I can just hear their comments ...

In "Identity Crisis", when Columbo confers with Kramer out on the street just after checking with Henderson's employer, you can see a few curiously amazed onlookers peering right into the camera from inside the building lobby, as the Columbo scene we're watching is being shot live outside.

I know they'll often allow street spectators ... especially when they add authenticity to productions made outside of the studio, but you can tell that these unrehearsed specimens stumbled onto the boundaries of a film crew and couldn't take their eyes off the action.

It's obvious why they didn't bother to reshoot an otherwise perfect sequence, because against daylight reflections, you've got to be looking beyond the darkened glass to see them.

They're visible the clearest at 27:00 minutes into the episode ...it's a hoot, and I still get the impression Falk was tickled by the spectacle they were causing when they shot the scene that day.

There are subtleties in-and-about this episode I find downright distasteful, but Pete's masterful indifferences makes it as fun to view as any of them. It was also a treat to finally see the frames deleted by TV broadcasts over the years.

I mean, I'd never witnessed Brenner sitting in the Citroen yanking off his Steinmetz disguise before!

i love that scene mark. it is like 2 or 3 office guys in shirts and ties, and they are just having a ball!!