A Deadly State of Mind is the sixth and final episode of the fourth season of Columbo and the thirty-first episode overall. It first aired on April 27, 1975 and was directed by Harvey Hart. In addition to Peter Falk as Lieutenant Columbo, the episode stars George Hamilton, Lesley Ann Warren and Karen Machon.
Hamilton is one of a handful of actors who appeared in both a 1970s episode of Columbo and a 1990s one, having played the killer again in Caution: Murder Can Be Harzardous to Your Health. Along with Patrick McGoohan and William Shatner, he is one of only three actors to have played the murderer both times.
In A Deadly State of Mind, a psychiatrist and his patient, with whom he is having an affair, cover up the killing of her husband. Fearing that she will expose their crime to the police, he hatches a plan to bump her off using hypnosis.
Psychiatrist Dr. Mark Collier (George Hamilton) is having an affair with a patient of his, rich housewife Nadia Donner (Lesley Ann Warren). One day, Nadia invites Mark to a weekend sex vacation at the Donner beach house. Collier shows up at the beach house only to be unpleasantly surprised by Nadia's husband, Carl (Stephen Elliott). The two men get into a violent confrontation over Collier's affair with and drugging of Nadia, with Carl threatening to damage Collier's reputation. When Collier surprises Carl by attempting to leave with Nadia in tow, Carl attacks him. A scuffle ensues, which ends with Collier bludgeoning Carl with a fireplace poker. After telling Nadia to explain it to the police as a home invasion that turned tragic, done by several masked men, Collier drives off, almost running over a blind man walking his dog past the beach house. Investigating the scene, Columbo is not satisfied with Nadia's version of events, wondering why Nadia didn't see the headlights of the burglars' car. When Columbo tells Collier that Nadia's story is not credible, Collier secretly hypnotizes her into, in effect, committing suicide by taking a deadly dive from her fifth floor balcony into the swimming pool below.
Final clue/twist: Columbo claims to have a witness to the first murder. Collier is confronted with the eyewitness, a man wearing dark sunglasses who looks just like the blind man Collier narrowly avoided hitting with his car shortly after the murder. The man settles down on the couch, hands Columbo a match, and then identifies Collier as the driver he saw at around the time of the murder. Collier, as confident as ever, says that he has not been fooled, that he knows the man is blind, and thus cannot be a witness to anything. Collier challenges the man to read from a magazine he hands him, and is stunned when the man does read from it. Columbo reveals that the man is the brother of the actual blind man. But Collier has incriminated himself. In “knowing” that the witness was blind, he has established that he was at the scene of the crime. He has in effect been an eyewitness against himself.
Cast[]
- Peter Falk as Lieutenant Columbo.
- George Hamilton as Dr. Mark Collier, an unscrupulous, manipulative psychiatrist who has no qualms about sleeping with patients, or even with killing their husbands once they find out.
- Lesley Ann Warren as Nadia Donner, Dr. Collier's unstable patient and lover-turned-accomplice.
- Karen Machon as Dr. Anita Borden, Dr. Collier's research partner who might be a bit in love with him.
- Stephen Elliott as Karl Donner, Nadia's boorish husband. When he starts to slap her around, Mark rewards him with a well-placed blow to the back of the skull.
- Bruce Kirby as Sergeant George Kramer. This is the only episode in which Sergeant Kramer appears which does not involve Patrick McGoohan in some way.
- Vance Davis as Officer Hendryx.
- Ryan MacDonald as Charles Whelan, Dr. Collier's seafaring friend. He is unknowingly used by Mark to cover-up Nadia's murder.
- Danny Wells as Gary Keppler, Glorie Kaufman as Brenda and Redmond Gleeson as Arnold, guests at Dr. Collier's party.
- Fred Draper and Jack Manning as David and Daniel Morris, brothers; one of whom is blind.
- William Wintersole as Dr. Hunt, a physician who checks Nadia over after the death of her husband.
- Priscilla Barnes as a nurse.
Additionally, Morris Buchanan plays a lab worker and Kathy Speirs plays a receptionist.
| Columbo (season 4) |
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| 1."An Exercise in Fatality" 2."Negative Reaction" 3."By Dawn's Early Light" 4."Troubled Waters" 5."Playback" 6."A Deadly State of Mind" |