On September 15, 1971, NBC premiered “Murder by the Book,” the first episode of Columbo’s regular series run and an early installment of The NBC Mystery Movie. The program followed two feature-length television films—1968’s Prescription: Murder and 1971’s Ransom for a Dead Man—that had introduced Peter Falk’s rumpled, deceptively shrewd Lieutenant Columbo.
“Murder by the Book” helped establish the approach that made Columbo distinctive. Rather than concealing the murderer’s identity until the final minutes, the episode shows the crime near the beginning. The drama then comes from watching Columbo gradually unsettle a killer who initially believes he has planned the perfect crime. This “inverted” mystery structure turned the familiar whodunit into a sustained contest of nerves, observation, and social performance.
The episode was directed by 24-year-old Steven Spielberg, then an early-career television director working under contract at Universal. It starred Falk opposite Jack Cassidy, with Martin Milner and Rosemary Forsyth in supporting roles.
Falk’s Columbo—disheveled, courteous, persistent, and routinely underestimated—became one of television’s defining detectives. His apparent digressions and politely persistent questions made the character’s eventual deductions feel earned rather than merely announced. The character’s associated “just one more thing” line became a lasting part of the show’s identity, although Columbo did not always use the exact same phrase.
More than a successful detective series, Columbo demonstrated how a mystery could create suspense even when viewers knew the culprit from the start. Its focus on the mental duel between detective and murderer, often played against wealth, status, and professional arrogance, helped make it an enduring model for television crime drama.
Image: Peter Falk as Lieutenant Columbo, early 1970s. Wikimedia Commons, public domain.
