Recap / Columbo S 01 E 07

Episode: Season 1, Episode 7
Title: "Blueprint for Murder"
Directed by: Peter Falk
Written by: Steven Bochco (teleplay), William Kelley (story)
Air Date: February 9, 1972
Previous: Short Fuse
Next: Etude in Black
Guest Starring: Patrick O'Neal, Forrest Tucker, Janis Paige, Pamela Austin

"Blueprint for Murder" is the seventh and last episode of the first season of Columbo.

Elliott Markham (Patrick O'Neal) is a hotshot architect who has gotten rich, lovely young Jennifer Williamson (Pamela Austin) to back "Williamson City", his grand, expensive vision of an entire planned community. The only problem is that Jennifer is not the one who controls the Williamson purse strings. When the person who does control the family money, rich businessman Beau Williamson (Forrest Tucker) comes back from an eight-week trip to Europe, he is super-pissed. Williamson stalks over to the construction site (they've started digging on the high-rise office building and are about to pour the concrete for the first foundation), smacks Markham in the face, and tells him in no uncertain terms that the project is cancelled and Markham is not to approach Jennifer again.

When Markham not-so-subtly implies that he'd like to see Williamson dead, Williamson laughs and tells him that wouldn't help: when he dies, most of his money will go into a trust and Jennifer still won't be able to build Markham's vanity project. The wheels begin to turn in Markham's head. Markham surprises Williamson at his ranch, shoots him dead, hides the body, and makes it look like he's flown back to Europe. Williamson's first wife Goldie (Janis Paige) doesn't believe it, thinking that Williamson has been murdered, and she's supported in this assumption by Lt. Columbo.

The only Columbo episode ever directed by Peter Falk.

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Tropes:

• Absence of Evidence: Here, the absent thing is Beau himself, who had an appointment with his heart doctor to get the batteries in his pacemaker replaced and never showed. As, given his personality, he'd be unlikely to trust a strange doctor rather than his usual one, it's a sign that Beau's disappearance may not have been intentional.
• AM/FM Characterization:
  • One thing that points Columbo towards Markham is how the radio in Williamson's car is set. Williamson was known to listen to country music exclusively, but Markham had set the radio to a classical station.
  • After one of Williamson's hats, covered in blood, is discovered, Markham locks himself up in his office listening to furious classical music as he racks his brains over how it could have turned up. Once he hits upon the solution, he switches to something much calmer as he relaxes.
• Amicably Divorced: Although they've been divorced for years, Beau and Goldie are apparently still very good friends; Goldie says Beau always calls her before he leaves the country, which is why she's suspicious. And it turns out that he left her 25% of his fortune while Jennifer only gets the interest off the trust. She remarks that while Beau enjoys being married to younger women, she nevertheless has a much stronger personal bond with him despite their break-up.
• And Starring: Forrest Tucker gets the "Special Guest Star" credit.
• Artistic License – Law: Columbo, a Homicide detective, is investigating a missing-person case once again. The body is only found at the end of the episode. Downplayed though since there is strong reason to believe the missing person has indeed been murdered, as it transpires his body actually showing up would ruin the plans plans of the main suspect.
• Batman Gambit:
  • Markham concocts a plan in which he will nudge Columbo into believing that the body was dumped in the foundation. Once the construction crew drills all the way down to the bottom of the foundation and comes up with nothing, not only will Columbo be humiliated, the foundation will then become the perfect place to hide the body for real when they re-pour. This requires that Columbo bite on the hints that Markham gives out. It also requires that the police not search the horse ranch and stables, even though that's the last place Williamson was seen alive.
  • Columbo isn't fooled, but he plays along, then waits for for Markham to come back and bury the body in the foundation for real. He would have been in a lot of trouble if Markham had decided to, say, bury the body in the Sierra Nevadas instead. Though given that it's established that Columbo is stringing Markham along, it can be presumed that he has put at least one tail on him to make sure of his movements. Seeing that a motorcycle cop shows up minutes after one of his tires blew out that a very good bet.
• Bilingual Bonus: Miko, Goldie's Japanese masseuse, speaks several sentences to Columbo in Japanese, which more or less translate to "Welcome, pleased to be of service, Columbo-san. You're amazing. And y'know, I love you. Anyway, until next time. Sayonara." Columbo bows and replies "sayonara, si" in return.
• Bluffing the Murderer: As the expensive, painstaking search of the pit on the construction site seems to turn nothing up, Columbo looks more and more miserable and humiliated, making it seem as though Markham has fooled him into a wild goose chase. But it's not what Markham put in it before that matters so much as what he plans to put in it.
• Con Man: Williamson accuses Markham of taking advantage of his wife's naivete to get money from his projects, outright calling him one of these.
• Constructive Body Disposal: Markham's plan is to bury the body under the cement poured for the foundation of the building.
• Conversation Cut: Jennifer assumes that Beau has jetted off to Europe again, saying "Believe me, he's very much alive." Cut to Goldie saying "He's dead, I tell you!"
• Danger Takes a Backseat: How Markham gets Williamson, via a nifty shot where Williamson leans over to his glove compartment and Markham is revealed behind him.
• Dated History: During his university lecture, Markham says that the pyramids were built by slave labor. Modern historians tend to think that they were built instead by thousands of conscript laborers.
• Egopolis: Subverted; Markham has named his city plans "Williamson City", presumably to act as a sop for Beau Williamson by playing on his ego. Except Williamson isn't impressed, thinks the whole idea is ludicrous, and wants no part in it.
• Feet-First Introduction: Opens with Williamson's feet angrily stepping out of a car and stomping through his office building.
• Flop Sweat: A nervous Columbo starts mopping his sweaty forehead as the digging of the foundation nears the bottom. It's all an act, though.
• Ignored Enamored Underling: From the way Ms. Sherman, Markham's secretary lovingly talks about his genius, as well as the fact that she freezes up for a moment when he jokes about loving her, this would seem to be the case.
• Implied Death Threat: Markham asks Williamson if he'd like Markham to build his burial vault. Williamson picks up on it, and warns Markham that even if he dies, Markham won't be able to access his money.
• Insult Backfire: Markham calls Beau Williamson a philistine who's more concerned about money than art. Williamson says that's exactly right.
• Irony: At the end, after his brilliant plan of concealing Williamson's body in the pit after it has been search has been scuttled, Markham ruefully notes that he should have just left it where it was, since it turned out that no one had any idea it was even there. Though it's played with; Columbo does point out that his original hiding place was unreliable and he'd probably have had to move it eventually regardless.
• Killed Offscreen: The last we see of Bo, Markham's forcing him into a storage shed at gunpoint. Cut to Markham driving Bo's car.
• The Missus and the Ex: Goldie Williamson is snarkily refers to Jennifer as Beau's "child bride," but seems genuinely fond of her. And Goldie and Beau remain close, despite their divorce. As Goldie puts it "he has her for youth and me for everything else."
• Narcissist: One of Markham's sayings regarding his design work is that you can't put a price tag on genius.
• Never Found the Body: A crucial part of Markham's plot. If Williamson is found dead, the money goes into a trust and the grand construction project is cancelled. But if he simply disappears, Jennifer will control the family assets for seven years.
• Oddball in the Series: A rare example of a Columbo episode in which the murder is not shown onscreen, although it's still a Reverse Whodunnit as we last see Williamson being marched away by Markham at gunpoint.
• Police Are Useless: The cops apparently never thought to look for Beau at his home, especially not checking the sheds.
• Pun: Columbo speculates about how Beau might have gotten chucked into the new foundation, which of course is a thinly veiled accusation in classic Columbo style. When Markham says that'll be hard to prove, Columbo says "I gotta come up with something concrete", and then smirks.
• Punk in the Trunk: How Markham totes around Williamson's body near the end.
• Red Herring: Markham and Jennifer find Beau's bloodstained hat near a tennis court and the blood type matches with Beau's, implying that Markham made an elementary mistake and somehow managed to misplace his hat while hiding the body, except it turns out that Goldie shares Beau's blood type, her masseuse saw a fresh cut on her leg that wasn't there yesterday and she had several of Beau's hats in her closet with one of them now missing, meaning she planted the hat and the bloodstain on it herself and admits she did it to "get things moving along".
• Spotting the Thread: As Columbo notes at the end, the fact that a diehard country music fan would have his radio switch to classical is what raised his suspicions.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: Contrary to most police shows where such things are handwaved, digging up the foundations of a building under construction requires dealing with a Vast Bureaucracy just to get the permits. The audience is treated to all the hoops Columbo has to jump through to get it done. And every step of the way people keep asking how much such a thing is going to cost.
• This Is What the Building Will Look Like: There's a model of Williamson City, which Williamson smashes in rage.
• Trophy Wife: Jennifer is blonde and attractive and looks to be less than half of Beau's age. A not all that bitter Goldie says that Beau needed "youth."
• Truth in Television:
  • Key to Markham's plot is the idea that a person who flew off to Europe, and didn't leave behind info as to what hotel he would be staying at, would be completely unreachable.
  • At one point it is considered possible for a high-powered tycoon to take an international flight under a different name.
• Ugly Guy, Hot Wife: Both Jennifer and Goldie much easier on the eyes than Beau Williamson.

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