Reviews

Archie Miles's widow was played by Rosanna Huffman, aka Mrs. Richard Levinson (one of at least seven MSW appearances)?

And in this same episode: Harry's motherly secretary was Margery Nelson, aka Mrs. William Link?

Stuff like this used to happen quite a bit on series like Murder, She Wrote; it was part of the fun back in the day.

Just for fun, while you're here, you might like to check out the bosses's wives credits here; both Rosanna Huffman and Margery Nelson were talented actresses, who worked whenever they wanted to, and commanded respect within the industry (as did their writer-producer husbands, come to that ...) Happy Hunting!

Little-known fact: This was the pilot film for Sam Benedict; that's why it was filmed in color.

The decision to make the series in Black&White was made after the sale to NBC (probably budgetary).

Also: Am I the only one who noticed that the main guest star - Nancy Kelly ("The Bad Seed") - was Edmond O'Brien's former wife?

I can't find out whether this fact was publicized at the time the show aired ... In 1962, Sam Benedict was what would nowadays be called a "bubble show": NBC put it on Saturday night, against Jackie Gleason's newly-revived variety show, plainly expecting it to at least run a good second place; exactly what happened, nobody remembers ...

A newly-published book, Shooting Columbo by David Koenig, reveals a long-hidden secret about Old-Fashioned Murder.

It seems that Peter Falk took this script away from Peter Fischer (its original writer) and gave it for doctoring to his friend Elaine May.

Fischer's original was a takeoff on Shakespeare's Richard III; the villain was supposed to be a mean old man played by Burgess Meredith.

Elaine May changed the villain to a plain Jane old maid with a dowdy niece; She earmarked the niece part for her real-life daughter, Jeannie Berlin.

These changes required a page-one rewrite of the whole story, which in turn led Peter Fischer to take his name off the story, invoking his Red Flag pseudonym 'Lawrence Vail'.

The result pleased almost no one (I acknowledge the many dissenters who've written in here).

I knew none of this when I saw this in first-run back in '76; it struck me at the time as a mediocre Columbo, so that's how I'm rating it here - 5 stars.

In his memoir, Peter Fischer tells of how his idea of Graham McVeigh was someone like James Spader or Jude Law.

Casting George Wendt was either ABC's or Universal's idea; Fischer's response was to take his name off the credits - 'Lawrence Vail' was his "red-flag" pseudonym, used when he felt that his script was being fouled-up at the production stage.

What the hell - I liked it; Steiger saved it, in my view ...

I saw this movie in its original theatrical release in 1989. The US Attorney, 'Richie Sembretto', was played by Bob Gunton, who was just fresh from his Broadway success as Juan Peron in Evita. In the movie, I noticed Gunton's hairstyle - a really bad combover (which I noticed because Gunton had a full of hair, then as now). Being a regular reader and watcher of news, I recognized the real-life basis for this character: the then-US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Rudolph Giuliani, who had funny hair even then. Also, "Sembretti" was a full-out publicity hound, as was his prototype Giuliani - it was unmistakable. In '89, this went unnoticed by most critics (at least those outside NYC). I was just wondering whether anybody who sees this in 2020 might pick up on what I'm talking about here ...

By the bye - I kinda liked the movie ...