Columbo: Blueprint for Murder *** (1972, Peter Falk, Patrick O’Neal, Janis Paige, Pamela Austin, Forrest Tucker, John Fiedler) – Classic Movie Review 13,646

Peter Falk directs himself for the one and only time as Lieutenant Columbo in the slick and satisfying 1972 TV movie Columbo: Blueprint for Murder.

Peter Falk directs himself for the one and only time as Columbo in the slick and satisfying Universal/ NBC 1972 feature-length (71 minutes) TV movie episode Columbo: Blueprint for Murder. It is episode seven of season one.

Forrest Tucker guest stars as wealthy industrialist Bo Williamson, who returns from Europe, finds his young wife Jennifer (Pamela Austin) and a slimy architect Elliot Markham (Patrick O’Neal) have been up to no good, and have been spending all his money. And then the industrialist promptly vanishes. But his first wife Goldie (Janis Paige) believes that he is dead. Now what can Columbo find out?

Partly thanks to the cast, with four excellent performances from Patrick O’Neal and Forrest Tucker as the husbands and Pamela Austin and Janis Paige as the wives, this is a highly entertaining, above-average one from the original Columbo series that ran 1971-78. O’Neal’s chilly personality is well engaged and exploited as the villain Markham, an architect with a loving for classical music. John Fiedler plays Williamson’s doctor.

The canny teleplay by Steven Bochco is based on a story by  William Kelley.

It premiered on February 9, 1972.

It is the only episode of any TV series that Peter Falk directed.

After two pilots, the original 1968 Columbo: Prescription Murder and the 1971 Columbo: Ransom for a Dead Man, Columbo aired as part of The NBC Mystery Movie series from 1971 to 1978, starting with the Steven Spielberg directed episode Murder by the Book, and then on ABC from 1989 to 2003.

Cast: Peter Falk, Patrick O’Neal, Janis Paige, Pamela Austin, John Fiedler, Forrest Tucker, Bettye Ackerman, John Finnegan, Nick Dennis, Robert Gibbons, Cliff Carnell, Jimmy Joyce.

American actress Pamela Austin was born Pamela Joan Akert on December 20, 1941, in Omaha, Nebraska. Pamela Austin appeared in two Elvis Presley films, Blue Hawaii (1961) and Kissin’ Cousins (1964).

Janis Paige (born Donna Mae Tjaden; September 16, 1922 – June 2, 2024).

© Derek Winnert 2025 – Classic Movie Review 13,646

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