Steven Spielberg has always been hard at work. The New Hollywood figure didn't become the highest-grossing director by accident. His movies tend to wow everyone, and it's quite a surprise that he has only won three Oscars. However, he has been presented with many other honors, including the AFI Life Achievement Award and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Seven of his movies have also been inducted into the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress.
Your Rating close 10 stars 9 stars 8 stars 7 stars 6 stars 5 stars 4 stars 3 stars 2 stars 1 star Rate Now 0/10 Like Follow Followed Columbo TV-PG Crime Drama Mystery Release Date 1971 - 1977 Cast See All Peter Falk Columbo Mike Lally Bartender John Finnegan Barney Bruce Kirby Sergeant George Kramer
Creator(s) Richard Levinson, William Link Powered by Expand Collapse
Before he succeeded as a Hollywood director, Spielberg had his eyes on short films and TV episodes. The Last Gun, Fighter Squad, Escape to Nowhere, Slipstream, Unfinished, and Amblin are some of his exciting works from the '60s that you should check out. On television, the celebrated filmmaker worked on the anthology series Night Gallery, the medical drama Marcus Welby, M.D., and the legal drama Owen Marshall: Counselor at Law, before landing a major hit via the TV movie Duel. He also got to direct the first of Columbo, one of the best detective shows of all time.
Columbo's Episode "Murder by the Book" Is a Tale of Two Authors and Two Stevens
"Murder by the Book" was written by Steven Bochco, best known as the creator of numerous cop and legal drama shows, including L.A. Law, NYPD Blue, and Hill Street Blues. During a conversation with On Small Screen, Spielberg explained that he was blown away by Steven Bocho's script for "Murder by the Book" and vowed to create something magical on the screen.
He said:
"I treated it like a little mini movie, and I made the episode with the psychology of a film director, not a TV director. I said, 'I'm going to make this -- you know, within the time they're giving me -- I'm going to make this look like a million bucks. They're giving me $130,000 for this hour, I'm going to make it look like a million bucks.'"
Indeed, Spielberg made something magical. The plot of "Murder by the Book" centers on Ken Franklin (Jack Cassidy) and Jim Ferris (Martin Milner), a mystery-writing author duo that has published dozens of best-selling novels together. Ferris, who has been the brains all along, wants to work on his projects without Ken's involvement. This irks Franklin because he has enjoyed a lavish lifestyle, thanks to the success of the books, and now all that is about to go away.
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A dark idea thus comes to Franklin. Since the two have an insurance policy on which Franklin can benefit in case Ferris dies during the partnership, the flamboyant author lures his buddy out to a remote cabin and kills him. What about the cover-up? Franklin makes it seem like Ferris was looking into the activities of some gangsters to get a story idea, and they whacked him because they were eager to stay under the radar. Of course, things don't go according to plan. A local store owner learns what happened and starts blackmailing Franklin. How does that end? No spoilers.
Bochco went on to write a few more episodes for Columbo, but Spielberg chased Hollywood. The rest, as they say, is history. A nod to Spielberg can be found in another Bochco-written episode titled "Mind Over Mayhem" the detective looks into a murder involving scientists and a speaking robot. One of the persons of interest in Lt. Columbo's investigation is a high-IQ boy named "Steve Spelberg."
Peter Falk Was Wowed by Spielberg's Style
For lead actor Peter Falk, Columbo was life. He won three Emmys and one Golden Globe for his work as the detective, something the stars of other popular police procedurals rarely achieve. Known for his catchphrase: "Just one more thing," Falk's character wowed audiences, not only because of his words, but also because of how good he was at his job, despite being absent-minded most of the time and moving around in a slow Peugeot 403.
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Falk got to work with many directors on the show, but no one impressed him more than Steven Spielberg, who was only 24 when he made the episode.
" The show with Steven Spielberg was the first time in my acting career that I did a scene in which I was unaware where the camera was. In television, the camera is always right there. And we did a scene, and he said 'Action,' and we started to shoot, and in the middle of the scene I said, 'Where the hell is the camera?'"
Spielberg's work also made Falk realize that the director was something special. And he went on to predict good things for him. Speaking to biographer Joseph McBride about the episode, he recalled:
"Let's face it, we had some good fortune at the beginning. Our debut episode, in 1971, was directed by this young kid named Steven Spielberg. I told the producers, Link and Levinson: "This guy is too good for Columbo"
Falk explained that the future Jaws director was shooting with a long lens that was across the street, something that was unheard of at the time. He admits that this gave him the kind of comfort level he had never predicted, and the confidence he got from the first episode was maintained throughout the show.
Spielberg Captured the Little Details Beautifully in "Murder by the Book"
Columbo takes a different approach when it comes to crime-related storytelling. Here, viewers learn about a killer before Lt. Columbo shows up. Most episodes run for about 72 minutes, and the first few scenes are dedicated to explaining why the situation is as it is. So, instead of viewers being curious about who the murderer is, they remain curious about how Columbo will catch the culprit. This is thus not "whodunit" but 'howcatchem," an inverted detective story.
It's hard not to marvel at how beautifully Spielberg captures the proceedings in "Murder by the Book." In the opening shot, we are treated to the view and sound of everything that will make us understand the story better. A sleek Mercedes is moving against the flow of traffic. There is also an electric typewriter making noise. The camera then pans over a shelf of published books by the window, a hint of how industrious (one of them) these authors are. On top of that, there is a framed Newsweek cover on the wall and the man typing on it. He is a big deal, right? The Mercedes appears again in the parking lot.
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In these few minutes, Spielberg has told us that there is a connection between the driver and the writer. It turns out the driver is the lazy writer who leeches on his friend's talent. He even enters via the exit zone, proving he often disregards rules. As all this is happening, there is no dialogue or music, just the typewriter. Then comes the argument about parting ways, followed by a murder later on. Unlike the viewer, Columbo doesn't know all this, so we see him working hard throughout the episode.
Some of the scenes here would make someone like Hitchcock proud, and Spielberg admits it was all intentional at the time. "I looked at every television episode I directed as a stepping stone to getting someone to hire me to direct a feature," the Saving Private Ryan filmmaker told director Edgar Wright during an open chat between the two in 2018. "I used the television opportunities to try to do things that would make people think I could do feature films."
Spielberg further recalls that his tactics triggered disdain rather than admiration at first. "TV producers were appalled at where I'd placed the camera and how my episode looked nothing like the series that they'd been successfully producing," he said. Luckily for him, Columbo creators Richard Levinson and William Link wanted something different for their project, so they never micromanaged the young director. "That was my first experience with episodic television where the producers were encouraging me to make shots, whereas other television producers would beg me not to," he said.
Because of his work on the episode and the eventual success of the show, Spielberg got something solid to use as a negotiating tool whenever he was looking for work. No surprise when he was hired to make Duel. And no surprise when he broke into Hollywood in a major way.