Recap / Columbo S 06 E 03

Episode: Season 6, Episode 3
Title:"The Bye-Bye Sky High IQ Murder Case"
Directed by: Sam Wanamaker
Written by: Robert Malcolm Young
Air Date: May 22, 1977
Previous: Old Fashioned Murder
Next: Try and Catch Me
Guest Starring: Theodore Bikel, Sorrell Booke, Samantha Eggar, Jamie Lee Curtis

"The Bye-Bye Sky High IQ Murder Case" is the third and last episode of the sixth season of Columbo. (A reduced schedule caused by Peter Falk's movie career led to this season being even shorter than all the other British Brevity seasons.)

The setting is the Sigma Club, a social club for smart people that is an obvious stand-in for Mensa. Oliver Brandt (Bikel) and Bertie Hastings (Sorrell Booke, still a couple of years away from becoming the Trope Codifier for Fat, Sweaty Southerner in a White Suit on The Dukes of Hazzard) are both members of the club and also partners in the accounting firm of Brandt and Hastings.

It's the accounting firm part that's the problem. Bertie has discovered that Oliver has been embezzling funds from their clients to fund the expensive and extravagant lifestyle of his fancy wife Vivian (Samantha Eggar). In any case, Bertie, appalled at Oliver's thievery and also sick and tired of Oliver constantly bullying and belittling him, tells Oliver that he's going to tell the police.

Oliver, who knows already that Bertie has been snooping around his files, has planned one of the most intricate murder plots ever seen on Columbo. He kills Bertie with a silenced pistol in the upstairs lounge of the Sigma Club. He stashes the gun inside his umbrella in the upstairs chimney. Then he rigs up a little Rube Goldberg device with a record player, electric clips, and two little gunpowder squibs, not to mention a heavy dictionary carefully balanced on the edge of a table. After Oliver goes downstairs and makes sure that everybody at the club sees him, the automatic motion of the record player sets off both squibs and knocks over the dictionary to simulate Bertie's body hitting the floor. Later, in the chaos, Oliver makes it out with the gun hidden in his umbrella.

Of course it doesn't work, because of Lt. Columbo, who wonders why the two shots hit Bertie at the same angle if he fell to the floor between them, why a high-end record player is set to start playing a song in the middle, or why the killer didn't take Bertie's wallet despite lingering some thirty seconds in the room...

A young Jamie Lee Curtis, still a year away from her Star-Making Role in Halloween, appears in one scene as a cranky waitress annoyed by Columbo's dithering. This was one year after Curtis's mother Janet Leigh starred in Season 5 premiere "Forgotten Lady".

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Tropes:

• Awful Wedded Life: Brandt's married life has touches of this trope, as it's evidenced his wife doesn't sync up with him. When he tells her about the death of his friend, her immediate reaction is to suggest they take a vacation to get his mind off of "death". When he later confesses he embezzled money for her, in a move that's a mixture of ditzy and cold, she tells him she doesn't understand and would rather be willingly blissful of what it all means. Needless to say, after Columbo ousts him, when Brandt receives a phone call from his wife saying she needs him, his only response is a deadpan and rather hurtful "I'm sorry, but I won't be needing you. Ever."
• Big "NO!": Just after the murder, we have this little exchange:
  (fearful that he's about to be caught out, Oliver has had enough of the suspense and opens the door... only for their youngest member to appear and ask)
  Caroline: They know who did it?
  Brant: No!
  (slams the door shut)
• Bloodless Carnage: A Columbo tradition but especially notable when Bertie gets shot twice in the chest and falls face down on the floor. Yet when we see the Chalk Outline later there are no bloodstains.
• Bluffing the Murderer: Columbo engineers a variation of Oliver's device, purposefully making it cruder and less likely to work, and attributes it to Danziger. The already nervous Oliver is rankled by the inefficiency, and by what he believes is the less intelligent Danziger insulting his own genius, so he adjusts the machine to work perfectly — revealing that he's had first-hand experience with, or least has seriously considered, constructing such a device.
  Columbo: When the squib goes off, it produces vibrations, and that knocks the book down! That Danziger's a genius!
  Brandt: "Vibrations", that nitwit! The man who conceived all this, you've made him out to be a bungling ass! NO! This is what he would've done — THIS!
  [He sets the marker to be nudged by the turntable's arm, where it falls against the dictionary, knocking it down to the ground between the squibs discharging]
  Brandt: [triumphant; cackling] THERE! There!
  [He sees Columbo smirking at him, and his smile and laughter slowly fades as the gravity of what he's just done hits him]
  Brandt: [helpless] ...Oh, my. Oh, my.
• Brand X: The "Sigma Club" is obviously Mensa, right down to the specific requirement that members score in the top 2% on IQ tests.
• Chair Reveal: In one of his usual attempts to unnerve a suspect, Columbo sits in Oliver's office chair, facing away from the door, spinning around after Oliver enters the office.
• Chalk Outline: There's an outline in tape of where poor Bertie fell. Oddly, it's left there for quite a while.
• Continuity Nod: The portrait of Mrs. Melville, the In-Universe fictional detective from way back in Season 1 premiere "Murder by the Book", can be seen hanging in the club.
• Correction Bait: How Columbo gets Oliver to reveal himself, by getting the details of the killing wrong and getting a stressed-out Oliver to show how it was really done.
• Deadpan Snarker: When asking witnesses about the killer's build, one said he was heavy, another claimed he seemed average, and a third claimed he was light and possibly even a woman. Columbo's reaction to this was a deadpan, "Well that clears that up."
• Determinator: Columbo puts this down to why he succeeds. Even in the police academy he was surrounded by smarter people than him, but he succeeds by working harder and paying more attention than everyone else.
• Drives Like Crazy: A Running Gag with Lt. Columbo. In this one, Oliver watches in astonishment as Columbo peels out from the club, cutting a corner and cutting off another car, which brakes hard and spins crazily before coming to a stop.
• Exasperated Perp: In the final scene Lt. Columbo describes the murder method with not-quite-perfect accuracy. He says that Danziger explained it to him and credits him—Danziger!—as a genius. This provokes Brandt into telling Columbo precisely how he committed the crime.
• Fanservice: Samantha Eggar's first scene involves Vivian showing off a new nightie for her husband. Besides Fanservice it establishes Vivian's habit of buying very expensive clothes.
• The Fantastic Trope of Wonderous Titles: It certainly is a long-winded title.
• Hollywood Silencer: One of several Columbo episodes to use the height of Hollywood Silencer ridiculousness: a silenced revolver.
• Insufferable Genius: Oliver is this in spades, played for drama as well as dry wit. He reveals near the end that it's been very hard for him to relate to other people without his intelligence alienating them, and that he finds the Sigma Club, the only place where he really fits in, full of "eccentric bores"; whether or not he counts himself among them is up for interpretation.
• Know-Nothing Know-It-All: Jason Danziger is such a twit that it's almost an indictment against the Sigma Club that he was let in, let alone became an organizer in his local chapter. He seems convinced that Bertie's death (two shots in the chest) was a suicide disguised as a murder, that Bertie used an "elastic tether" to fling the gun away once he'd shot himself, and that the weapon either went out the open window (which has a screen on it) or up the chimney somehow (which has already been checked). After Danziger slinks away in embarrassment, the normally composed and sly Columbo facepalms at what a dope he is.
• Lonely at the Top: Oliver spent the better part of his childhood hiding his advanced intellect to be accepted, but felt lonely for it. One would think he would've eventually found happiness and companionship in the Sigma Club. But instead, by his own admission, he only found himself surrounded by "eccentric bores". So at the end of the day, even though he's the head of an accounting company, with a "trust fund" through embezzlement, and rather pretty wife, he's still as lonely as he ever was.
• Ms. Red Ink: The ultimate cause of the murder, as Vivian's extremely expensive tastes led Oliver to first embezzle from the firm and then kill Bertie when he found out. When Vivian reacts to news of Bertie's murder by suggesting they take a trip, she says "I'll buy some clothes!", and a rueful Oliver grumbles "I know you will." Later a panicking Oliver tells her straight up that he's "embezzled funds!" When he shouts "Do you understand?", Vivian looks him straight in the eye and says "No, and I don't think I want to."
• Oh, Crap!: Oliver panics when he notices that he has a smudge of gunpowder on his head (see below).
• Overly-Nervous Flop Sweat: Oliver is seen nervously mopping sweat from his forehead more than once in the latter portion of the episode, as Columbo is closing in. It almost gives him away at the beginning; he realizes that he's smudged himself with the handkerchief he used to handle Bertie's wallet, which had carbon powder on it, and he has to frantically wipe the gunk off (with his hand) before the police return.
• Pet the Dog: After collaborating with her about what might've happened to Bertie, Columbo remarks to Caroline that she's just a lovely as she is brainy. Caroline is moved, as nobody's ever liked her for her appearances.
• Pride: Brandt's main failing. He embezzles from his own firm's clients, just to please a trophy wife too vapid and dim-witted to connect with him emotionally or intellectually; he plots to murder his partner rather than go to prison when he know he's caught, and engineers an elaborate distraction just to throw suspicion off himself; he indirectly gloats to Columbo once he's disposed of the murder weapon, despite almost bungling it; finally, when Columbo needles his vanity with an inaccurate version of the machine, he corrects it, and, in doing so, fully outs himself as the killer.
• Refuge in Audacity: Oliver came home and accidentally smeared his face with gun powder again. His wife Vivian noticed. ...only to think it was but a smudge of mud. Oliver was rather lucky at the time his wife was such a ditz to not realize what that really was.
• Rube Goldberg Device: Oliver puts together a complex rig. A fancy record player is set to play only one song. The movement of the arm of the player touches one electric clamp on the mechanism, then the other, firing off the first and then the second squib to simulate the two gunshots. Between firing off the two squibs the arm knocks over a weight, which falls on the precariously balanced dictionary, which falls on the ground, simulating Bertie's body hitting the floor. Since it's being used for a murder, it could also qualify for Rube Goldberg Hates Your Guts.
• Smart People Play Chess: Well, naturally they do at the local Smart People Club; tables are set up throughout the common room, and some older members are seen at play shortly before Bertie's body is discovered.
• Special Guest: Movie star Samantha Eggar gets "Special Guest Star" credit.
• Staged Shooting: Oliver puts together an elaborate rig with two gunpowder squibs, to make everyone think that the shooting occurred later than it actually did, after he'd come back downstairs.
• Stealing from the Till: What Oliver's been doing, and why he has to kill Bertie after Bertie finds out.
• Stealth Insult: Columbo obviously thinks little of a club ostentatiously dedicated to smart people, which he demonstrates with a couple of subtle insults.
  Columbo: Here I've been talking with the most intelligent people in the world, and I never even noticed.
• Stock Lateral Thinking Puzzle: Oliver presents Columbo with the "gold coins in the bag" puzzle. It's an attempt to intimidate the lieutenant, but Columbo demonstrates he's no fool near the end when he gives the correct solution.
• Talent vs. Training: The killer, Oliver Brandt, has a natural intelligence, while Columbo relies on hard work. Columbo manages to solve the crime and trick Brandt into confessing, playing on his ambition. At the end of the episode, a dialogue takes place between them, discussing this trope in detail.
  Columbo: You know, sir, it's a funny thing. All my life I kept running into smart people. I don't just mean smart like you and the people in this house. You know what I mean. In school there were lots of smarter kids. And when I first joined the force, sir, they had some very clever people there. And I could tell right away that it wasn't gonna be easy making detective as long as they were around. But I figured that if I worked harder than they did, and put in more time, read the books, kept my eyes open, maybe I could make it happen. And I did. And I really love my work, sir.
  Brandt: I can tell you do. If there's one thing I've learned, Lieutenant, it's that we all have a cross to bear. Including those of us who seem most fortunate. My problem is just the opposite. Born smart, as they say. A blessing, you'd think. I had no real childhood. I was an imitation adult. 'Cause that's what was expected of me. Most people don't like smart people. Most children despise smart children. So, early on, I had to hide my so-called gift, conceal it from my own brothers and sisters, my classmates, in the service. Painful, lonely years.
  Columbo: You know, sir, I never thought of that.
  Brandt: I wonder if all those early bitter memories had something to do with my recent discovery that I simply no longer care even for my fellow intelligentsia in this club. I find them eccentric bores.
• Teen Genius: Caroline Treynor, a 14-year-old girl brilliant enough to get admitted to a club with an otherwise all-adult membership. Notably, while the grownups aren't much help at all, she gives a possible if far-fetched theory as to how the gunshots were made (they were sound effects pressed onto the record itself), and Columbo, showing his gratitude, is very gentle when telling her otherwise.
• Worthy Opponent: Oliver is astonished when Columbo finally catches him, hailing the detective as his intellectual equal.