Columbo: Columbo Goes to the Guillotine

TV Movie
1989
Unrated
1h 38m

IMDb RATING

7.3/10

2.4K

YOUR RATING

Peter Falk, Anthony Andrews, Anthony Zerbe, Dana Andersen, Karen Austin, and Alan Fudge in Columbo: Columbo Goes to the Guillotine (1989)

Cop Drama Police Procedural Crime Drama Mystery

An egocentric magician masquerading as a real psychic murders his old mentor, a magician charged to expose him as fraud, by beheading him while he's rehearsing his guillotine trick. Lt. Colu... Read allAn egocentric magician masquerading as a real psychic murders his old mentor, a magician charged to expose him as fraud, by beheading him while he's rehearsing his guillotine trick. Lt. Columbo is on the case.An egocentric magician masquerading as a real psychic murders his old mentor, a magician charged to expose him as fraud, by beheading him while he's rehearsing his guillotine trick. Lt. Columbo is on the case.

See production info at IMDbPro

IMDb RATING

7.3/10

2.4K

YOUR RATING

See production info at IMDbPro

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Storyline

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Trivia
This is the first new episode of Columbo in a decade. Peter Falk was 61 when he returned to the role.

Goofs
While not ideal, a Phillips head screw sometimes can be screwed by a "regular" flat-bladed screwdriver, but not vice versa. To make the screwdriver plot more believable, the types of screwdriver should have been reversed.

Quotes
Lt. Columbo: Always remember it's a trick. Keep that in mind and you can figure out how it's done.

Connections
Featured in Columbo: Columbo Goes to the Guillotine

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Review

Featured review

7/10

In Harm's Way

After a hiatus of over a decade Peter Falk returns as the dogged and persistent homicide detective Columbo of the LAPD. As usual he's got himself a suspect who thinks he's a cut or two above the hoi ploi.

Anthony Zerbe is our victim here and he's a magician in the tradition of Harry Houdini. And as history has taught us one of Houdini's sidelines was the exposure of psychics whom he thought were all a gang of frauds.

Zerbe knows that Anthony Andrews is a fraud and he's got some personal knowledge of that because they have some history together. Zerbe by the way is no saint either.

Zerbe is done in by one of his magician's props, a guillotine he uses in his act that proves to be all too real.

One thing about this episode, like in a few others Columbo doesn't have much of a case, he just hopes the suspect trips himself up. Andrews does in fact, but Peter Falk puts himself in harm's way to do it.

But of course he gets his man.