Negative Reaction is the second episode of the fourth season of Columbo and the twenty-seventh episode overall. It first aired on October 6, 1974 and was directed by Alf Kjellin. In addition to Peter Falk as Lieutenant Columbo, the episode stars Dick Van Dyke, JoAnna Cameron and Don Gordon.
In Negative Reaction, a professional photographer decides to finally rid himself of his domineering wife. His plot is meticulously thought out and includes many steps, involving faking her kidnapping, shooting her dead, and murdering and framing a hapless ex-con for the crime. Final clue/twist: Columbo stages a false accusation using a mirror-inverted version of the kidnapping photo Galesko used to fabricate an alibi. The reverse negative shows a different time on a clock in the photo, a time for which Galesko has no alibi. An increasingly riled Galesko accuses Columbo of framing him with false evidence, and becomes more incensed when Columbo tells him the original photo was accidentally destroyed. Galesko grabs a camera from a shelf where there are twelve other cameras, and shows Columbo a negative that is still inside it. Galesko says the negative proves him right about which way the clock is pointing in the original photograph. Galesko has thus given himself away. He had no way of knowing which camera had been used as part of the kidnapping scheme, or that the negative was still in the back of that camera. Galesko, defeated, realizes that Columbo had staged the false arrest with the exact purpose of getting him to lose his cool so he would rashly identify the camera.
The outside set of Deschler's hotel room is the set of Psycho.
Cast[]
- Peter Falk as Lieutenant Columbo.
- Dick Van Dyke as Paul Galesko, a Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer who plans to bump off his nagging wife to start a new lfe with his attractive assistant. Van Dyke, an actor best known for his comedy roles, plays against type here as a particularly nasty murderer.
- JoAnna Cameron as Lorna McGrath, Paul's pretty young assistant. He invites her to come with him on a photography expedition to the Philippines, hoping to begin a relationship with her.
- Don Godon as Alvin Dreschler, an ex-con fresh out of prison who finds himself unwittingly drawn into Galsesko's scheme; Galesko murders him and frames him for the kidnapping of his wife.
- Antoinette Bower as Frances Galesko, Paul's tyrannical wife and the target of his murder plot.
- Michael Strong as Sergeant Hoffman.
- Vito Scotti as Thomas Dolan, a wino who overhears Alvin Dreschler being shot dead; his testimony to their being a gap between the two shots being fired spurs Columbo into investigating Galesko.
- David Sheiner as Ray, Galesko's friend and publisher.
- Alice Backes as Mrs. Moyland, the Galesko's housekeeper.
- Larry Storch as Oscar Weekly, an irritable driving instructor.
- John Ashton as Calvin MacGruder, a real estate agent.
- Harvey Gold as Harry Lewis, a camera salesman.
- Bill Zuckert as Captain Sampson. Zuckert later played Captain August in A Case of Immunity.
- Joyce Van Patten as the Sister of Mercy Columbo encounters at the homeless mission. Van Patten would return as the killer in Old Fashioned Murder.
- Irene Tedrow as Mrs. Charleswort, one of Galesko's clients.
Additionally, multiple recurring bit part players appear in background roles; Fred Draper plays the police scientist collecting fingerprints at the crime scene, Mickey Golden plays one of the men carrying Frances' body to the ambulance, Mike Lally plays the homeless man Columbo converses with outside the soup kitchen and his son Mike Edward Lally plays the security guard in the police evidence locker during the final scene.
| 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" |