Columbo: Season 05  (1975)

Theatrical Release Information:
Columbo: Season 05

Season five of Columbo brings Peter Falk back to his signature role as a disheveled, seemingly absent-minded homicide detective whose outwardly sloppy and disorganized methods of deduction invariably trip up those murderers who have convinced themselves that they have gotten away with "the perfect crime." As before, Columbo remains essentially a monthly rather than weekly series, one of several components of The NBC Mystery Movie. The first of the season's six episodes (each running between 90 and 120 minutes) is "Forgotten Lady," starring Janet Leigh as a fading movie star who commits murder in order to make a comeback (the ending of this one is a real surprise -- especially to Columbo!) Next up is "A Case of Immunity," wherein a foreign ambassador commits two murders and almost gets off scot-free...until Columbo plays a neat game of diplomatic duplicity. Patrick McGoohan returns to Columbo as both director and star of "Identity Crisis," a neat tale of espionage, murder, unforeseen evidence, and a handful of cute "inside jokes" for trivia buffs. Columbo shows up in Mexico for "A Matter of Honor," in which bull-ranch owner Ricardo Montalban tries to pin a murder he has committed on an innocent "toro." Returning for a third Columbo appearance is Jack Cassidy, who in "Now You See Him" plays a master magician who commits murder in front of dozens of witnesses while managing to (almost) get off scot-free. And in "Last Salute to the Commodore," which like "Identity Crisis" was directed by Patrick McGoohan, Columbo must solve a murder without any clues in advance as to the identity of the guilty party -- and, in fact, this is the only Columbo episode in which even the audience doesn't know "who done it" until the very end! ~ All Movie Guide