Just One More Thing: Publish or Perish

Notes and screenshots for Publish or Perish: Originally broadcast on Jan 18, 1974, starring the great Jack Cassidy as manuscript-pilfering publisher Riley Greenleaf, crime author Mickey Spillane as a ... crime author, Mariette Hartley in her first of two Columbo appearances and, of course, Peter Falk as Columbo.

"A book publisher hires a bomb-making veteran to murder a bestselling author of detective novels after the author decides to submit his latest novel to a different publisher. Lieutenant Columbo is on the case."

-IMDB Summary

"When a best selling author tries to leave Riley Greenleaf’s (played by Jack Cassidy) publishing company, the smooth, smarmy operator sees no choice but to have the writer killed, then blow up the creep he hired to do the deed. “Publish or Perish” is the last Jack Cassidy Columbo episode we’ll be covering, and it’s a doozy. Mickey Spillane! Bomb-making books! Bad interior design! Chili with catsup! Alan Fudge! The Valley! Leonard Pierce (leonardpierce.com) returns to the podcast to give it all a good look-over."

-RJ's episode summary

Listen to the original podcast episode here:

Episode 42: Pocket-Sized Hemingway with our guest Leonard Pierce. 

Publish or Perish

Season 3, Episode #5

Director: Robert Butler

Writers: Peter S. Fischer

I love Patrick McGoohan and Robert Culp immensely, and I think McGoohan in particular has been at the helm of some of the best Columbo episodes in the show’s entire run. That being said -- give me Jack Cassidy, any day of the week! Sinister gladhanding chrub Jack Cassidy, malevolent rubber glove-with-teeth Jack Cassidy! Haunted ventriloquists’ dummy Jack Cassidy! I love this man!

The obvious glee with which Cassidy plays Riley Greenleaf is almost aggressively appealing. He’s possibly the only Columbo villain I can recall who’s gloating in every single second of the show, even before the murder plot is under way ... well, except for Cassidy’s first appearance in Murder By The Book.

And this is a fun episode -- I think, of Cassidy’s three, it’s my favorite. It’s also one of the most diversely filmed episodes. The dutch angles and split screens must have cost a fortune. But they look amazing.

Cassidy's early death was a genuine loss to film and television. He played oily, charming, cheerfully malevolent men in a fashion which would have suited today’s boutique television in incomparable fashion. It’s unlikely that, untimely death aside, Cassidy would have lived long enough to have played a colorful, aged villain on shows like Breaking Bad, Sons of Anarchy, or even The Walking Dead ... but picture it, if you can. I would’ve given a couple of toes for him to have had even a small role on Deadwood. 

Next episode: Mind Over Mayhem