Was recently watching 'Double Exposure' on METV in New Hampshire...lucky me, they're showing the original series every Sunday night at 8...anyway, the projectionist that blackmails Dr. Keppel was telling Columbo of the projectionist's trick of jamming a nickel into the bottom of the reel so he didn't have to pay attention to the movie. He'd eventually "hear" the nickel drop to the floor and know to change the reel soon. Took me many viewings to catch on to how improbable that would be. Why? Because later in the episode, when he's working at the movie theatre and the sound was so loud in the projection room that he didn't even hear Keppel open the door and walk into the room. So how would he hear a nickel drop to the floor???

MIlo, I'm not looking at the episode, but what I'm recalling is that the projectionist is actually viewing and paying attention to the movie when Dr. Kepple enters. He has the volume up in the booth while he watches the movie through the projection window.

The volume can be turned down in projection booths. Otherwise, projectionists would have to sit there listening to the same movie, over and over and over, a few times a day every day they work. That would be tedious.

So the volume would be turned down while the projectionist is sitting at a table working on building a ship in a bottle (or whatever) while waiting to hear the nickel fall.

That trick with the nickel wasn't just a clue in an episode of Columbo. Real projectionists in real movie theaters used that trick.

I've got the episode on my DVR, and you'll see my point when you watch it. The projection room is so noisy, not due to the volume of the movie, but the sound of the projector itself, that he couldn't hear anything...especially the door opening right behind him. Just one of those plot holes that made me chuckle. I knew it was inconsequential to the actual murder plot, but thought it was an interesting observation....but I appreciate your response and take on it. If anyone else that visits this forum and has this episode in your collection, check out the scene where Keppel surprises his blackmailer to see what I'm referring to. On another side note, I almost laugh at how the blackmailer reacts when Keppel points the gun at him. "Stop playing around, Doctor...somebody's gonna get hurt..." etc... Very amusing to me that a guy who witnessed another guy kill a man in cold-blood premeditation would be so incredulous about having a gun pointed at him by the same murderer. but I love this show..always have, always will! R.I.P. Peter Falk...

I'll have to actually sit down and take a good look at the scene. From what you've described, you've made a good point.

Yes, this was a good observation! Just some thoughts/reactions:

(1) I've noticed that the sound effects in Columbo episodes are sometimes over-done. For example, the loud buzzing bee when Abigail Mitchell is cutting flowers in the garden, the loud humming machinery in Harold Van Wyck's video room, or the *really* loud bubbling and gurgling science-y stuff in the locksmith's lab in Now You See Him.
Roger White's loud projection room might have been just another instance of bad sound effects.

(2) The nickel dropping might well be louder than Bart Kepple opening a door, especially since he's deliberately trying to be discreet.

(3) It was completely unnecessary to the plot to have Roger White be surprised by Kepple's entrance. The scene would still work fine if he had heard Kepple come in, so the contradiction isn't terribly problematic to my mind.

(4) Perhaps it was decided to make the projection room seem really noisy to explain why Roger White doesn't try yelling for help, and why no one hears the shots.

(5) On a semi-related note, Kepple took a real risk shooting White there--if anyone saw him going in or out, or even in the vicinity of the theater, he would have been screwed.

This whole nickel business is one giant abyss of a plot hole. LOL
Later on, Columbo says the lack of a nickel on the floor shows that the projectionist was murdered during the first reel, not the second. How, exactly?

If the first reel had played out so there could be a second reel, the nickel would have dropped some time ago. Then too, with the projectionist dead, who cued up the second reel in the first place?

One can only speculate as to how and why the writer messed this up so badly...

Watching this episode now, what I think is missing, is that projectionist did not use his own "trick", during the segment of the show where he was shot.

There are two reels. The story is that he was shot during the first reel, and if as suggested he used his nickel trick, would have put a nickle so it would drop at the end of the first reel, and when dropped been preparing for the second reel.

So there should have been a nickle on the floor, waiting to be discovered. So to me, this was a plot goof.

I don't think the nickel not being on the floor is a plot hole.

He was killed during the 1st reel, contrary to the alibi that Kepple is trying to establish that he was with Columbo during the 2nd reel playing.

Columbo knows that for Roger to have been killed during the 2nd reel, he would've left the nickel on the floor. The implication, not shown or discussed in detail, is that Kepple picked up the nickel off the floor and pocketed it.

Projectors often had a bell ring system, when the feeding reel was near the end and running faster, more than a certain amount of speed an alarm would sound, or a similar method, when the film on the reel was less than a certain amount an alarm would sound. Otherwise it would be simple to be ready a few minutes before and wait for the 'changing cues' that appeared on the film.
A coin might possibly not fall to the floor but end up in the machine.

The projectors in the theater where he got shot seem older than the ones at the institute. Maybe they are a lot louder. Noise would come from the sprockets and that stuff but also the fan to keep the bulb cool. Maybe so loud his nickle trick wouldn't work so he didn't use it. Also think about how ling thise reels are. In Make Me a Perfect Murder they were just over 10 minutes each. That would make them 1,000 feet. In this one they could have used 2,000 foot reels or abour 22 minutes.