LAWRENCE BLOCK – A Ticket to the Boneyard. Morrow, hardcover, 1990. Avon, paperback, 1991.

   After the uneasy settling-in of Out on the Cutting Edge, number seven in the Matt Scudder series, in which Block seemed to be working through what to do with his newly sober protagonist, A Ticket to the Boneyard goes full-throttle adrenaline.

   It’s really nothing like the prior books in the series, and I can’t tell if that’s a good thing or a bad thing — it may to some extent depend on what comes in the next few books. This novel introduces James Leo Motley, an almost super-villian-like bad guy, and the novel is a brutal game of cat-and-mouse as Motley has promised to destroy Scudder “and all his women.”

   In some ways Out on the Cutting Edge reads a little more like a Travis McGee novel than a Scudder — or maybe that’s just me, because the Scudder series is quickly joining McGee as one of my favorite of all time. While the action is relentless in Boneyard, Block does make time for the introspection and interior monologue that make these books so special. I have to say that at points the violence here was so shocking it almost put me off (I don’t think I’ve ever said that about a book I thought was really good), and in the hands of a lesser writer it wouldn’t have worked. Block really gets the fear going in this one.

   I sometimes like to quote especially effective passages (usually more “literary” ones) in books I enjoy, so here’s one from Boneyard:

THE WALKING HILLS. Columbia, 1949. Randolph Scott, Ella Raines, William Bishop, John Ireland, Arthur Kennedy, Edgar Buchanan, Josh White and Jerome Courtland. Written by Alan Le May. Directed by John Sturges.

   Any movie where Josh White sings is worth watching, but this one is also an off-beat contemporary western that manages to be leisurely and edgy at the same time.

   In a seedy border town, a few casual acquaintances and complete strangers sit in on a pick-up poker game and catch an off-hand remark that puts them on the trail of a lost treasure in the desert just north of the line. Soon they’ve left the city on horseback and are in the desert to dig out the gold and get rich.

   And of course it just ain’t that simple.

   For one thing, one of the party (William Bishop) is wanted for a murder he never done. And another member (John Ireland) is the PI hired to catch him, now detoured by the lure of wealth. A couple other treasure-seekers have guilty secrets of their own, and Ella Raines, who joined the party to be with her man, apparently ditched Randy years ago to run off with Bishop.

   Complicated enough for you? The wonder is that director Sturges and writer Alan Le May keep it all feeling (and moving) very fast and straightforward, the story unfolding at its own pace as the characters interact with a natural grace that never seems forced.

   Here for the first time that I know of, Randolph Scott seems to be moving toward the complex persona that typified his best films of the 1950s: terse, authoritative and reserved, but with some kind of personal sensitivity just beneath that sun-baked surface.

   Throughout the 1940s, Scott played a lot of very dull parts. He played them well, but they seemed to be nothing but a succession of square-dealing lawmen, hard-working engineers, dedicated soldiers, and even honest lawyers. His good-bad guy in Western Union was a pleasant exception, but his bad-bad guy in The Spoilers was strictly from Sominex till he threw a punch at the Duke.

   It was producer Harry Joe Brown who first saw some deeper potential in Scott, and began developing it in films like this one, Man in the Saddle, Coroner Creek, and finally the films with Budd Boetticher that led up to Ride the High Country.

    Walking Hills gives us this character playing out his part against some breath-taking desert landscapes in a story with admirable pace, tension, and plenty of action.

   And there’s also Josh White singing.

LAWRENCE BLOCK – The Cancelled Czech. Gold Medal d1747; paperback original; 1st printing, 1966. Jove, paperback, 1984. Signet, paperback, 1999. Harper, softcover, 2007.

   The gimmick in the Evan Tanner spy series is that because of a head wound he suffered in the Korean War, Tanner cannot go to sleep. He has used the time that you or I would be sound asleep to read and study and learn about all kinds of handy things, but as gimmicks go, that’s about as far as it does. Maybe it came up more as a device to build a story around in the first book in series, The Thief Who Couldn’t Sleep. In this, the second, it’s barely mentioned in passing.

   What this book does have going for it is the title, which is terrific, even if it doesn’t fit the story, but it’s close, and sometimes that’s all that counts. Tanner is recruited by the unnamed head of the unnamed agency he sees to work for (as for why, perhaps again the first book might prove useful) to enter Czechoslovakia (then solidly behind the Iron Curtain) and rescue a leader of the still existent Nazi cause. He is old and sick, but it seems it would be better to try to obtain the secrets he has hidden away somewhere than to have him be summarily tried and executed.

   Well, OK. It would be also nice to have a plan, but Tanner seems to fly by the seat of his pants, more often than not, easing out of one scrape only to fall into another. One thing that could not have been planned is Tanner’s finding Greta, the girl on the cover, and a Nazi as well as a nymphomaniac. Strangely enough she seems to favor Jews as lovers, as well as Tanner, due to the surgery done to a certain part of their male anatomy.

   And as it happens, Greta turns out to have a crucial part of Tanner’s plan to get his target out of the castle of a prison in which he is incarcerated. I think it helps if you catch on earlier than I did that Lawrence Block is not entirely serious about this affair — which I did at this point I assure you — and to tell you the truth, once Greta’s role is over and she’s dumped from the story, the rest of the tale is simply not nearly as interesting.

      The Evan Tanner series —

The Thief Who Couldn’t Sleep. Gold Medal, 1966.

The Canceled Czech. Gold Medal, 1966.
Tanner’s Twelve Swingers. Gold Medal, 1967.
Here Comes a Hero. Gold Medal, 1968.
Tanner’s Tiger. Gold Medal, 1968.
Two for Tanner. Gold Medal, 1968.

Me Tanner, You Jane. Macmillan, 1970.
Tanner on Ice. Dutton, 1998.

“FIELD OF FIRE.” An episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Season 7, Episode 13 (161st of 173). First airdate: 10 February 1999. Cast: Avery Brooks (Captain Sisko), Rene Auberjonois (Odo), Nicole deBoer (Lieutenant Ezri Dax), Michael Dorn (Lt. Commander Worf), Colm Meaney (Chief O’Brien), Armin Shimerman (Quark), Alexander Siddig (Doctor Bashir), Nana Visitor (Colonel Kira), Art Chudabala (Lt. Hector Ilario), Marty Rackham (Vulcan), Leigh McCloskey (Joran Belar). Writer: Robert Hewitt Wolfe. Director: Tony Dow.

   Lieutenant Dax may not look it, but she’s more than one person. Being a Trill, Dax has had a symbiont implanted in her; for better or worse, the symbiont itself possesses all of the memories and skills of every host into which it has been previously introduced. In Dax’s case this turns out to be for the worse, because one of those predecessors was a murderer …

   An interstellar war is raging and millions are dying. The huge space station Deep Space 9, now occupied by hundreds of Starfleet personnel, is serving as a staging area for operations in the war.

   A young Starfleet lieutenant, one who has distinguished himself in combat, is found dead in his quarters, the victim of a bullet fired from a projectile weapon (an antique by 24th century standards) at point blank range — only there are no “powder burns” on the body, the room was locked from the inside, and no one can think of a motive for the crime.

   Later in a fevered dream, Dax unwillingly calls up the forceful but warped personality of Joran Belar, responsible in a previous life for three murders. Reluctantly, she realizes that Joran’s “skills” as a killer could come in handy in the investigation and agrees to let “him” (i.e., the remains of his persona) guide her.

   Soon enough two more murders, both victims serving with Starfleet, occur in the same fashion as the first. Despite Joran’s urgings to think like a killer, Dax is having no luck in her investigation — until an offhand remark from Joran lets her connect the dots, enabling her to locate the murderer. When that moment comes, Dax will have only a few seconds to decide whether she should kill — as Joran is all but screaming at her to do — or be killed …

   In this particular impossible crime mystery, the HOW is discovered fairly soon (and can only have been pulled off in a science fictional scenario); it’s the WHO and the WHY that have everybody flummoxed. For long-time Star Trek fans, the why and the who just might come as something of a shock.

   Tony Dow, who directed this episode, is probably most famous for being the Beaver’s older brother Wally on Leave It to Beaver (1957-63).

NOTE: A transcript of the show (with SPOILERS) is here.

THE GOLDEN HORDE. Universal International, 1951. Ann Blyth, David Farrar, George Macready, Henry Brandon, Henry Petrie, Richard Egan, Marvin Miller, Poodles Hanneford, Peggy Castle. Screenplay Gerald Drayson Adams, based on a story by Harold Lamb (a two-part serial in Adventure, 15 May & June 1933). Directed by George Sherman.

   This handsome Technicolor outing from Universal has many virtues in terms of production value, cast, and credits, but none more important than the contribution of Harold Lamb whose bestselling non-fiction covering the Far and Middle East was preceded by decades of entertaining fiction often appearing in the legendary pulp Adventure, and inspiring young Robert E. Howard among others.

   Lamb also wrote numerous screenplays, often for the historical epics of Cecil B. de Mille. This is based on the story of the same name, the last Lamb published in Adventure, and features crusader Nial O’Gordon who here becomes a quite different Sir Guy of Devon. You may find this and the other O’Gordon story (“Keeper of the Gate”) reprinted in Bison Books Swords of the West edited by Howard Andrew Jones (whose Desert of Souls I reviewed here recently) and see how many liberties Lamb took with his own story.

   The time is the early 13th century, and a trio of Crusaders (David Farrar, Richard Egan, and Poodles Hanneford as Friar John) have arrived in Samarkand determined to stop the advance of the Golden Horde led by Genghis Khan (Marvin Miller) and run afoul of their own sexism when they conflict with Princess Shalimar (Ann Blyth) who has altogether more subtle plans to save her city than combat with the greatest warrior and the greatest army in history.

   Further complicating things are the envoys of the great Khan including his son Juchi (Henry Brandon) who are just as stupid and sexist as the Crusaders when it comes to Shalimar’s plan which seems unlikely to work even with the help of shaman Raven (George Macready) pouring oil on the waters. Being Hollywood it is only natural that Shalimar and Sir Guy of Devon (Farrar) are going to clash and fall in love. Complain if you choose about this old cliche, but you had to expect that one.

   There is more than enough action in this relatively short film, but the emphasis on the story of one wise sexy woman outwitting all the men around her, including Genghis Khan, which makes for an unusual plot for the period. And rather than force of arms, Genghis Khan is defeated by a prophecy that he will die if he sets foot in the city. He bypasses Samarkand and poor Shalimar is left with her brave but more than a little thick headed Crusader (maybe it was the helmets) hero for a no doubt rocky happily ever-after, at least until Temujin, aka Timur the Lame, aka Tammerlane, the Khan’s great grandson, shows up.

   This is quick, attractive, fun, and nowhere near as boneheaded as Sir Guy or Juchi, neither of whom can understand why the men of Samarkand would be led by a woman in the first place. The story is more complex and more interesting than the usual restoring the throne from the usurper uncle or whatever in most of these, thanks to Lamb, and Adams. For once the woman in the story is there far more than eye candy and rescue from a fate worse than death.

   It could easily be argued that Princess Shalimar rescues everyone from their own stupidity in this one.

   Thanks to being on the road – -among other places, in New York where I’ll attend the MWA annual dinner and find out if I’m going to be the proud recipient of a third Edgar — I need to hold this down to a mini-column. It’s an ancient tradition that when a professor has to miss a class or two, one leaves a homework assignment for the students. You’ll find mine in the next item.

   What an amazing age we live in! I never thought anything could be added to the checklist of adaptations of Cornell Woolrich stories from the golden age of live TV drama that appeared almost thirty years ago in my FIRST YOU DREAM, THEN YOU DIE. Now I’ve just stumbled upon a Woolrich-based teledrama that I had never heard of before.

   Not just a reference to it but the episode itself, and one whose origin was a Woolrich tale I had never known was adapted for TV. It’s available on DVD (SUSPENSE: THE LOST EPISODES, COLLECTION 3) and on YouTube to boot.

   â€œGoodbye, New York” was based on the first-rate Woolrich story of the same name (Story Magazine, October 1937). A Web write-up of the DVD describes it as evoking a mood of “grim…noir-esque despair,” which certainly makes it sound faithful to its source. Meg Mundy starred in the 30-minute drama, which featured Gage Clarke, Philip Coolidge and an unbilled Ray Walston.

   Like 90-odd other SUSPENSE episodes, it was directed by Robert Stevens (1920-1989), who later helmed dozens of filmed episodes of ALFRED HITCHCOCK PRESENTS. (Stevens died in his late sixties after being robbed and beaten by unknown assailants.) As shown on YouTube the episode doesn’t include an air date, but according to other Web sources it was the pilot for the series, broadcast on January 6, 1949, which apparently means that it’s the earliest TV version of any Woolrich tale.

   YouTube claims that Woolrich’s story was also the basis for the 1952 Hollywood feature BEWARE, MY LOVELY, starring Robert Ryan and Ida Lupino, but this is flat-out wrong; the literary source for that picture was Mel Dinelli’s “The Man” which, funnily enough, also first appeared in Story Magazine (May-June 1945).

   Here’s your homework assignment: When you’ve finished reading this column, watch the YouTube video and see if you agree that perhaps the earliest contribution to TV noir has been unearthed.

   If you have it handy you might want to read the Woolrich story too. It closes with lines that come as close as anything to capturing his world in a few words. “Two doomed things, running away. From nothingness, into nothingness….Turn back we dare not, stand still they wouldn’t let us, and to go forward was our destruction at our own hands.”

   There’s just space for a couple of bits of information that I promised to include this month, dealing with adaptations of John Dickson Carr for 60-minute broadcasts during the golden age of live teledrama. The first of these was seen on the CBS anthology series STUDIO ONE the night of January 7, 1952. “The Devil in Velvet” was directed by Paul Nickell from a teleplay by Sumner Locke Elliott based on Carr’s 1951 historical thriller of the same name. The stars were Whit Bissell, Phyllis Kirk and Joan Wetmore.

   Apparently there were no more hour-long Carr adaptations until more than six years later when another CBS anthology series presented a version of by far the best known and most popular Carr radio play, “Cabin B-13″ (CLIMAX!, June 26, 1958). Shortly after a newlywed couple board a luxury liner for their honeymoon cruise, the man vanishes along with the fortune his wife gave him as a wedding present.

   She reports his disappearance to the captain and is told that there’s no record of either herself or her husband as passengers and that what she claims to have been their cabin doesn’t exist. Heading the cast were Barry Sullivan (Dr. Edwards), Kim Hunter (Ann Brewster), Alex Nicol (Robert Brewster), Hurd Hatfield (Morini) and Sebastian Cabot (Capt. Wilkins). The original Carr radio play is easily available both in audio and script form.

   Apparently the last hour-long live Carr adaptation on American TV was aired on NBC’s DOW HOUR OF GREAT MYSTERIES, a short-lived series that aired once a month for seven months during the last year of the Eisenhower administration, by which time live TV drama was pretty much dead.

   Second of the seven episodes was “The Burning Court” (April 24, 1960). The adaptation of Carr’s classic 1937 novel of the same name was by Audrey and William Roos, who were well known for collaborating on whodunits as Kelley Roos. Paul Nickell once again directed. The cast boasted four top names: Barbara Bel Geddes (Marie Stevens), Robert Lansing (Edward Stevens), George C. Scott (Gordon Cross), and Anne Seymour (Mrs. Henderson).

   I can’t remember a thing about this show, probably because I was watching MAVERICK or something that night.

RUSSELL ATWOOD – East of A. Ballantine, hardcover, 1999. Fawcett, paperback, 2000.

   In structure and tone, Russell Atwood’s first novel is a wonderful homage to Chandler, relocating and updating his classic PI formula to lower Manhattan in the late 1990’s. Payton Sherwood, the first-person protagonist, is flawed and likable; the prose is good with occasional brilliant turns of phrase or metaphor that make you go back and read over (“he held his thumbs in fists again, so much pressure I thought they’d burst like plums”); and the “mystery” is well constructed, with more than a handful of diverse characters and plot threads coming together in the end.

      The resolution is satisfactory but not altogether satisfying, and that’s probably the way good neo-noir should be. The best thing East of A has going for it, which has little to do with the genre, is the way it captures in palpable and loving detail a time and a place: the East Village at the turn of the last Millennium.

   Given what East Village looks like these days, jumping into that time machine in itself makes the book worth the read, and East of A is a little less mannered or self-consciously literary in this mission than, say, Richard Price’s Lush Life.

   My complaint about East of A is that the whole somehow felt a little less than the sum of its parts: the book was indubitably solid, but didn’t create in me the urgency to read just one more chapter the way that, say, Lawrence Block’s “Scudder” books (which also wonderful capture a NYC long gone) do so amazingly. (Perhaps that’s less a critique of Atwood and a compliment to Block’s understated genius.)

   I’d rate East of A just a half-star lower than Richard Aleas’s “two book trilogy” (if you’ve read Little Girl Lost and Songs of Innocence — and you should — you know why I call it that), but it deserves its place on the shelf. I am just realizing there’s a second Payton Sherwood title out now, Losers Love Longer, from Hard Case Crime no less, and I will certainly read it.

   (One closing note: I believe Atwood worked at one of my favorite long-gone NYC mystery bookshops, Black Orchid — I don’t think I ever met him, but I sure miss that shop.)

  BRETT HALLIDAY – Fit to Kill. Dell D314; paperback reprint, October 1959. Cover art: Robert McGinnis. First published by Dodd Mead, hardcover, 1958. Also published in several other Dell editions.

   All in all, this one was a disappointment. I think the problem was this. If you’re going to write a Mike Shayne mystery, make sure he shows up in the story before page 61.

   Long, long before. The protagonist in the first sixty pages is Shayne’s good buddy, newspaper reporter Tim Rourke, who is OK as a good buddy, but as the hero of a rip-roaring PI novel, forget it. He is as bland as yesterday’s buttered toast. Even if he’s in some unnamed dictator-run Latin American country and a girl dressed only in négligée and slippers knocks on his door one evening and asks for his help in leaving the country.

   Need I say that she is blonde, young, and one of the “nicest-looking girls Rourke had ever seen.” Of course he helps her, and of course complications arise, and of course Mike Shayne has to come to the rescue, but none of this gets any more interesting than when the girl knocks on the door in the first place.

   The pieces are eventually all there, but nothing comes together as I remember Mike Shayne novels doing — none were ever special, but they were always solid, workmanlike pieces of PI fiction. This one seemed only half-baked, and now I know why.

   This is the first of the ghost-written Mike Shayne novels. All of the earlier ones were written by Davis Dresser under the Brett Halliday pen name, but beginning with this one, Dresser began farming out the books to other writers. This one, for example, was really written by Robert Terrall, who went on to write quite a few of them, but in this, the first one he did, he either had only the essence of the characters or he was trying too hard to make this one different, what with the long delayed entrance of Mike Shayne, the leading character, or he should have been.

BIG DEAL ON MADONNA STREET Cinecittà / Lux Film Italian, 1958. Original title: I soliti ignoti. Vittorio Gassman, Renato Salvatore, Memmo Carotenuto, Claudia Cardinale, Tiberio Murgia, Marcello Mastroianni and Toto. Written by Agenore Incrocci and Furio Scarpelli. Directed by Mario Monicelli.

   Drop what you’re doing and find a video of this. It’s funny, suspenseful, fluid, funny, and above all — Human.

   Now what else can I say about it? Every plot summary from every reviewer says BDOMS is about a motley crew of small-time thieves trying to pull off The Big Caper, and I can only add that they don’t come any motlier than this: an old rogue, a no-talent prize-fighter, a dumb kid, a preening Sicilian and others less easy to define, all interacting as real people do while they stumble toward their predestined pie-in-the face.

   The Caper in question is no bank vault or art treasure, merely the safe in the back room of a pawn shop, with an unexpected means of access, and the antics involved are all the more frantic because the stakes are so small. This film positively dances with the characters, as they plot, prepare, quarrel, fall in love, grow disenchanted, babysit, steal and just generally live lives of noisy desperation.

   Along the way there are some funny pratfalls, well-timed comic bits and a hilarious car chase with amusement-park bumper cars, but there are also moments of real tenderness and surprising tragedy, as if some Real People found their way into a Caper Film and had to make the best of it. And when we finally get to the Caper itself, it comes off with all the tension of Topkapi or The Asphalt Jungle — and damn funny, too.

MRS. COLUMBO. NBC / Universal Television / Gambit Productions. 26 February 1979 to 9 March 1979 and 9 August 1979 to 6 September 6 1979; 5 episodes. Cast: Kate Mulgrew as Kate Columbo, Lili Haydn as Jenny Columbo, and Henry Jones as Josh Alden. Executive Producer: Richard Alan Simmons.

KATE LOVES A MYSTERY. NBC / Universal Television. 18 October 1979 to 6 December 1979; 8 episodes (one not aired). Cast: Kate Mulgrew as Kate Callahan, Lili Haydn as Jenny Callahan, Henry Jones as Josh Alden, and Don Stroud as Sgt. Mike Varrick. Executive Producer: Bill Driskill

        * Credits above from Variety reviews and website “Totally Kate.”

   Perhaps the most infamous TV mystery series ever made was MRS. COLUMBO. The story behind MRS. COLUMBO and KATE LOVES A MYSTERY is an epic farce of clueless decisions, confusion among the involved, and the ineptness of a troubled TV network that could not stop shooting itself in the foot.

   COLUMBO time on NBC was ending. As for why, that depends on who you are asking. Let the confusion begin!

   Variety in its review of MRS COLUMBO first episode “Word Games” (which can currently be viewed below) claimed Peter Falk had walked off the series to enjoy his growing theatrical career. But according to an article in American Film Institute (June 1979), Falk as well as COLUMBO creators Richard Levinson and William Link claim all were still interested in continuing the series. One point of view claimed NBC and Universal had grown weary of Falk’s demands and the rising costs of the series. Another view was NBC no longer wanted the series. Note, NBC was now run by the same TV network executive that had cancelled HARRY O before its time.

   It was the 1970s, a decade when the name Fred Silverman meant genius TV programmer. Silverman had run CBS while it was number one in the ratings. He left CBS for ABC and quickly made the network that had been the laughing stock of television since the DuMont network left the air and made ABC number one in the ratings. NBC hired Silverman in 1978 with hopes Freddie could go three for three.

   From all accounts it was Silverman’s idea to do a TV series featuring Lt. Columbo’s never seen wife. The AFI article linked above goes into great detail about what was happening in pre-production and the involvement of Link, Levinson, and Peter Fischer (the three who would end up creating MURDER SHE WROTE in 1984). A script was written, but the problem was who would play Mrs. Columbo.

   Silverman had turned ABC around by aiming its programs at the younger audience. So it was no surprise he preferred a younger actress. Silverman’s choices varied from Carol Wayne to Brenda Vaccaro. Vaccaro would have been my choice but she turned the role down and ended up doing DEAR DETECTIVE (CBS, 1979). As for Levinson, Link and Fischer, they wanted a woman Peter Falk’s age, mid-forties to fifties and ethic looking such as Maureen Stapleton or Zohra Lampert. Ugh.

   And that is why the series was doomed. Silverman never understood the magic of Mrs. Columbo was: she could exist in whatever form the viewer wanted.

   The network ordered a six-hour five-episode long mini-series pilot from Universal, the studio that produced COLUMBO. NBC would air the mini-series pilot during the 1978-79 mid-season then decide if it wanted to add MRS. COLUMBO as a weekly series for the fall 1979-80 season.

   The inverted mystery (where we know the killer and the drama is watching the detective catch the killer) is one of the hardest forms of television drama to write. Even COLUMBO run by Levinson and Link had scripts problems.

   NBC and Fred Silverman continued to show a lack of understanding of the creative process and quickly drove the people behind the success of COLUMBO off the project. The network would eventually turn over the production to Richard Alan Simmons who produced the final season of COLUMBO on NBC (1978) and would executive produce COLUMBO return to TV on ABC in 1989.

   The premise was not a bad one – a young mother tries to raise her child while her cop husband is always off screen. To fill her time she writes for a local throwaway newspaper and solves murders. But for the wife of our hero Lt. Columbo this was a terrible idea. The addition of the daughter ruined our view of the fun-loving marriage between two independent adults with their own lives but still devoted to the other.

   Not surprisingly the audience was curious and eager to see the mysterious wife of its favorite detective. The two-hour episode “Word Games” aired February 26,1979 on NBC Monday Night Movies and did well with a 34 share opposite ABC’s HOW THE WEST WAS WON (26 share) and CBS lineup of MASH (38 share), WKRP IN CINNANTI (33) and LOU GRANT (29).

   Robert Culp played a brilliant defense lawyer with a problem. He doesn’t love his wife, and she loves him too much. A divorce would destroy her, so he asks a killer he saved from a murder charge to kill his wife.

   And don’t think the plot can’t get worse. Mrs. Columbo had installed a new intercom system that picks up the intercom of an unknown neighbor (guess who). As Mrs. Columbo listens into her neighbors’ private conversations, she hears the lawyer and killer discuss the wife’s murder.

   All of the episodes of the mini-series are currently on YouTube minus opening themes and closing credits. “Word Games” is shown in two parts.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ad5p70SJtoo

       and

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3IliYxEXBTc

   Much of the audience was not pleased. This was not the Mrs. Columbo they knew and loved. Beyond the fans feelings of disappointment and betrayal was the fact the show was not very good.

   â€œMurder is a Parlor Game” aired March 1, 1979 in its regular timeslot of Thursday at 10pm to a rating share of 27 opposite of ABC’s FAMILY 33 share and CBS’ BARNABY JONES 31 share. While “Word Games” finished 18th in the ratings that week, “Murder is a Parlor Game” was 45th.

   The audience had tried and rejected MRS. COLUMBO. The reported refusal of Peter Falk to get involved even in a guest appearance made it apparent one would hope to even NBC that the series link to COLUMBO was a mistake.

   And now the farce truly began. The mini-series pilot had ended. It was unlikely MRS. COLUMBO would be picked up for the fall season. In fact, according to the AFI article above, on March 8th NBC announced it had “dropped” MRS. COLUMBO. Did that mean the show was cancelled or at least in the terms of the day “not renewed”?

   But NBC was desperate for programs to fill its upcoming fall 1979-80 Schedule. Silverman decided to add KATE COLUMBO to the fall schedule in the same Thursday at 10pm time slot. There it would go up against ABC’s 20/20 and CBS’ BARNABY JONES.

   NBC decided to rerun MRS. COLUMBO in August and September. Why NBC reminded everyone of the mini-series hated by so many is probably the same reason NBC was in such ratings trouble.

   NBC continued down it epic path of self-destruction. This time thanks to its bungling promotional department who couldn’t decide on the series title and sent out promotional materials using the different titles (KATE COLUMBO or KATE THE DETECTIVE) and character’s name (Kate Columbo) for KATE LOVES A MYSTERY with character Kate Callahan. The promos can be seen here.

   By now the press was having too much fun with NBC bumbling behavior to not add public ridicule to the situation. And NBC press department helped. Note the name differences on promotional material continued into the run of KATE LOVES A MYSTERY.

   Without on air titles and credits it is difficult to confirm what changes, if any, were made in the production staff. But changes were made to the series. The most important was the change made in the mystery format as KATE LOVES A MYSTERY abandoned the inverted mystery used in COLUMBO and MRS. COLUMBO for the average action TV whodunit format.

   Kate divorced someone whose name is never mentioned and called herself by her maiden name Callahan. She and Kate Columbo shared the same young daughter and the same boss who now ran a daily newspaper Valley Advocate. The change that best showed how much the creative side tried to flush COLUMBO out of KATE LOVES A MYSTERY was the addition of Sgt. Mike Varrick (Don Stroud) as Kate’s police contact and potential boyfriend.

   The changes in the opening themes reflected the different styles of the two series – Kate Columbo as Mom and amateur detective in MRS COLUMBO versus Kate Callahan as Mom and serious reporter in action mystery KATE LOVES A MYSTERY.

       From MRS. COLUMBO episode “A Puzzle For Prophets”

       From KATE LOVES A MYSTERY episode “Feelings Can Be Murder”

       All of the KATE LOVES A MYSTERY are currently available to watch on YouTube minus its openings and closing credits.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1b7LSUgQzqI

   â€œLadies of the Afternoon” was the first episode of the new weekly series with all the different titles and aired 10/18/79 opposite of ABC 20/20 and CBS Barnaby Jones.

   Fearless reporter Kate tries to uncover who is behind the group of housewives turned hookers and how it was connected to the murder of a women Kate knew from the PTA. How far away from COLUMBO is this show? How about a long pointless car chase with Kate and the cops to end the episode?

   Here is a link to the Variety review.

   Deservedly, KATE LOVES A MYSTERY quickly made itself home in the bottom ten of the ratings. In December (Broadcasting, 10 December 1979) NBC cancelled KATE LOVES A MYSTERY.

   Today there are some COLUMBO fans still in denial who claim Lt. Columbo’s wife has never been seen, that the series featured a woman married to another Lt. Columbo.

   But check out the NBC ads promoting the first three episodes of the mini-series pilot that left no doubt this was the Mrs. Columbo and wife of the character played by Peter Falk.

   However, despite NBC’s mishandling of the two series and popular character Columbo, we can claim the mini-series pilot failed and ended MRS. COLUMBO. While we can’t explain why Kate Callahan and Kate Columbo shared the same daughter and home we can see the intent of those producing KATE LOVES A MYSTERY (except for NBC which wanted it both ways) was to remove all COLUMBO connections from KATE LOVES A MYSTERY including Mrs. Columbo.

   Three episodes from the mini-series MRS. COLUMBO are available on DVD, “Murder Is A Parlor Game” is on COLUMBO COMPLETE THIRD SEASON, “Riddle For Puppets” is on COLUMBO COMPLETE FOURTH SEASON and “Cavier With Everything” is on COLUMBO COMPLETE FIFTH SEASON.