A Friend in Deed (1974) review | The Columbo Episode Guide (S3, E8)

columbo faces the toughest case of his career in a friend indeed because the murderer in this one is columbo's own boss deputy police commissioner mark halperin we've seen many a columbo killer threaten to report the good lieutenant to his superiors but what's he gonna do when the killer is his superior well let's find out we kick off right away with a bang a man stands over a dead body this is hugh caldwell played by michael mcguire he's just killed his wife janice in a fit of rage during a heated argument and in his hour of desperation he turns to his friend and neighbor mark halperin for help halperin's introduction is nothing short of brilliant it's already been established that halperin is a married man but when hugh goes to seek him out at the local gentleman's club he finds him draped in a box abroad and gambling his week's wages away we know right away not to trust this guy halperin sees an opportunity to take advantage of the situation so agrees to help his buddy hugh out leaving him at the club while mark sneaks back to the caldwell house he arranges the scene of janice's death to look like a burglary gone wrong and makes sure to call hugh at the club and poses janus on the phone giving heal an unbreakable alibi mark then heads home and puts on a play for his wife margaret claiming to see a man running from the caldwell house in dark clothing when he calls the police halperin makes his first mistake by specifically asking for columbo i was just trying to figure out how you knew that the woman was already dead halperin's second mistake was in attempting to establish a false time of death see the maid had cleaned everything in the house earlier that day meaning nothing would have any fingerprints on it had janice really been speaking to hue on the phone that evening her fingerprints should have ended up on the phone halperin says the killer must have simply used the phone themselves at some point then wiped it down but why worry about fingerprints if the killer was wearing gloves which he must have been since there were no fingerprints left anywhere else in the house there ago janus may have already been dead by the time of the supposed phone call halperin holds a press conference where he pins the crime on the bel air burglar a cat burglar who has struck several times in the neighborhood recently none too happy to hear about this is the real bel air burglar himself ex-con artie jessup check out artie's fence this guy's awesome there is an entire spin-off show about this guy just waiting to be made get on it universal artist played by series regular val avery in his third and most substantial row as well as in my opinion his best artie's a surprisingly sympathetic character an old-school criminal who's had his fair share of hard knocks in life and struggles to find a way to fit into a changing society that wants nothing more than to just leave him behind you know you spent so much time up in that prison you don't know how it is anymore also he's pretty funny come on let's go come on come on come on come on let's go come on you can walk faster will you shut up i once heard this episode described as being the one colombo to truly portray los angeles as a character in and of itself we get to see the rich and affluent suburbs the seedy underbelly of dive bars and grimy apartments and in between we have the police precinct in a rare enough instance of actually seeing colombo at the station friend does a good job of giving us glimpses into each of these three layers making the city itself feel like a living breathing atmosphere that's more fully fleshed out than in any other episode also nice is this short scene where colombo briefly interviews margaret it shows to me colombo's natural ability to somehow connect with everyone and anyone no matter who they are key information learned during the scene is that hugh and janice were having marital problems then she was seeing other men yes oh and also that margaret tears her sleeve on a rose bush that'll be important later i was very clumsy no no it was my fault when i frightened you i'm sorry about that sadly poor margaret isn't long for this world as halperin puts his true master plan into action see the halperins are loaded thanks to margaret's multi-million dollar inheritance but mark resents that she'd rather donate her time and money to charitable causes rather than to his gambling habits so he's just gonna have to find a way to get that money all to himself my money my inheritance darling my inheritance now look i've never drowned nor have i drowned anyone else but shouldn't it take a bit longer than this i timed it he holds her under for a total of seven seconds seven seconds next mark stops off at the funeral home to see hugh and rope him into his scheme strangers on a train style this is the quid coil pro uh shouldn't that be quid pro quo commissioner you're talking about i can't get involved you are involved my friend yes it's high time hugh returned the favor by dressing up as the bel air burglar scooby doo type beat halperin's in the police helicopter doing chopper patrol when he spots the burglar running from his own house and shooking his wife in the pool cue an action scene an actual action scene and it's an awesome one at that check out this sweet stunt [Music] yet despite his showboating mark's too late and margaret's dead of course he already knew that what do you mean you're crazy she's gonna be all right by the way i counted again this time margaret spends 30 seconds underwater and there's another 10 seconds before she's pulled completely out of the pool that's a total of 40 seconds better than seven i guess but still is it possible to drown that fast apparently this was the first scene that they shot with halperin's actor richard kiley and margaret's actress rosemary murphy together and they hadn't actually met beforehand so they filmed the scene where kylie yanks murphy out of the water and even tries mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and only once the camera stopped rolling did kylie offer his hand and say how do you do i'm richard kylie that's pretty cool and hey let's talk about richard kylie damn if this guy ain't one smooth criminal right down to his devilish goatee this guy is one of the most ruthless villains of the whole series up there with the likes of dr keppel dr mayfield and dr kingston oh wait dale kingston wasn't a doctor i got a little carried away there anywho mark's clearly been planning to bump off his wife for a while and the way he jumps on such an opportunity so quickly is bone chillingly evil all right no violence why you i'm no more violent than you are kylie also possesses the necessary era of authority required to make halper unbelievable as the commissioner of police which makes him even more sinister because what makes him a truly great villain is that halperin is everything colombo is not representing the dark side of the police force i would have been here earlier but my car broke down again i had some more trouble now they're telling me it's the generation lieutenant i'm in something of a hurry halferin isn't just any bad guy he's a corrupt cop and that gives us even more reason to root for columbo to take him down is that a fact lieutenant or just some more of your fancy guesswork i can't forget about michael mcguire who's perfect as the skittish caldwell to me he comes off as a wimpy weasel of a man scared of his own shadow and determined to never face up to anything remember this entire thing could have been avoided if hugh had just confessed to the police in the first place you did call the police my friend well you know what i mean but no rather than take responsibility for his actions he instead tried to cover up his tracks and as a result someone else lost their life what a piece of back to the story one of margaret's charity cases arrives at the crime scene to check what's going on way things look around here i'd like to get out of here that's all that you would he's played by albert popwell an actor best known for appearing in a different role in every dirty harry movie except for the deadpool which was the last one but that doesn't really count anyway since the deadpool sucks but don't get me started on the dirty harry movies you've got to ask yourself one question do i feel lucky we get a really terrific small moment here where colombo quickly defuses a potentially sticky situation the black guy is nervous the white cop is abrasive and could go real bad real quick but colombo steps in at just the right time popwell also provides colombo with an important clue margaret was scheduled to attend a dinner at the charity headquarters that evening where she was going to be named woman of the year for her contributions much is that gonna cost you oh don't be crude but then why if she was going out was she wearing an outfit with a torn sleeve oh that might have been a struggle she got a tear on her sleeve well that happened this afternoon bush to add fuel to colombo's fire the coroner finds no traces of chlorine in margaret's lungs but does find evidence of uh what's it alcohol glycerol and palmitic acid say that again doc lieutenant so colombo presents his theory to halperin that these crimes were not the work of a burglar but of someone who wanted to look like that of a burglar the halpern of course just tells him to off wanting him to pursue the burglar angle more forcefully and even pairing colombo whip with his opposite number in the robbery division lieutenant duffy played by john finnegan bet you were wondering when i was going to talk about this guy jon or jp finnegan is yet another recurring bit player a la val avery or fred draper who first appeared in the season 1 finale blueprint for murder he was also in the most dangerous match and showed up again in lovely but lethal as a police sergeant who seems to have walked in off the set of a 1940s gangster movie hey maybe it was murder inc like many recurring cast and crew of the show finnegan was a good friend of peter fox appearing with him in several of john cassavetes films another frequent collaborator and friend of falk and cassavetes was actor ben gazzara who directed a friend indeed man you wait for peter i want to tell you why the film may seem long sometimes the film seems long to me and i haven't seen it yet halperin wants everyone to think the burglar returned to kill margaret to silence her as during the press conference he had implied she would have been able to identify him colombo being colombo promptly ignores his orders in order to pursue his own theory further investigating janus caldwell's personal life the fact that all of her jewelry turns out to be cheap fakes is yet another clue since why would a pro like artie jessup bother stealing any of it are you kidding they left me off the cell block the reason it was fake was that she'd sold all of her real jewelry to a jeweler because she needed the money as hugh had cut her off it's gonna take one of the biggest gambles of all time for the lieutenant to topple the dastardly deputy commissioner if he up remember the killer won't just get away with it but in this instance colombo stands to lose his whole career all right now listen lieutenant you're wasting your time and my time and the department's time and it's going to stop desperate he turns to the only man who can help him already jessup who's equally desperate to clear his name that guy will kill those women it gives guys like me a bad name right artie gives old hugh a call telling him he knows he killed his missus but is willing to keep quiet for a price this of course provides halperin with a perfect opportunity to frame jessup and throw the book at him he sneaks a peek at artie's address from a file on columbo's desk then plants jenny's caldwell's stolen jills in his apartment when hugh goes to pay off artie halfer and duffy and colombo burst in to slap the cuffs on armed with a search warrant halperin heads straight to the apartment to have the place searched i think you're making a mistake prove you are not columbo finally puts his case to the commissioner in probably the baldiest move of his entire life listener i believe he killed your wife and i believe he either killed janice caldwell you're covering up for it [Music] you just lost your badge my friend looks like arty's done for though when duffy stumbles onto the jewels until commissioner halpin says he found those jewels under your mattress that's crazy you're a liar hey i don't even live here that's right this is an artie's place what whose place is it lieutenant he doesn't live here i live here what i haven't lived there long just moved in you see the apartment was vacant for three weeks i just signed the lease what the file on the desk that halperin saw was in fact a mock-up made by colombo with the fake address included only one person beside myself knew this address that was you sir this is rightfully regarded as one of the best gotchas of the series thanks in no small part to how utterly satisfying it is to finally see halperin go down he really really thought he had it all figured out and his face as it all comes crashing down is priceless and now we along with colombo can finally let out a huge sigh of relief because it worked the lieutenant really put it all on the line for this one but hey no guts no glory right i think once your friend mr caldwell understands the situation he'll fill in some missing pieces a friend indeed is one of the show's best episodes it has one of the best villains best supporting characters best endings some of the best clues and it's got that sick helicopter stunt it puts colombo in a unique and unenviable position that really amps up the tension in a way that can't quite be recreated in any other episode it shows us a side to the city that we don't usually get on this series and it's a perfect finale to the phenomenal third season as the credits roll you really feel that you've witnessed an epic and that's definitely how i'm gonna feel when i finally finish editing this thing what you think i don't know when season 4 will be out it'll probably take a while i'd appreciate your patience and as always i appreciate your support so until next time [Music] you

Channel: Schlock Horror!

Views: 44,302

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Id: 11VqZzkouaY

Length: 15min 10sec (910 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 25 2022