I was making a post before about all my remarks to this episode, but of course: every next watching shows you new things to think about, for example:
- I think this is the only episode that for such a long time everything is happening during the night. Episode starts at night, and the first daylight you see after 32 minutes
- I think I didn't notice that before: Columbo interviews Baxter, he asks about the time and Baxter says that Van Wick left exactly at 9:13 (that's what he said out loud), and then that he saw murder at 9:30. In the meantime Harold was supposed to drive to gallery (no idea how far away the gallery was but LA is "quite" a big city so wherever he was going it would took some time), make this foolish conversation with MArcy Hubbard, make himself comfortable, take a champagne. And everything that happened in only 17 minutes??
- just curiosity: knowing that German was a native language of Oskar Werner - what do you think about his accent (languages are some kind of my hobby). Does he sound really unnatural for American people? or was he quite good with it? Of course I hear a difference but I want to hear your opinion. This is basically a question for all the movies. How do you feel about language from actors who were not born in USA? That was always interesting for me
- Harold tells Columbo to take off his shoes because his wife is careful about carpets. Columbo does it. But next scene we see Columbo without shoes and Harold is WITH his shoes, why didn't he take them off? :P
- maybe another time inconsequence: we see Harold kisses his wife and leave the room, then almost immediately after that he kills his mother-in-law and receives a telephone call from his wife that she'd heard something. But later on she tells Columbo that she started to read, then fell asleep and so on. I think it took her more time than Harold needed for his actions
- I love the gallery scene with Columbo. I read here couple of times that some people don't like it because Columbo makes a fool of himself only in front of villains just to make them underestimate him. And if he does it with somebody else it is just stupid from writers. I don't think this way. I can easily believe that there are areas of life that Columbo doesn't follow that much, like art, sports, opera etc. So I can also easily see him being totally lost while being thrown in the middle of something like that. He is very smart and observant, but this fields don't need him to be observant. You can be very good with your intuition about people but you can know nothing about needlework for example. And I find this scene really funny because I personally think exactly the same as Columbo, my reactions for modern art would be exactly the same as his

I also believe this may be the Columbo episode in which most of the scenes occur in one location,which is the Van Wyck house

Another funny thing there is where Columbo watches the tape of murder with Harold, just after the murder Columbo says: "That's fantastic!". Of course he meant the fact that all is recorded on tape but maybe not a suitable comment to the guy whose mother-in-law death they just saw on tape :P

This is a top five episode for me. One of the saddest moments of the whole Columbo series is Elizabeth's reaction at the end. I read that the 1970s technology wouldn't have been able to show such a close up of the invitation on video. I'm not sure I buy that. Regardless, it doesn't lesson my liking of the episode.

Oskar Werner's accent sounds very German, which fits the character. He is easy to understand and I like the accent. However, I'd take Marcie and her Australian accent any time. I'd even pretend to love modern art and kitschy 70's technology. I think Harold Van Wick had his eyes on her.

Oskar Werner is fantastic in the movie "The Spy Who Came In From The Cold". The book is much better (John Le Carre), but the movie's not bad and Werner as an East German officer does a great job.