Watched two of my favorite columbo episodes today..Murder by the book, and death lends a hand. Its nice they are on the same disk!I have watched these episopdes so many times and never ever get tired of seeing them. But for the first time I noticed in murder by the book at the very begining when ken franklin goes to the office to see james ferris and offers the champaign.. the peace pipe, that james ferris has a pack of marlboro cigarettes in his shirt pocket, clearly visible you can see the logo of marlboro thru his shirt pocket, and in different scenes the cigarettes are gone, and then reappear. Has anyone else noticed this? Its amazing what you can still see after watching these so many times.I cant pick a favorite episode of mine, but my top three would have to be murder by the book, death lends a hand, and the great.. a friend in deed! Ron

I didn't notice the Marlboro cigarettes, but I have noticed other things in that episode, some I have already stated here in previous postings.

Murder By The Book is probably my favorite Columbo episode. In fact, all three episodes with Jack Cassidy rank in my top five.

With respect to MBTB, I had been looking intently at the Franklin cabin scenes and also the La Sanka general store scenes. As such, I was freeze framing many of the scenes and/or watching them in slow motion. In these modes it's much easier to spot incongruities.

For instance, in the Frankling cabin, before Frankin kills Ferris, the couch has clear plastic covering it. But later, when Columbo visits the cabin the plastic covering is gone.

Whe Franklin murders Ms. La Sanka and flips the small boat over (it's obiviously a water set as Big Bear Lake, I'm sure, would have been too cold) the boat has a ribbed hull. But when the divers were towing the boat in the next day the hull of the boat was unribbed.

When Columbo visited the La Sanka store while the sheriff's office personel were there, Columbo wanders back in the room with the wall telephone on it, then peaks through the door curtain leading back to La Sanka's living area. Note the bulletin board on the wall just before Columbo walks through the curtain. Then, as Columbo walks through the curtain into La Sanka's living area, note the bulletin board again. You will see a green floor mop leaning up against the bulletin board that wasn't previously there a second ago. Further, some of the papers posted on the bulletin board are different.

Also, the corner cabinet in the La Sanka living quarters appears identical to the corner cabinet in the kitchen of the Ferris home.

I have concluded that the La Sanka living quarters and the storage type room with the wall telephone must be a studio set. Why? Because in two scenes when you can see from inside the store (from counter area) into the storage room (with the wall phone) there appears to me to be a washing machine covered by a sheet (to disquise it), white colored wall cabinets, and there's no curtian covered doorway leading to the La Sanka living area (wall cabinets are here). Yet, when Ken Franklin walks back into the storage room to make a telephone call there's no washer, no wall cabinets, but a curtain covered doorway leading to La Sanka's living area.

You can see the sheet covered washer when Ms. La Sanka appears from the back room holding candy jars after Ken Franklin calls out to her, and again when Columbo comes back out to the store from La Sanka's living area.

This is all just insignifigant trivia, but I just notice these things.

Funny that someone notice those things, i can watch 10 tmes a episode and never notice one little mis-take, even when i pay attention to it.

But in the early seventies you could afford a few small missers cause no one had a videoset or were very rare,
even Steven Spielberg!

I always thought the covering was to prevent blood from staining the couch after Ferris is shot. The plastic was disposed of along with the body.

That's logical, but I'm wondering if the plastic just wasn't a dust cover, used when the cabin (actual owner) was away for extended time periods -- and overlooked (removed) in the first scenes.

I say that as, if the plastic was to prevent blood staining the couch, there was no emphasis placed on the plastic prior to the murder, e.g., shots of Ken Franklin installing the plastic to set up the murder scene, and putting emphasis on the telephone by the couch to assure that Ferris would set on the couch to use the phone, etc. Nor was there a shot Franklin rolling Ferris up in the plastic, or closing his car trunk, showing Jim Ferris's body in it wrapped in the plastic. (The hallmark of almost all of the Columbo episode murderers show how they carefully and meticulously set-up/prepare the murder scene, so as to make the murder foolproof (their chances of being caught) for the viewer. I didn't see this concerning the plastic, that's why I questioned it.

It's possible that there may indeed have been some emphasis of Ken Franklin preparing the cabin for Ferris's murder, but due to run-time considerations those scenes where left on the cutting room floor.

The plastic on the sofa always reminds me of the film Lethal Weapon 2.

"Just checking to see if I'm standing on plastique"(sic).

okay, i probably won't add any insightful ideas here, but this subject has come up so many times over the past few months and i just need to post on it.

plastic on a sofa is not a rare thing..especially if you grow up in an italian home. there is a need to protect furniture with plastic covering, despite the totally uncomfortably feeling of sitting down on a couch covered with heavy plastic. comfort wasn't 'big' back then in an italian home, only appearance was.

i believe the plastic coverings on ken franklins's sofa were originally there to protect his furniture in the off-season. ya gotta do that stuff when you close up a summer home. and then when he wanted to knock off james ferris (a.k.a. headache) he used it to wrap the body up.
he was multi-tasking...and being 'green', because he used the same plastic to do a number of things.

I think we must have the same boxset as I was watching the same disc last night!
I know the Columbo series doesn't "do" menace very often but one scene in that episode has always given me the creeps somewhat.
It's when Ken is driving Jim up to the house by the woods and they're talking about the concept of deja-vu.
It's like Jim has a feeling that all is not well but he can't put his finger on why.
Perhaps it's because the scene takes place in a car which is taking Jim to his death. All that beautiful scenery outside.
Don't know - but it's eerie.