Swan Song

Episode aired Mar 3, 1974
TV-PG
1h 38m

IMDb RATING

8.0/10

3.5K

YOUR RATING

Peter Falk, Sorrell Booke, Johnny Cash, John Dehner, and Ida Lupino in Swan Song (1974)

Cop Drama Police Procedural Crime Drama Mystery Thriller

A popular country western singer wants to get rid of his religiously zealous wife who's been using blackmail to control every aspect of his life. But a murder made to look like an airplane a... Read allA popular country western singer wants to get rid of his religiously zealous wife who's been using blackmail to control every aspect of his life. But a murder made to look like an airplane accident does not fool the wily Lt. Columbo.A popular country western singer wants to get rid of his religiously zealous wife who's been using blackmail to control every aspect of his life. But a murder made to look like an airplane accident does not fool the wily Lt. Columbo.

See production info at IMDbPro

IMDb RATING

8.0/10

3.5K

YOUR RATING

See production info at IMDbPro

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Storyline

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Trivia
The black guitar used in this episode is the first ever black Martin D-35 guitar. Johnny Cash had the luthiers of the Martin company make him this one-of-a-kind guitar without the permission or knowledge of Martin's president, C. F. Martin III. Mr. Martin never wanted his company to make a black guitar and was against making one. Martin didn't find out that the guitar had been built until he saw Cash playing the black Martin on this show. The first black Martin became Johnny's favorite guitar, and he used it on many recordings and on concerts for the next 20 years. The Martin company eventually came to accept the black Martin and has made two different tribute guitars to Cash - The Black Martin D-35 and the Black Martin DX.

Goofs
Columbo tells Tommy Brown that he hears a difference in the musical arrangements of "I Saw the Light". The original one featured the murdered girl, who was a soprano. The second version was arranged for the new girl, who Columbo says is a contralto. But a contralto is lower, not higher, than a soprano, and the audio quite clearly demonstrates the addition of a much higher soprano voice to the vocal harmony. The writers should have reversed the voice designations.

Quotes
Lt. Columbo: My ears pop in an elevator. As a matter of fact, I don't even like being this tall.

Connections
Featured in Blow up: Le web magazine cinéma d'Arte: Johnny Cash (2019)

Soundtracks
I Saw the Light
(uncredited)
Written by Hank Williams
Performed by Johnny Cash

User reviews53

Review

Featured review

8/10

Man In Black Darkens Columbos Path

Johnny Cash puts on a good acting performance in this show where he is an ex-con evangelist singer who is being blackmailed for his services to build an expensive chapel. The bad person is a woman who has also railroaded him into a sham of a marriage and keeps him under her thumb by threatening to expose him and an affair he had in some hotel rooms with her underage daughter.

He sets up a plane crash where he drugs the wife & daughter, parachutes out of the plane and breaks his leg on landing. Then he puts himself near the plane for the rescuers to find while he claims it is all a horrible accident.

Columbo (Falk) proves himself to be a pretty agile investigator of the crash impressing the folks who are from the FAA in charge of investigating the crash. His dogged pursuit of the truth is much in evidence here. The entertainment in any Columbo is watching him annoy a person into confession and in this case, an evangelist confessing is good for the soul.