Columbo Episode: Any Old Port in a Storm

"Columbo" was a television crime drama series set in Los Angeles, the original episodes of which were broadcast on NBC. The show was revived later with new episodes and broadcast on ABC. The basic format of the series was that the audience was shown who the killer was right in the first few minutes of the episode, as the crime was being committed. The crux of the show was HOW Lieutenant Columbo, an expert, but somewhat eccentric, Los Angeles Police Department detective, would catch the killer.* The killers were not people from Skid Row (hic... 'scuse me!), but rather from the upper levels of society (hic... 'scuse me again!). This episode has always been a favorite of mine, certainly helped along in that regard because it featured English actor Donald Pleasence, a favorite actor of mine; and, because the story had a good deal about wine (hic... damn I can't stop! Maybe some Chianti will help?). The episode was first televised in 1973.

Main Cast for this episode:

Peter Falk: Los Angeles Police Detective Columbo
Donald Pleasence: Adrian Carsini
Julie Harris: Karen Fielding
Gary Conway: Rick Carsini
Joyce Jillson: Joan, Rick Carsini's fiancée
Vito Scotti: Maitre d'
Monty (Monte) Landis: Wine steward


Adrian and Rick Carsini are half brothers. The family has been in the wine business for many years, and when their father died, he left Rick the land on which the vineyards and the winery had been built, but he left Adrian the money he had saved. The two men are very different, with Rick liking parties, scuba diving, sports cars and women, and Adrian liking wine, including the collecting of wines from various eras, some of which are very expensive. He also demands that the winery make high quality wine, some of which is not even sold to the public, but rather kept for private use. Adrian has a pretty serious personality. Rick's lifestyle leads him to need money at times, and he and Adrian clash over it. Karen is Adrian's long time secretary.

One Sunday, as Adrian prepares to fly to a wine auction in New York City, he meets with three other wine lovers from the wine industry. Rick goes to Adrian's office because he needs some money, as he is planning to get married in Acapulco, Mexico; his fourth marriage. Adrian wants his guests to try a special wine he has for them, but when he goes to his office to get it, Rick is there waiting to ask for the money. The two exchange some barbs, but the real crux of the matter is when Rick tells Adrian that he is going to sell the land to another wine producing family, the Marino brothers, a family detested by snobbish Adrian, because they produce cheap wine; "the 69 cents a gallon Marino brothers," Adrian calls them. Just for perspective, in 1973, you could buy a glass of beer in many neighborhood bars for about 10 to 15 cents. Adrian tells Rick that the Marinos don't really make wine, "they don't even make good mouthwash," but Rick counters with, "But they make money!" He recounts how Adrian has spent loads of money on fancy bottles of wine he will never drink. The heated exchange and Rick's plan to sell the land to the Marino brothers brings Adrian to pick up an object and hit Rick over the head, knocking him unconscious. Adrian takes the wine to go out to his guests, but Karen comes in. She tells him that she sees Rick's car out front, but Adrian says Rick went to another part of the winery, and he quickly tells her to go pack more clothing, as they will be staying in New York longer than first anticipated. Adrian later returns and drags Rick into the climate controlled wine vault, where he binds and gags Rick, then switches off the air conditioning system. Since he will be driving his own car to the airport, he puts Rick's car into his garage. He and Karen leave for the airport to fly to the wine auction. On the plane, Adrian tells Karen to send Rick a wedding gift of $5000, a pretty decent sum of money in 1973 (between $28,500 and $29,500 in 2019 value. Everything between Adrian and Karen is very proper, and it's tough to imagine Carsini could ever love anything but wine, although there are little moments where Karen seems to want more than a purely secretary-boss relationship. 

At the auction, Adrian spends thousands of dollars, including $5000 for ONE BOTTLE! As the plane lands back in Los Angeles, Karen asks Adrian if he will need a ride, but he tells her he brought his car. He asks if she brought her car, and she answers that she didn't, "I'll take a cab," to which Adrian says, "Right." She looks a bit hurt.** When Adrian returns home, he goes to the wine vault where Rick is dead. He takes his body and puts scuba diving gear onto it, then he puts the body into Rick's sports car, loads a bicycle into the trunk, and he drives to the coast, where he tosses the body over a cliff and into the Pacific. He uses the bicycle to return home. Rick's fiancée has already gone to the Los Angeles police to report Rick missing, but she ends up talking with Detective Columbo, who is a homicide detective. Columbo likes her, but he doesn't seem to give the case high priority. Then later, Columbo goes to the coast after a report of a body being found. Rick's car is still there. Columbo is told on the scene that it is Rick's body, and he feels badly for the girl, but he's also told that it's an apparent accident, and that while scuba diving, Rick hit his head on a rock, knocking him unconscious, and his oxygen ran out. At that point, it "seems" Rick's death is accidental. Later, as Columbo sits in a bar watching the 11 o'clock news, the story about Rick's death comes on with a detail that Rick died 6 days before. In typical fashion for Columbo, he goes to the pay phone and calls for information to find out if it had rained on the day of Rick's death, but he's told there won't be any one available to help him until the next day, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Soooo, Columbo hangs up the phone and simply announces loudly, "Excuse me!" The people in the bar look toward him and he asks his question about rain on that one day. No one can answer. 

The next day Columbo goes to the winery, and before going in to see Adrian, he uses a phone to call about the weather info. We don't actually know what he's told, but he's very happy as he makes a note on his little note pad (a regular part of Columbo's routine when investigating). He meets Adrian's secretary, Karen Fielding, and she directs Columbo to the lab, where Adrian is talking with one of the lab people. *** Columbo and Adrian go to Adrian's office. Carsini gives Columbo some wine and the detective asks some questions, but along with Karen's help, he finds out that Adrian had been in New York City when Rick died. We do learn the weather information Columbo sought for the day Rick died, which included showers and even heavy rain. Columbo wonders why no one reported seeing the flashy sports car sitting there on the coast for several days, and why Rick would leave the top down when he went scuba diving on a day when it rained. Columbo had left the winery number if there was information from the medical examiner, and as he prepares to leave a call comes telling him that Rick had not eaten for 2 days prior to his death. Karen hears Columbo's side of the brief conversation, but Columbo repeats some of what he's being told.

Columbo talks with two of the men who were at the winery the day Adrian left for New York City. He finds that Adrian left the presence of the men for a while. He then goes to a wine expert to learn the basics about wine, including about Carsini's wines. Off he goes to the winery again, where he impresses Adrian with his newly acquired knowledge of wine. He then comments that he learned about wine used for investments. Carsini tells him about the $5000 bottle of wine and Columbo asks if he can see some of the expensive wines Carsini has. Adrian takes him into the wine vault and explains that he uses the air conditioning to prevent the wine from overheating on hot days. Columbo asks to use the phone and he goes and calls his wife to find out some details about a recent unusually hot day. He also asks Adrian how someone would get out of the vault, if locked in, but Adrian assures him the door only locks from the outside. To prove it to Columbo, Carsini leaves him in the vault and goes out and closes the door. Columbo easily gets out. As the two men walk to Columbo's car, Carsini asks when his brother's body will be released, and Columbo tells him the police haven't released the body because Rick's car had been out on the coast for all of those days and it rained, but there were no watermarks on the car. Carsini has been gradually getting more concerned by Columbo, but this makes him realize there are flaws in how he tried to cover up the murder.

Columbo goes to Karen's residence and asks her about the day she and Adrian left for New York City, and if she saw Rick come and leave. Karen lies and answers that she had seen Rick come in and then leave. Columbo now assures her that he's "wrapping up the case." He uses her telephone to call Adrian to apologize to him and to invite him and Karen to dinner at a fancy restaurant the next night. Always the master of making people feel uncomfortable about false testimony, Columbo leaves her apartment, "apparently satisfied," but then taps on her window to ask her how long she has worked for Adrian. She answers "12 years." Columbo comments that "you must like him very much." As was his intention, his question and remark leave her wondering if he really meant he was "wrapping up the case." But there's still the expensive dinner, right?

Adrian takes Karen in his car as they go off to meet Columbo for dinner. Carsini tells Karen how they've always been very proper in their behavior with one another, and how she always calls him, "Mr. Carsini." So he says that she can call him "Adrian" for the evening, and perhaps even beyond. They meet Columbo at the restaurant and have their dinner. Carsini tells Columbo again how impressed he is by the detective's quick learning about wine and by Columbo's great selections of wine for the dinner so far. Now for dessert and Columbo's selection of a dessert wine. He calls over the wine steward and tells him he wants a bottle of "Ferrier Vintage Port, 1945." Carsini openly says that it's highly doubtful the wine steward has such a rare wine in the restaurant's wine cellar, but after a short wait, the wine steward arrives and says, "We had one bottle." He pours a glass for Columbo, who likes it and who says in his working guy way, "Drinks all around." Carsini is totally excited to try the wine, but when he takes a sip, he turns surly, saying, "This is dreadful," and he goes on to say that the wine has been exposed to a temperature over 150 degrees; and thus, it is spoiled. He loudly admonishes the wine steward, bringing the maitre d' to the table, who also then bears a further outburst from Carsini. The check is forgiven and the trio go outside where Columbo and Carsini discuss the wine and heat a little further. Columbo now drops a remark certain to catch Carsini's attention. He mentions that when Adrian and Karen were in New York City, the temperature one day in Los Angeles shot up to 109 degrees, and that he and his family had to return early from a picnic, due to the extreme heat. Carsini obviously takes note. Then Columbo drops another bomb. He thanks Karen for helping him close the case on Rick's death by telling him that she saw Rick come to, and then leave, the winery on the Sunday she and Adrian left for New York. As Adrian and Karen prepare to leave in his car, he asks her why she lied to Columbo. She tells him, "I thought I was helping you." Eventually she tells Carsini she is now his "partner," and that she wants "more than $700 a month and 2 weeks paid vacation," and that if Adrian did kill his brother, she understands, because Rick wanted to take away "the only thing you've ever loved." Carsini has many things going through his mind and he tells her they'll talk more the next day.

Carsini goes to the wine vault and assembles the many valuable bottles of wine. He takes the wines to the coast and begins tossing them into the ocean. When he returns to his car for more wine, Columbo is there waiting. At first Carsini tries lying, but Columbo has him. The detective tells Carsini that the one super hot day did him in, as, with the air conditioning turned off in the wine vault, the temperature in the vault soared upward over 150 degrees and ruined Carsini's wine collection. He tells Carsini further, that the day he was left alone in the wine vault very briefly, he took a bottle of wine... a bottle of, "Ferrier Vintage Port, 1945." So, it was Carsini's own bottle of wine that he himself declared to be spoiled; oxidized by the heat. Columbo had had the wine steward cooperate about the bottle of port. Columbo tells Carsini that he deliberately mentioned the 109 degree day as they were leaving the restaurant, because he knew it would get Carsini's attention, and that he would likely dispose of the ruined wine. Carsini mentions the irony to it all, as he says that he is one of the few people in the world who could have determined that the port was bad from overheating. Carsini says he'll confess and he tells Columbo how Karen has been "turning the screws" on him. In an absolutely great scene, Columbo takes Carsini back to the winery and stops the car. He reaches to the back seat and brings out a bottle of wine, "Montefiascone," which Carsini says is appropriate for the final course. Columbo has two wine glasses and the men have a glass of wine together. There's no hatred between them.

* The Columbo character became known and loved for his rather basic working guy ways. His tie was often crooked, he wore an old wrinkled raincoat, he smoked (or sometimes chewed on) cigars, much to the dismay of many around him, and he drove a late 1950s gray Peugeot automobile, which sputtered at times, and which badly needed a paint job, at the very least. In this episode, in fact, Columbo proudly tells a valet parking attendant, "I've got over a hundred thousand miles on it. You take care of your car, it'll take care of you." In those times, 100,000 miles was considered a major milestone in the life of a car. And by the way, the attendant has trouble starting the car to park it. The car and its owner go together.                     

** As I mentioned, at times Karen seems to want more from Adrian than her relationship with him as his secretary. She handles many of his personal affairs, and she even carries his checkbook. Remember too, Adrian tells Karen to send his brother a $5000 check. We eventually learn that Karen makes $700 a month, and 2 weeks paid vacation. Karen has also been witness to Adrian's extravagant spending on expensive wines. This by a person who makes $700 a month.     

*** The lab technician is played by Rand Brooks, a well known face, if not necessarily a well known name, as he played Scarlett O'Hara's first husband, Charles Hamilton, in 1939's "Gone With the Wind." When I was a kid in the 1950s, Brooks played in the television series "The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin," about a boy and his German Shepherd dog at Fort Apache in the Old West.

Photo is from the Universal Home Entertainment Season 3 DVD 

WORD HISTORY:
Any-This little word has a number of meanings, depending upon usage. Like many of its Germanic relatives, it often means "one" or "some." While this might seem strange to modern English speakers, this word literally meant "one-y" in Old English, and was spelled "aenig." It was simply formed by "aen," meaning "one," and "ig," a common Germanic suffix, which eventually in English morphed into a "y" sound. It goes back to Indo European "oinos," which meant, "one, singe, individual," which gave Old Germanic "ainagas," meaning, "one only, of one." This then gave Old English (Anglo-Saxon) "aenig," as mentioned above. Old Saxon, the part of the Germanic Saxon dialect that remained on the Continent (its other part sailed with the Saxons who went to Britain and combined with other Germanic dialects there to form English), had "enig," and Old Frisian, another Germanic dialect closely related to English, had "enich." Old English "ænig" then became "eny," before moving to the spelling "any," but English kept the pronunciation "eny" as the pronunciation! German has "einig" (meaning "some, any"), but it was once spelled "einic," but like English with "eny" and "any," some German dialects have "eenich," while others have "aanich." German also has the compound "einigermaßen," the adverbial use of which means, "somewhat, to some measure or extent," Low German has "enig," Frisian no longer commonly uses a form of the word, but some Frisian speakers apparently still use "eenich/ienich," Dutch has "enig," Old Norse had "einigr," but its  descendants didn't continue with forms of the word, except Icelandic, which has (had?) "einigur," which "seemingly" is antiquated.