Columbo

Swan Song

Season 3, Episode 7, Aired 3/3/74

Episode Summary

After years of being controlled and blackmailed by his wife a Country and Western singer kills her and tries to make it look like it was really meant to be him killed and not her.

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Cast & Crew

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Peter Falk

Lieutenant Columbo (no first name)
Vito Scotti

Mr. Grindell
Johnny Cash

Tommy Brown

Fan Episode Reviews (2)

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Columbo vs. The Man in Black

8.0

"Great"

By jamoon2006, Apr 21, 2011 Report Abuse

Johnny Cash is great as the conniving country singer who offs his wife. His back-and-forth with Falk is memorable (who else would call Columbo "little buddy?") and the final scene is one of the best in the series. "Any man who sings like that can't be all bad." Peter Falk has great moments...his nervousness in the police plane and his exasperation with the seamstress stand out.

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9.4

"Superb"

By LAntichristo, Apr 21, 2011 Report Abuse

No less, I think, than four Perry Mason cases are fictionalized for the murder, which has a lecherous gospel singer (Johnny Cash) drug his blackmailing evangelist partner (Ida Lupino) and jump out of their private plane with a parachute of his own devising.

The depth of the casting is most remarkable, even for Columbo, which sometimes anchors an effect by seeming to overcast for the part. John Dehner as Pangborn, the air crash investigator, stands like a mountain while clouds of delicate comedy rain about his summit. An Air Force colonel who remembers the singer as a washed-out cadet (but from which war?) is paraded by John Randolph. Vito Scotti mounts an impressive display as the funeral home proprietor (this scene is filmed at the same location which served as the magic cabaret in "Now You See Him"). Sorrell Booke as the singer's manager is all rosy round shades and bow tie.

The director's name is rearranged to form the name of an arranger, Solacanto, which Lt. Columbo interprets as Sillacante.

It often happens that the Lieutenant will discern the culprit at once and devote himself to an elaborate unmasking, but in this case he has only a scent of a whiff to warn him, and his "routine questions" for once serve him in that capacity.

The actual trap shows the extraordinary skill deployed, after the manner of Wong and Poirot, by the man from Homicide.
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Trivia, Notes, Quotes and Allusions

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Trivia
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Notes
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- 94 minutes long. Edit
- Actor Vito Scotti appears _six_ times in Columbo series: ep. 19 "Any Old Port in a Storm" (Maitre d'), ep. 20 "Candidate for Crime" (Mr. Chadwick, a taylor), ep. 24 "Swan Song" (Mr. Grindell); ep. 27 "Negative Reaction" (Thomas Dolan, a drunk), ep. 34 "Identity Crisis" (Salvatore Defonte), and ep. 50 "Murder, a Self Portrait" (Vito). Edit
Quotes
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- Brown: You knew I was coming up here? Columbo: I knew. Then I didn't know. And then I knew. Edit
- Brown: Now why would anybody want to kill me? Columbo: Mr. Brown, I don't know. But you are a celebrity and there are a lot of crackpots in the world and there's just no accounting for people's reactions. I mean sometimes I even wonder about my wife. Not that she's a crackpot. Edit
- Columbo: I noticed that the arrangement was changed. Brown: You got a good ear for music. Columbo: Well, you know I'm Italian. Edit
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