Just One More Thing: Death Lends A Hand

Notes and screenshots for Death Lends A Hand: Originally broadcast on October 6 1971, starring Robert Culp as a private investigator turned blackmailer, Ray Milland as the victim's husband, Pat Crowley as the victim herself, of course, Peter Falk as Columbo.

Listen to the original podcast episode here:

Episode 29: It Happened with our guest J.D.Ryznar

Death Lends a Hand 

Season 1, Episode 2
Director: Bernard Kowalski
Writers: Levinson and Link

Netflix streaming starts with this episode, for some reason, and then ends the first season an episode early, denying viewers of the Spielberg/Bochco “Murder By The Book” and the Falk/Bochco “Blueprint for Murder”. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s something I said.

"Death Lends" Stars Robert Culp as a private security expert and would-be blackmailer who inadvertently murders a client’s wife and is then hired by the client to investigate that same murder. Bonk! Culp just radiates pure guilt in this episode, with that strangely appealing mix of alpha male arrogance and barely concealed adolescent frustration that are so predominant in his work that I have to imagine he was a bit of a goddamn pill in real life. Dabney Coleman had that same veneer, and probably you could switch Coleman and Culp out fairly seamlessly in any of their roles. Anyway, whadda I care, I love ‘em both.

Was Kowalski known for the kind of symbolic staging and camera tricks he pulls during the murder scene? Slo mo, overlays, the crashing glass and the hiding of the evidence reflected in Culp’s glasses … I know the guy directed everything, so I’m sure it must have popped up somewhere else, unless the longer shooting time of Columbo gave him room to experiment…