Another nitpicky kind of thing that I don't remember anybody mentioning before is the ribbon. There really should not be spaces between the words on the ribbon. The keys punch letters in the ribbon, but using the space bar would not require use of the ribbon.

The message could still be read and understood without spaces between the words, so it is still decent evidence, but I suppose putting spaces in makes it easier for the viewer to read it.

Well, E you are a youngin.....you just turned 23 on the 26th, right? ....(yeah, I messed your birthday up with Rob's...sorry!)........If I remember from high school days, with that same typewriter, the spaces were shown. I could be wrong on this, but that is what I remember. If you pressed on the spacebar you got a space on the ribbon....again I will say that my memory may be wrong....
And tfl, that is why I enjoy Columbo so much...you can watch these shows over and over and not notice all the little things...and then you watch it one more time and see something and it is terrific....

Santini probably figured that if a detail-oriented master magician such as himself could not find the hiding place of the letter, no one else would.

Cassavetes, I turned 27 on the 26th (but I loved my 23rd year!), but I still think that qualifies me as a "youngin"! I didn't know that about the space bar and the ribbon. Thanks for straightening me out!

Oh E I messed up again! First I mix up your birthday with Rob's and then I don't get your age right. I have to learn to read my own hand-writing.

And yes....in my book..you are still a youngin'.

I just saw this episode - it's not one of my favourites and has many plotholes. Perhaps not having his raincoat muddled Columbo for this one? I know Columbo's approach to policing has little bearing on real life but there are a few things that stood out on this one which broke my suspension of disbelief. One is the typewriter - surely a police investigation would have thrown this up right at the start (and a master-illusionist should have known about the ribbon anyway)? The second (and most glaring) is that the police let Santini get away without disclosing where he was at the time of the murder. The unpickable lock angle didn't go anywhere, the phony call for coffee was forgotten about. Santini's act was truly awful - he spends half of the act offstage, apparently enough time to do all he did for the murder (which would never have taken 9 minutes). And his attempt to mimik accents was hilarious.

At least, while Santini is trapped "in the box", he has his daughter entertain the audience with some little routines to pass the time.

When they did the same bit with a murderous musician on "Diagnosis: Murder" (the ONLY time I have seen that show), it was truly, glaringly stupid. That show asked us to believe that a paying audience would just stare at a box on the stage -- in the story's timeline, it was something like a half-hour -- while the magician was off somewhere killing somebody. I like Dick Van Censored, so I hope his show isn't always that awful.

Of course, everyone is entitled to their own opinions... SO HERE'S MINE!

-----One is the typewriter - surely a police investigation would have thrown this up right at the start (and a master-illusionist should have known about the ribbon anyway)?-----

The typewriter used in the episode was pretty much brand new technology at the time. Why would police know about it's type of ribbon prior to having to learn about it for the sake of an investigation of some sort? The same goes for the master illusionist. Why would Santini have known anything about the type of new-fangled ribbon Jesse's typewriter used? Would "Magician's Monthly" magazine have featured that typewriter for some reason?

-----The second (and most glaring) is that the police let Santini get away without disclosing where he was at the time of the murder.-----

That Santini didn't want to discuss where he was at the time of the murder pretty much put all the focus on him. That got Columbo's thinker thinking right off the bat. (Although Santini didn't seem to care that the restaurant's wait staff knew where he was while "in the box" on stage.)

-----The unpickable lock angle didn't go anywhere-----

Sure it did. It went up on stage with Columbo and the police handcuffs. Santini being able to pick the lock on the "unpickable" handcuffs gave Columbo the info he was looking for - that Santini could easily have picked the "unpickable" lock on Jesse's office door. More evidence for his case against Santini.

-----the phony call for coffee was forgotten about-----

How would anyone know that the call for coffee was phony? As far as anyone knew, Jesse himself placed the phone call for the coffee, hung up the phone, heard a knock at his office door, walked over, opened the door and got murdered. Neither Columbo nor anyone else had any reason to think that Jesse had not placed the call.

-----Santini's act was truly awful - he spends half of the act offstage, apparently enough time to do all he did for the murder (which would never have taken 9 minutes)-----

I've seen "real" magician acts. Trust me, Santini's act was pretty darn good compared to some acts I've seen! As to how long it would have taken to commit the murder? Get out of the box, down the ladder, get into his waiter disguise, make it through the kitchen, up the stairs, listen at the door, perform the "number" trick for the waiter, pick the lock, open the door, shoot Jesse, get the heck out of there... I just don't know. The guy was a trained german officer though. So efficiency would most certainly have been second nature to him. I also have to say that the box trick was cool. Especially after the daughter is revealed as having been in the box and then Santini unmasks himself as one of the stage hands!

-----And his attempt to mimik accents was hilarious-----

I thought his german accent was actung, baby! And his british cockney accent was spot on, gov'nor!

Those are my opinions and I'm sticking to them until I change my mind!

First, Ted, loved the "Dick Van Censored"!

Headache! "Magician's Monthly"?!?!? Classic. And I am lovin' them flags, Baby!!

One thing I really like about this episode is the fact that I find each time I watch it I discover something new. (I guess I can say that about every episode!) It wasn't until recently that I realized that Santini kicked his daughter out of the act for having bad taste in men. And that goes back to the whole Nazi thing, and his daughter's boyfriend possibly, if not certainly, being Jewish.