Murder with Too Many Notes is the thirteenth episode of the tenth season of Columbo and the sixty-eighth episode overall. The penultimate episode of the series, it first aired on March 12, 2001 and was directed by Patrick McGoohan from a story by Jeffrey Cava. This was McGoohan's final contribution to the series, having started in 1974 with By Dawn's Early Light. In addition to Peter Falk as Lieutenant Columbo, the episode stars Scottish comedian Sir Billy Connolly as well as Chad Willett, Hillary Danner and Charles Cioffi. Richard Riehle reprises his role from Ashes to Ashes as Sergeant Degarmo.
In Murder with Too Many Notes, an Oscar-winning film composer stands to lose everything when his protege threatens to reveal that most of his scores are in fact ghostwritten. Peter Falk called the murder method in this episode "ingenious".
Final clue/twist: Columbo's first clue is that the victim did not cry out as he fell to his death: On the victim’s body, Columbo finds a cut on his hand in which dried blood reveals the presence of secobarbital, explaining why the victim did not scream as he fell to his death; he was unconscious. This explains why his shoes were two sizes too large and why his house key was missing: the victim couldn’t complain because he was unconscious. In Columbo's reconstruction of the Crime clues point to Crawford as the killer. Crawford confirmed just before that McEnery would have heard the elevator that threw him off the roof if he wasn’t unconscious.
Cast[]
- Peter Falk as Lieutenant Columbo.
- Sir Billy Connolly as Findlay Crawford, a Hollywood composer for won an Academy Award for his work on The Killer. However, the score was in fact ghostwritten by Gabe. Hoping to keep the secret, Crawford murders Gabe.
- Chad Willett as Gabriel "Gabe" McEnery, Crawford's brilliantly talented protege who is the real talent behind most of his scores.
- Hillary Danner as Rebecca, Gabe's girlfriend.
- Charles Cioffi as Sidney Ritter, the director of The Killer who frequently collaborates with Crawford.
- Scott Atkinson as Tony and Anne McGoohan as Macia, a couple who witness Gabe's fatal fall.
- Richard Riehle as Sergeant Degarmo.
Columbo (season 10) |
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1."Columbo Goes to College" 2."Caution: Murder Can Be Hazardous to Your Health" 3."Columbo and the Murder of a Rock Star" 4."Death Hits the Jackpot" 5."No Time to Die" 6."A Bird in the Hand..." 7."It's All in the Game" 8."Butterfly in Shades of Grey" 9."Undercover" 10."Strange Bedfellows" 11."A Trace of Murder" 12."Ashes to Ashes" 13."Murder with Too Many Notes" 14."Columbo Likes the Nightlife" |