Tonight I revisited "Double Exposure" and for the first time I tried to get a sense of what was missing from this episode. I think there's a general agreement that this was an episode scripted and shot to be a two hour show yet for some reason it was decided to cut it down to a 90 minute time slot. Exactly why is kind of hard to fathom since the previous Columbo, "Candidate For Crime" was a two hour show.

Perhaps someday a shooting script for "Double Exposure" will surface to finally answer the questions (it alas is not one of the Columbo scripts you can get from the vendor that sells scripts of vintage TV shows) but for the moment this is my theory based on how the episode seemed to me, especially coming on the heels of watching the previous episode which was two hours.

1-The episode really starts "cold" with Kepple doing the set-up for the murder. It has a kind of "joined in progress" feel to it. I'm convinced now that there was some kind of background scene prior to this, and specifically I think this is where there might have been an extended scene of Arlene Martel as the phantom Tanya Baker. We know from the golf course scene that Columbo says she "flew to Lisbon on the day of the murder" so there was no chance for a scene post-murder other than the moment of Columbo calling her which was an abrupt conversation as he recalled it. Assuming that scene was filmed too of Tanya brushing off Columbo with, "You're not Dr. Kepple" that hardly seems like a long enough scene for hiring Arlene Martel for a role that was listed first at the back end of the credits. However, if there was a scene with Tanya and Kepple *before* the murder and before the cut of the episode begins where he gets her plane ticket for Lisbon perhaps and they have one romantic moment perhaps, and he might tell her to wait there until he calls her. It would have been *essential* for Kepple's plan to have Tanya out of the country before the killing took place so that she could not be a suspect.

2-The scene where Roger comes to blackmail Kepple also starts with "joined in progress" feel to it. I'm sure this scene was longer originally.

3-The matter of Mrs. Norris as a suspect. It's interesting how after Kepple goes to the trouble of stealing Norris's gun and leaving it at the scene of Roger's murder how there's *no* discussion involving her being picked up or cleared etc. or attempting to link the gun to the Norris murder (which was clearly Kepple's intent). I have to assume there were further scenes involving the clearing of Mrs. Norris as a suspect, and we have I think in a previous thread a few years ago noted that the "Columbo Phile" shows a picture of Columbo and Mrs. Norris from a scene that wasn't in the final cut. Speculation would perhaps indicate it was related to this issue where after she is cleared because (1) the gun stolen from her home could not be linked as the murder weapon in the shooting of her husband and (2) she also would have had an alibi for Roger's murder courtesy of her housekeeper (Alma Beltran, who at one time some of us thought was Arlene Martel in another kind of lost scene!). On this viewing for the first time I noticed how after going to all the trouble of setting up Mrs. Norris as the likely killer how Kepple is no longer on that subject by the time we're at the golf course scene.

4-Columbo's scene with Richard Stahl, the ballistics expert, also has a "joined in progress" feel and was likely longer to begin with.

All of this speculation of course and there was probably even more needed to account for the extra 23 minutes that would have gotten this episode to a two hour slot, but I think over the years the brilliance of the gotcha clue centered on subliminal cuts has tended to obscure the gaps in the narrative that exist here. Frankly, given how there's a lot of "padded" moments in "Candidate For Crime" I think given a choice I would have preferred that had been the episode trimmed to 90 minutes and this one left alone as a two hour show, because I think clearly that's what it was shot as and originally intended to be.

Thanks Eric, that's interesting. You're probably right about the Arlene part perhaps at the beginning, as we know she had to be in there at some point from the credits. I wish she had been, would have made it even more interesting.

What did you find to be the "padded" moments in Candidate for Crime?

A "prologue" scene between Kepple and Tanya would also I think have cleared up whether Tanya was an actual part of the murder plot against Norris. This is another point that is left unclear in the final version.

In "Candidate" I felt these scenes came off as padded:

1-Columbo's constant idling about at the crime scene and his "be right back" asides just to find out first the light inside the garage was out and then his stopping the ambulance to look at the body and see that Stone's shoes and slacks were "durable". This scene could have been trimmed in spots.

2-The visit to the tailor is also padded. Columbo goes into a rambling set-up of asking about material etc. before getting to the point about "When did Mr. Hayward order a coat?" It's one thing when Columbo will ramble in front of the suspect, but when he does it with someone who is clearly not a suspect it frankly doesn't wear well and comes off less as Columbo showing a quirk as the writer thinking "How do I get this to two hours?"

3-The whole sequence of Columbo being stopped and cited for violations on his car. Again, its a scene that builds up the mythos of Columbo and his car but it also doesn't advance the story at all and if we'd cut it, we wouldn't have missed it. We could also have trimmed down Columbo's jaunt in the garage truck back and forth from the beach house.

I have to admit I'm also curious as to why Hayward didn't offer as an explanation for where the phone call came from as "the killer had a car phone" because car phones were not an unknown item back then.

Interesting comments. I never thought of your idea that this episode
was shortened, and i although i enjoyed this episode i did have the feeling of something missing....

- It would have been nice to at least have a seen with Tanya Baker. Why is
Mr. Norris threatening Dr. Kepple with "asking the D.A. to look in to it"; when he is the one that evidently had an affair?

- When Dr.Kepple asks Columbo if he's talked to Mrs. Norris and Columbo kind of dismisses her as a suspect; then Dr. Kepple appears disappointed? I know Kepple told Columbo that "70% of murdered spouse are committed by the other spouse" but it was strange he showed his disappointment to Columbo that early on. Maybe that scene was moved up in sequence a bit?

No, I don't think it was moved up, I think the disappointment probably explained why Kepple then went to the trouble of breaking into the Norris home and stealing that particular gun to kill Roger, in the hopes of throwing suspicion back on her. What was to stop him from just using his own gun with the calibrating device to kill Roger?

The more I think about it, the more I'm convinced the missing Columbo-Mrs. Norris scene took place after Roger's murder to establish for Columbo that her house had been broken into and she had an alibi for that murder. She might also have given Columbo more insights into her husband that could make him see more Kepple's likely motive for killing him.

One thing that always bothered me about this episode, as well as another Robert Culp episode (Death Lends a Hand), is that why would someone with a highly successful business resort to blackmail. Particularly in this episode, it is way too risky to resort to this kind of activity. In Death Lends a Hand, I know it was supposed to help with information for his existing business, but there were better ways to do that. However, they are still two of my favourite episodes.

That's a good point. If Kepple's so brilliant and respected then he really doesn't have to resort to any of these stunts to curry favor with advertising agencies. Maybe if it were an extension of his own relationship with Tanya that might have provided an insight.

In Brimmer's case, it was more understandable. I think he felt that by having Mrs. Kennicutt give him what he wanted, that way he didn't have to waste the manpower of his own team to find out the info.

Yes, Brimmer's much more understandable, but quite expectedly risky as proven by the outcome. But Kepple was also an author of many books in his field, with a doctorate as mentioned multiple times, which made it very odd that he would run his business that way when you stopped to think about it. I agree it would have been great to have Arlene as the model, it would have tied it all together a bit better. I guess they didn't foresee all of us Columbo fans caring about continuity and details.

Thanks for the feedback Eric!

What makes the murder of Norris harder to understand is that (unlike Lenore Kennecut) he doesn't threaten to ruin the blackmailer himself. So Keppler really should have just dropped it.

One thing I find odd about Arlene Martel being missing from it is the model in that one frame of film, who ISN'T Arlene Martel. You'd think Tanya Baker would be the girl in that photo, especially since you also hear that she's THE model that the company uses, as opposed to one of several. I've said it before, but if she'd been in that photo, she'd at least be in the episode in a technical way.

And of course, she and Robert Culp having no scenes together (in the finished version) is a real missed opportunity, especially to anyone who's seen their OUTER LIMITS episode.

All the footage we saw in the "documentary" though clearly came from pieces of material in the Universal stock library. The shot of lower Manhattan we see in the second showing of it is a shot that appears in many Universal productions (even though it was out of date at the time, not showing the World Trade Center). I have to assume the model in the shot was a generic piece of stock footage already there, because that would have been cheaper than having Arlene pose in a swimsuit just for something that quick.

Yes, that makes sense.

I just saw it again, and one slightly odd thing in the final scene is the way gun-hating Columbo recites the names of those guns in the case. But then, he almost always goes through a crash course in some subject or other, so maybe he finally got around to the subject of guns in this episode?