Hi,

I'm Yuko from Japan, an avid Columbo fan - quite a long time ago I first watched one episode in my late father's lap. Back then he truly admired Columo, the most unusual and extraordinary cop ever. I naturally became more and more interested and came to look forward to the weekly American drama with him, which he enjoyed a lot, too.

Grown up to love Columbo myself, I got to see all episodes over and over - and one day I was shocked to nocice something when I was watching "Make Me a Perfect Murder" in English with the English subtitle.

About one hour from the beginning, Columbo's fellow cop comes running in the corridor to him, "Leutenaunt! Leutenaunt!", to tell him of the lead they'd just got. He whispers to Columbo so the line is not really clear. On my DVD, the English subtitle says, "We found something. It's the gun. It's in the top of the elevator."

Why I was shocked? Because the dubbed Japanese for the scene is something like, "There is somebody who saw a suspicious man of this height [see the gesutres] walking around", and I'd completely been used to that line. To follow the Japanese version, this episode evolves with more suspense retained till the end of the story, as you will not know that Columbo already knew of the weapon when he put the trap on Kay. On the other hand, when you are aware that Columbo was really astutely ( slyly ) setting a trap on Kay, it may even feel like a damper?

So my questions are:
1) Is this line "We found something..... " audible to native English speakers? With normal volume?

2) What do you think of the Japanese versoin? Which do you think makes the episode better?

Hi Yuko,

Welcome to the site.

I re-watched that episode last night on youtube and the original English version has the conversation between Columbo and his colleague completely inaudible. All the English soundtrack has is some muffled voices. So only after-the-fact can anyone watching the English version infer what was being said.

The sub-title writers inserted a "spoiler" when they put the sub-titles in and the Japanese dubbers just made up the dialogue!

I'm not sure I have that DVD, but maybe I'll look and play it with sub-titles on to see if the American DVD has the same sub-titles you saw.

Again, welcome to the site!

Thanks for your kind reply! I'm really happy that I found this site, where all you great fans gather and discuss Columbo. To me the only "America" back then was what I could see through Columbo, and as a very young girl I started to long to see his country just for once ( or more than that ) someday. Really, now with all kinds of gadgets available, any TV dramas, music, pop culture of across the world are just one click away, but things were totally different back then. Columbo was my only "textbook" to see that there is another world out there. A good world where such a good cop teaches a lesson to bad guys.

So this scene was kind of "after-the-fact"-ly arranged so it could imply Columbo's determination ( the English version ) or leave the crucial part untold until close to the ending ( the Japanese version ).

I appreciate you saying that you'll be trying to see the subtible for the scene sometime. It'd be even more interesting if some DVD has a completely different line.:upside_down_face:

As you can imagine, Columbo has been very popular here even now and occasionally they re-run good episodes over and over. Just the other day our national TV broadcast conducted a poll "Which episode do you like the best?" and they are showing the top 20s now. https://www9.nhk.or.jp/kaigai/columbo/special/

One reason that made this show such a longtime hit here comes from the actor who dubbed Peter Fork as well as the exquisite Japanese translation. Columbo speaks very tasteful, polite Japanese with very throughtfully-chosen wording.

Thanks again!

Hi Yuko

It is great to hear from you. Welcome!

What is your favorite episode? Mine is "By Dawn's Early Light." I like his chemistry with Patrick McGoohan. I also liked when he stayed in the barracks on campus. Patrick McGoohan received an Emmy for his portrayal of Col. Mumford.

I'm very fortunate, I have every show on DVD so I can watch the episodes several times over. It seems that when I rewatch the shows, I learn something new.

Thank you Ted, cindy, for your warm welcome!
( But I noticed the big typo in the title of this thread..... :scream: of course I meant NATIVE speakers! My apology.. )

And thanks for asking about my favorite episode. I too think he was phenomenal in "By Dawn's Early Light" with Patric McGoohan. I guess my favorite one is "The Bye-Bye Sky High I.Q. Murdur Case." I liked it when he was talking so sweet with the young girl and made her a happy girl. Also I find it just cool when he talked about himself - "All my life I kept running into smart people...."

Yes, watching Columbo DVDs, I also find something new, can somehow see things in different lights every time I see it. One great thing with Columbo stories, especially the earlier episodes.