.

 

 

Notes:

• This episode, "The Conspirators," aired May 13, 1978, in season 7, episode 5. It starred Clive Revill as Joe Devlin with Peter Falk as Columbo. 
• LQ Jones was born August 19, 1927, and died July 9, 2022.

something about "Just One More Thing" by Peter Falk

In Just One More Thing, Peter Falk tells a few dozen stories from his life, but this is not a birth-to-death autobiography. He shares some tales from his youth and pre-acting days, and a half dozen or so more stories from "Columbo," but the bulk come from his movie shoots and travels. (A couple are throwaways, just recaps of his favorite plot points and bits of dialog.)

Like the famous television detective he played, Peter Falk is an original. If there are any takeaways, it's that playing "Columbo" may have made him world famous, but Falk has an enviable film resume. Of all American comedy films, "The In-Laws," with Falk and Alan Arkin, ranks pretty high. He also did solid work with his longtime friend, John Cassavetes.

If you are fond of "Columbo" and Peter Falk (or Falk's turn in "Wings of Desire"), Just One More Thing is a worthy read.

About the film "Wings of Desire"

This Wim Wenders directed film follows a spirit who's tired of the spiritual and yearns for physical existence. The spirit is an angel named Damiel, and his journeys with his companion, Cassiel, expose the isolation inherent in the human condition. But, moreover, Damiel's particular existential crisis gently urges us to appreciate the little things and decide for ourselves that life matters.

The angels can hear people's thoughts, so thinking makes up most of the film's dialog. I enjoyed Cassiel's going to the library where he finds other angels listening to books being narrated in people's minds as they read. There he finds an old man whom he follows, is drawn to perhaps because the aged traveler is so enduring and purposeful, who self-identifies as a storyteller, an indispensable part of humanity.

Meanwhile, Damiel wanders into a low-budget children's circus whose star performer is a beautiful, unfulfilled trapeze artist named Marion. He falls for her, lusts for her, and is spellbound by her poetically lonely train of thought. They share a yearning.

Damiel brings Cassiel to that night's circus performance, which is to be the last of the year. But as Damiel absorbs the show, Cassiel sees how deeply his companion feels the need to live. Afterwards Damiel confesses as much. Marion, while celebrating at the circus staff's after-party, pauses and, in her thoughts, appreciates being alive. Hearing this, Damiel's heart breaks.

So he resolves to become real, and when an empty piece of body armor crashes onto his head, Damiel wakes in a vacant lot, apparently knocked unconscious after being dropped from Heaven--a helicopter hovering overhead. To be human is to be vulnerable, so he pawns his rickety old armor and finds Marion at a night club. There, they each taste of the wine from the bar and she asks him to join her in a life of consequence, to live as if they are setting new precedents for future generations.

The story inverts the usual paradigm: instead of man imagining and chronicling heaven as the grand but remote paradise, the angels imagine and chronicle man as the simple and immediate body, and they do so in ways that elevate man without pretending he’s a miracle. This inversion is sacrilegious, but it does no harm.

The viewing audience watches the angels watch the people. When a scene calls for your sympathy and you feel that sympathy, you feel the sympathy of the angels, you see Earth through the angels’ eyes. For example, in one scene we peek in on a small family and find a young man alone in his bedroom, sulking and brooding over how nobody knows he’s alive, but then we learn his dad is sitting alone in front of the TV and worrying about his son’s future while mom sits alone in the kitchen doing the same.

Notes

• Peter Falk of course is really charming in this, single-handedly keeping a good chunk of the film interesting. ("Columbo" is one of the best series ever.)
• Cassiel urges someone to his shoes correctly--using a double knot.