Columbo

Christyne Berzsenyi is associate professor of English at Penn State Wilkes-Barre.

PART ONE: UNDERSTANDING THE LIEUTENANT AND HIS VILLAINS





Introduction: Introduction to Columbo And Columbo


Columbo, An Inverted Mystery
A Snapshot of Television and Film History: Pre-Columbo
The Underestimated Detective (1910)
Scholarship and the Lieutenant
Historical, Literary, and Television Contexts: Shift to Grit and Realism



Columbo and the Lieutenant: Literary Influences


The Firsts in Short and Long Detective Fiction in English (1841-62)
Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Lieutenant Porfiry Petrovitch: Pretenses (1886)
Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes: Genius Detective (1887)
British Golden Age, Drawing Room Mysteries, The Cozy (1920-40)







Characterology and Character-Based Detective TV Shows


The Lieutenant with His Sergeants
Columbo: A Blend of Genres, Influences, and Deviations







Columbo, The Suspect Charmer


Suspects as Resistant Responders
Charming the Stinging Villains


Glamour in Columbo



Two Sides of Columbo Presented on a Case by Case Basis


Columbo Talks to 'Dog', 'Étude in Black' (1972)
Columbo and a Resistant Responder, 'Double Shock' (1973)
Dual Personae, 'An Exercise in Fatality' (1974)



Columbo and the Ancient Greek Virtue of Sophrosyne
Looking for the Right Word: Antipotency







The Columbo Killer


White, middle-aged, wealthy, intelligent, cultured, successful, arrogant
Audience-Villain Relationships and Columbo
Columbo’s Five Types of Villains







Columbo, Women of His Investigations, and the Equal Rights Movement


The Women’s Professional Movement Strategic Male Chauvinism
Columbo’s Female Villains: Ladylike but Lethal
Columbo and the Female Accomplices
Columbo and the Female Witnesses





 PART TWO: COLUMBO’S METHOD OF INVESTIGATION





Crime Scene Examination and Ratiocination


What Viewers Know and Don’t Know about What Columbo Knows



The Working Cop’s Habit of Asking Questions: A Rhetoric of Inquiry


Power of Asking Different Types of Questions
The Socratic Method of Dialectic, aporia, and Standard Elenchus
Techniques of Columbo’s Rhetorical Inquiry
Fake Questions Types with Multiple Functions
Probing Questions Types with Multiple Functions



Killing Them Softly: Irritating the Suspects in Seven Modes


Obligating the Suspect with Appeasement Pressure and the Extrication of Any Threat
False modesty, Excessive flattery
Repeated, Disingenuous Apologies
Wasting the Suspect’s Time
Circumstantial Speech and Inane Storytelling
False Exits, 'Oh, I almost forgot'
False Exits, 'Just one more thing'
Special Cases of Direct Confrontation: Columbo Gets Mad



Columbo Closes the Case: Capture and Consequences


Lieutenant Columbo: Virtuous or Villainous?
Columbo: The Denouement
PART THREE: COLUMBO’S LEGACY IN POPULAR CULTURE AND ACADEMIA







Television Detectives Influenced by Lieutenant Columbo


Spoofing the Lieutenant



Using Columbo’s Method in Our Everyday Lives
'Just One More Thing': Columbo and Spectatorship