For those in the UK there is a treat in store on ITV on Sunday at 12.10pm. An episode of COLUMBO directed by Patrick McGoohan and featuring Billy Connolly (!) as a - wait for it - hard-drinking, Oscar-winning movie composer with a deadly score [ho ho] to settle". Seems somebody has been ghost-writing his scores... Gracious me!
Before you ask, the episode's composer is one Dick DeBenedictis, who, his imdb entry shows, has been composing for COLUMBO right back to the very beginning. Indeed, he has won three ASCAP Film & Television Music Awards: two for Most Performed Theme and one for Most Performed Underscore (the mind boggles). And - for trivia fans and synchronity buffs - he composed the theme to the snoozefest which stars that other Dick (Van Dyke), DIAGNOSIS MURDER, which is on t'other side at the same time...
Oh and there's more: this episode is the last thing Dick DeB scored (shortly afterwards he was killed by another composer*) and the first COOLDUMBO that he scored (in 1972) was about a conductor (played by John Cassavetes) who killed his pianist mistress...
I really like this episode. There's a scene in which Connolly conducts an orchestra and asks Columbo about the theme the orchestra is playing. Columbo: "Wait, wait... it has something to do with a mad man and a house..."
and the first COLUMBO that he scored (in 1972) was about a conductor (played by John Cassavetes) who killed his pianist mistress...
Benedictis wrote a marvelous score for that episode. Perhaps his best work for Columbo. Too sad that his last music for the inspector was rather disappointing.
This is a really good episode. I have it on tape somewhere from the last time it was shown (I think on one of the Sky Movies channels)
Or Hallmark, or Movies24 (one of the unwritten laws of British television is that a week cannot without an episode of either Imperial Era or newer vintage Columbo turning up on one channel or another... they've even shown the original TV movie Prescription: Murder and the one that really launched the series, Ransom For A Dead Man).
if only they cast someone who could ACT in the lead
Who are you referring to here? Not Peter Falk I hope?
Of course not - he means Billy Connolly. The hairy Scottish comedian isn't one of my favourites either; I can only assume he was cast because of his resemblance to Michael Kamen.
