
 |
|
May 24, 2013
May 22, 2013
John Thorne:
They launched the 'Arab Spring' but now yearn for the good old days of a strongman
May 20, 2013
Richard A. Serrano: Is Meir Kahane's assassin now a changed man?
Melissa Healy: Genetic copies of living people from embryos no longer science fiction
Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom : Jews Inducted into Rock Hall of Fame; Anton Yelchin co-stars in New "Trek" film; Kutcher (but not Kunis) visits Israel; Jewish TV Star Praises Jewish Rap Star
The Kosher Gourmet by Cathy Pollak: WARNING: This WALNUT CAKE WITH PRALINE FROSTING, perfect for afternoon coffee, is addicting
May 13, 2013
Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo: Why the giving of the document that would permanently change the world could only be done in desolation
David G. Savage: Church-state, literally? Supreme Court weighing public school graduation in a church
May 10, 2013
Rabbi Berel Wein: Be all that you should be
May 8, 2013
Peter Ford: Why China is welcoming both Israel's Netanyahu and Palestinians' Abbas
Warren Richey: Obama administration quietly backs out of appeal over new contraceptive mandate
Fred Weir: At Kerry-Putin meeting, US-Russia relations thaw --- a tad
The Kosher Gourmet by Leela Cyd Ross : Almost too pretty to eat, this colorful salad with Sicilian inspiration will tickle the taste buds and delight your visual sensibility
May 6, 2013
May 3, 2013
Kids, kittens the Same? With employee perks at struggling Internet pioneer Yahoo! it's hard to tell
Sandy Kleffman: Artificial kidney offers hope to patients tethered to a dialysis machine
April 29, 2013
Roy Gutman: Poland's new Jewish museum celebrates life, doesn't revisit Holocaust
Mark Clayton: Terrorism in America: Is US missing a chance to learn from failed plots?
Kim Murphy: Boston Bomber's 'Svengali' Revealed
Pete Spotts: Tiny satellites + cellphones = cheaper 'eyes in the sky' for NASA
April 26, 2013
Clifford D. May: Defense in the Age of Jihadist Terrorism
Sharon Palmer, R.D.: How to feel your best -- with plenty of energy, a healthy weight and optimal mental and physical function -- without driving yourself batty
April 24, 2013
|
| |
Jewish World Review
June 29, 2011
/ 27 Sivan, 5771
Just One More Thing …
By
Paul Greenberg
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
Thomas Friedman was right. The world is flat, or at least it seemed so last week when the news came that Peter Falk, aka Columbo, had died at 83. For 30 of those years, he had regularly delighted television audiences as a not-as-dumb-as-he-looks detective. Every third week, he invariably caught the killer, who of course was depicted as the very soul of sophistication, and at the end of the show wound up as surprised as viewers weren't to find that this cop wid a working-class accent had outwitted him.
We never learned the fictional Columbo's first name, or if he had one -- I think it was Lieutenant -- but I definitely envied him his beat-up old car, a classic Peugeot, which had the appeal of the authentically well worn, almost outworn.
For the same reason, I've always yearned for the kind of crumpled linen suit of indeterminate shape that Charles Laughton wore as the classic very Southern senator, Seb Cooley of South Carolina, in the movie version of "Advise and Consent." Some outfits have a life of their own, speaking at least as convincingly as the actors. When it comes to communicating, they can beat all the dialogue in a predictable script.
Columbo himself sported a nondescript raincoat from maybe the '50s, It might have been hanging in a closet -- the back of a cramped closet -- for the intervening decades gathering wrinkles, absorbing grease spots, becoming eminently forgettable, and generally acquiring character.
I've got a hat like that and love its every well-earned crease and smudge. A friend calls it my "Go to Hell" hat, and it looks as if it's been there and back.
Columbo's trademark phrase was always reserved till the end of some crucial interview with the slick villain, who should always have been played by Louis Calhern at his oiliest. Offered in the manner of just an offhand afterthought, Columbo's phrase prefaces the question that will unravel the killer's well-planned alibi.
"Aaaaah … Just one more thing," Columbo would say, turning around after he'd already started to leave the suspect's mansion/luxurious hotel suite/hunting lodge. Then he'd throw out the key question like a hunter putting out a bear trap. Or like some congressional investigator making casual conversation. ("I didn't know you had an interest in birding, Mr. Hiss. Did you ever happen to see a prothonotary warbler?" Or, in more contemporary times. "Sir, would you remember if Miss Lewinsky had a blue dress?")
In Columbo's case, the "just one more thing" would come across as but another sign of his disheveled, absent-minded and generally inept persona. And therefore completely disarm the suspect. For how could a slob like that pose any threat to a clever villain?
Columbo was the kind of gumshoe who would reach into a tattered pocket for a telling piece of evidence … and fish out last week's shopping list. Steady viewers weren't caught off guard, but for some reason the bad guy always was. (Maybe he was too cultured to have watched much television.) The, aaaaah, just one more thing would always prove the thing. And just as inevitably, our shabby hero would emerge triumphant in the last scene.
Peter Falk's disarming manner wouldn't have been half so convincing without the cockeyed look he gave Columbo, which was no act at all. He'd lost an eye at an early age (a case of childhood cancer) and wore one of glass, which in unreal life had a way of popping up in strange places, like in a glass of gin that the great jazz pianist Art Tatum had been drinking.
The prosthesis only added to Peter Falk's unlikely charm. Anybody who's ever had a New Yorker for a brother-in-law will be familiar with the general character, and the whole, gritty milieu of Gotham that Peter Folk could invoke with just one glassy look.
The actor came by his fictional persona honestly, having been a cook in the merchant marine and generally the kind of hard worker who makes his talent seem natural. The result was that, whenever Hollywood needed a character with street smarts and a certain farcical appeal, Peter Falk got the part. And not just in comedies, for he was a craftsman whose work shone in John Cassavete's realistic films "Husbands" and "A Woman Under the Influence." Life without him will be a little flatter till just one more thing occurs: There are always the re-runs.
Paul Greenberg Archives
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.
JWR contributor Paul Greenberg, editorial page editor of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, has won the Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing. Send your comments by clicking here.
include "/home/jwreview/public_html/t-ssi/jwr_squaread_300x250.php";
if (strpos(, "printer_friendly") === 0)
{}
else {
=<<
© 2010 Tribune Media Services, Inc.
|
|

Arnold Ahlert
Mitch Albom
Jay Ambrose
Michael Barone
Barrywood
Lori Borgman
Stratfor Briefing
Mona Charen
Linda Chavez
Richard Z. Chesnoff
Ann Coulter
Greg Crosby
Larry Elder
Suzanne Fields
Christine Flowers
Frank J. Gaffney
Bernie Goldberg
Jonah Goldberg
Julia Gorin
Jonathan Gurwitz
Paul Greenberg
Argus Hamilton
Victor Davis Hanson
Betsy Hart
Ron Hart
Nat Hentoff
A. Barton Hinkle
Jeff Jacoby
Paul Johnson
Jack Kelly
Ch. Krauthammer
David Limbaugh
Kathryn Lopez
Rich Lowry
Michelle Malkin
Jackie Mason
Ann McFeatters
Dale McFeatters
Dana Milbank
Jeanne Moos
Dick Morris
Jim Mullen
Deroy Murdock
Judge A. Napolitano
Bill O'Reilly
Clarence Page
Kathleen Parker
Star Parker
Dennis Prager
Wesley Pruden
Tom Purcell
Sharon Randall
Robert Robb
Cokie & Steve Roberts
Heather Robinson
Debra J. Saunders
Martin Schram
Greg Schwem
Culture Shlock
David Shribman
Roger Simon
Lenore Skenazy
Michael Smerconish
Thomas Sowell
Ben Stein
Mark Steyn
John Stossel
Cal Thomas
Dan Thomasson
Bob Tyrrell
Diana West
Dave Weinbaum
George Will
Walter Williams
Byron York
ZeitGeist
Mort Zuckerman

Robert Arial
Chuck Asay
Baloo
Lisa Benson
Chip Bok
Dry Bones
John Branch
John Cole
J. D. Crowe
Matt Davies
John Deering
Brian Duffy
Everything's Relative
Mallard Fillmore
Glenn Foden
Jake Fuller
Bob Gorrel
Walt Handelsman
Joe Heller
David Hitch
Jerry Holbert
David Horsey
Lee Judge
Steve Kelley
Jeff Koterba
Dick Locher
Chan Lowe
Jimmy Margulies
Jack Ohman
Michael Ramirez
Rob Rogers
Drew Sheneman
Kevin Siers
Jeff Stahler
Scott Stantis
Danna Summers
Gary Varvel
Kirk Walters
Dan Wasserman

Tech Q&A
Mr. Know-It-All
Ask Doctor K
Richard Lederer
Frugal Living
On Nutrition
Bookmark These
Bruce Williams
|