Patrick McGoohan made the last of his appearances on his good friend Peter Falk's series with this Columbo story. In it he plays a failed actor who became a mortician. In fact he's in the funeral home chain business and is quite wealthy.
He gets a visit from an old girlfriend gossip columnist Rue McClanahan who lets him know that she's about to expose him for robbing the corpse of a deceased silent movie star who was buried with a valuable diamond necklace. The money McGoohan got from fencing the jewels set him up in business where he provided all kinds of tidbits for McClanahan over the years. But he also dumped her and she is a woman scorned.
Here's where the weakness of the story is. Instead of visiting and informing McGoohan of her plans, McClanahan should have just done it. That's what a responsible reporter would do. Wanting to see his face when informed cost her life.
As McGoohan cremated the body there's no evidence. So it's a missing persons case that Columbo is working on. As for a cover-up McGoohan played a shell game with the corpses. Still of course Columbo solves it and more I can't say.
There is a great part in this story for Edie McClurg who wants the simplest kind of funeral. Just burn him and put him in a paper sack and throw it away. She wasn't exactly a grieving widow and her husband was something of a deadbeat.
I'd like to rate this one higher, but McClanahan's actions were too unrealistic even for a woman scorned and scorched.
He gets a visit from an old girlfriend gossip columnist Rue McClanahan who lets him know that she's about to expose him for robbing the corpse of a deceased silent movie star who was buried with a valuable diamond necklace. The money McGoohan got from fencing the jewels set him up in business where he provided all kinds of tidbits for McClanahan over the years. But he also dumped her and she is a woman scorned.
Here's where the weakness of the story is. Instead of visiting and informing McGoohan of her plans, McClanahan should have just done it. That's what a responsible reporter would do. Wanting to see his face when informed cost her life.
As McGoohan cremated the body there's no evidence. So it's a missing persons case that Columbo is working on. As for a cover-up McGoohan played a shell game with the corpses. Still of course Columbo solves it and more I can't say.
There is a great part in this story for Edie McClurg who wants the simplest kind of funeral. Just burn him and put him in a paper sack and throw it away. She wasn't exactly a grieving widow and her husband was something of a deadbeat.
I'd like to rate this one higher, but McClanahan's actions were too unrealistic even for a woman scorned and scorched.