Columbo (season 3)

Columbo (season 3)
Country of origin	United States
No. of episodes	8
Release
Original network	NBC
Original release	September 23, 1973 – May 5, 1974

This is a list of episodes from the third season of Columbo.

Broadcast history

The season originally aired Sundays at 8:30-10:00 pm (EST) as part of The NBC Sunday Mystery Movie.

DVD release

The season was released on DVD by Universal Home Video.

Episodes

No. in series	No. in Season	Title	Directed by	Written by	Runtime	Original air date
18	1	"Lovely But Lethal"	Jeannot Szwarc	Teleplay: Jackson Gillis Story: Myrna Bercovici	73 minutes	September 23, 1973
Cosmetics queen Viveca Scott (Vera Miles) has developed a seemingly magic wrinkle remover, but the formula has been stolen by her former lover, Karl Lessing (Martin Sheen), a chemist for her company, who refuses to sell it back to her at any price. Taunted by Lessing, Scott bludgeons him in a fit of rage before he can sell it to her ruthless competitor, David Lang (Vincent Price). When Lang's secretary (Sian Barbara Allen) becomes a potential blackmailer Scott kills her as well.
19	2	"Any Old Port in a Storm"	Leo Penn	Teleplay: Stanley Ralph Ross Story: Larry Cohen	98 minutes	October 7, 1973
Wine connoisseur Adrian Carsini (Donald Pleasence) runs a small winery specializing in unprofitable but prized wines. He is so highly regarded that he is about to be named the industry's Man-of-the-Year. His half-brother, Rick (Gary Conway), only wants to spend money on various hobbies and interests like sports and fast cars and has also been married several times. When Rick gets tired of Adrian's indulgences, he announces his decision to sell the land to mass producers of cheap, profitable wines. Adrian knocks him out and leaves him to die in an airtight wine cellar. Adrian travels to New York to accept an award and attend wine auctions, establishing his alibi. Upon his return, Adrian concocts a scuba diving accident to cover the crime. Columbo befriends Carsini while slyly searching for clues to link him to the murder. Julie Harris plays Adrian Carsini's formidable secretary.
20	3	"Candidate for Crime"	Boris Sagal	Teleplay: Irving Pearlberg & Alvin R. Friedman and Roland Kibbee & Dean Hargrove Story: Larry Cohen	98 minutes	November 4, 1973
Harry Stone (Ken Swofford), a campaign manager for Nelson Hayward, is coercing the womanizing senatorial candidate (Jackie Cooper) to end his affair with a personal secretary (Tisha Sterling), which Stone regards as too risky during a campaign. Stone, however, does approve of a publicity stunt Hayward plans to pull, which involves fabricating death threats against himself, to promote his tough stance against crime. Hayward then uses this to his advantage: he lures Stone to Hayward's beach house (while driving Hayward's car and wearing Hayward's coat), where the candidate shoots and kills Stone, making it look like a case of mistaken identity as a result of the imaginary assassins. Joanne Linville plays Hayward's wife, and a young Katey Sagal has a small role as a secretary. Katey Sagal's father, Boris Sagal, directed the episode.
21	4	"Double Exposure"	Richard Quine	Stephen J. Cannell	73 minutes	December 16, 1973
Dr. Bart Keppel (Robert Culp) is a "motivation research specialist" who has made a name for himself on the subject of subliminal advertising (which involves inserting frames of an advertised product into the reels of a film, so subconsciously a viewer's mind will crave what is pictured). Keppel's more lucrative sideline is blackmail: he takes pictures of married clients with a girl hired to tempt them. When his latest victim, Vic Norris, refuses to be blackmailed and threatens to expose him, Keppel plots to kill him. First Keppel plants a dish of salty caviar at a reception he is hosting for his clients. A subliminal cut of a refreshing drink is used to lure Norris out of a screening room where he is watching a promotional film Keppel is supposedly narrating (in fact they are listening to a prerecorded narration). Keppel sneaks out and shoots Norris in the building lobby, then arranges things to appear the crime was committed by Norris's wife. When Keppel's projectionist Roger White (Chuck McCann) discovers the cuts and pieces together the plot, Keppel shoots him as well. Columbo incriminates Keppel using his own science by showing him a film laced with subliminal frames of images taken of where the murder weapon was supposedly hidden. This episode received the Emmy Award in the category for Outstanding Limited Series.
22	5	"Publish or Perish"	Robert Butler	Peter S. Fischer	73 minutes	January 18, 1974
Publisher Riley Greenleaf (Jack Cassidy) decides to kill his prolific author Alan Mallory (Mickey Spillane) to keep him from defecting to another publisher. He hires ex-con and avid homemade bomb enthusiast Eddie Kane (John Chandler) to do the job. While Greenleaf is getting drunk at a nearby bar, Kane walks into Mallory's office and shoots him. To cover his tracks, Greenleaf kills Kane with one of his own bombs, making it look like an accident. Columbo must discover the link between the two crimes. This episode has a split screen of Greenleaf's alibi and Mallory's murder. Spillane was the real-life author of Mike Hammer detective mysteries. Jack Cassidy played the villain in a total of three Columbo episodes--this one, "Murder by the Book," and "Now You See Him...." Mariette Hartley plays a publisher's assistant.
23	6	"Mind Over Mayhem"	Alf Kjellin	Teleplay: Steven Bochco and Dean Hargrove & Roland Kibbee Story: Robert Specht	73 minutes	February 10, 1974
When Dr. Howard Nicholson (Lew Ayres) threatens to expose Neil Cahill (Robert Walker, Jr.) for plagiarizing a paper from a recently deceased scientist, Dr. Marshall Cahill (José Ferrer), director of a high-tech Pentagon think tank, kills Nicholson to protect his son. He installs a cybernetic robot codenamed MM-7 (Robby the Robot) to take his place overseeing a war exercise. Dr. Cahill steals a car from the motor pool and drives to Dr. Nicholson's house. In the driveway, Dr. Cahill runs him over, then carries his body into the house, ransacking it to make it look like a burglary gone wrong. To cover up damage the car received from the impact, Dr. Cahill backs his own car into the death car. Also starring Jessica Walter as Mrs. Nicholson and Lee Montgomery as the child genius Steven Spelberg.
24	7	"Swan Song"	Nicholas Colasanto	Teleplay: David Rayfiel Story: Stanley Ralph Ross	94 minutes	March 3, 1974
Gospel-singing superstar Tommy Brown (Johnny Cash) is hugely successful. But he's unable to enjoy the usual benefits of his fame and wealth. His zealous wife Edna (Ida Lupino) can prove he had committed statutory rape with one of his backup singers, Tina. With this proof, she blackmails him from enjoying the company of other women and even from spending the proceeds from his own concerts. She wants every penny to go towards building a tabernacle for the Lord. One day, Tommy decides he's had enough and decides to kill Edna and the backup singer. He drugs both women to sleep on their small, private plane flight to Los Angeles, and then parachutes from the plane, making it seem like he was thrown clear in a tragic crash caused by flying through bad weather. Edna's brother Luke (Bill McKinney) insists the police handle the case as a homicide, while the FAA is ready to write it off to an accident.
25	8	"A Friend in Deed"	Ben Gazzara	Peter S. Fischer	94 minutes	May 5, 1974
When Hugh Caldwell (Michael McGuire) accidentally kills his wife in the heat of a fight, he seeks help from his friend and neighbor, deputy police commissioner Mark Halperin (Richard Kiley). Halperin sees an opportunity to kill his own wife (played by Rosemary Murphy), a wealthy heiress who freely shares her wealth with the needy, so he helps Caldwell cover up the first crime and forces him to assist the following night, arranging it so that a cat burglar (Val Avery), who has recently been active in their neighborhood, is seen as the culprit in both murders. When Columbo realizes what happened, he enlists the burglar's help in catching the real perpetrators.