CLOSE, BUT NO CIGAR
Although today's TV cops may have the look and lingo down, they lack Columbo's charm
The recent death of William Link, one half of the prodigious Link-levinson scriptwriting duo, had me wondering when and where exactly we began to de-fun the police.
Link, who died late last year at the age of 87, will be forever connected with the quintessential sleuth Lieutenant Columbo, who Link and fellow Philadelphian Richard Levinson had first created in 1960 as a one-off starring Bert Freed for a TV anthology episode.
Cigar always at hand, if not a pencil, the rumpled and raincoated detective — played to perfection by Peter Falk when NBC picked it up in 1968, first as a TV movie, later as a series of movies — snared suspects through guile, laser-keen observation skills and no small amount of underestimation on the part of his adversaries.
His wonky wardrobe and self-deprecating sense of humour (“My wife has read all your books”) endeared him to many a witness and suspect in his pursuit of justice, which was as relentless as it was deceptive.
Today 's small-screen law enforcers, by contrast, jump-cut from one high-octane scene to the next, shouting commands and looking bad-ass. Think The Rookie, in which Edmonton-born Nathan Fillion scores one for the old guys by patrolling the streets of Los Angeles with 20-something swagger (though granted — with a slightly softer undertone).
Canadian police procedurals such as Flashpoint and Rookie Blue, meanwhile, were solid entries but mostly favoured thinblue-line bluster over Barney Fife bumbling.
It's no surprise. With on-set technical advisers the norm in Hollywood, retired cops have carved out lucrative side gigs drilling actors on the ways of the academy and the harsh realities of the street.
Hence the parade of shouty type-a cops, properly drawn pistols (fingers always off the trigger unless intending to shoot) and don't-mess-with-me stare-downs.
What we don't get is a lot of officers looking vulnerable, at least not on the job, which only serves to intensify the them-and-us mentality pervading many police dramas, a reflection of the reality formed early in a real-life police officer's career, especially in the U.S., where there truly is no such animal as a routine traffic stop.
Columbo? He rarely if ever flashed a gun, was routinely mistaken for the hired help or a homeless intruder and displayed his badge almost apologetically. It kept his opponents off-balance and the audience smiling.
Behind the mirth, of course, was a fearless investigator who used every psychological tool in his personal armoury to nail the murderer. In most episodes, the baddies were led away meekly, rarely handcuffed.
This would have today's TV cops shaking their heads in disbelief. No cuffs? No high-fives after a successful arrest? No strutting?
In Columbo's world: a sense of quiet satisfaction, perhaps a ruminative puff on the cigar, perhaps even a shared word of commiseration with the culprit.
What made the show brilliantly successful during its series run — from 1971 to 1978 on NBC and again from 1989 to 2003 on ABC — was the spirited interplay between hunter and hunted, the subtle class distinctions and snobbery, and the willingness of the indefatigable lieutenant to play the fool if it helped his cause.
You often forgot, as did his prey, that he was a high-ranking police officer with the full weight of the
Los Angeles Police Department lurking in the background as he shambled around on hands and knees scouring crime scenes for overlooked clues.
But despite his many breaches of police procedure (looking for evidence without latex gloves and
protective gear!), Columbo was every inch the modern detective.
First, he did take notes — albeit haphazardly and with a borrowed pen or pencil. It rarely makes good television to show a police officer taking copious notes, yet effective note-taking is one of the key skills officers must learn and many a court case has withered because of a policeman's murky memo book.
There's a saying on the job: If it's not in your notes, it didn't happen.
Second, Columbo enlisted expert help wherever possible, often playing the naive and uncultured student as his suspects unwittingly gave away telling leads. He asked stupid questions and listened actively.
Third, he built rapport with witnesses and suspects alike. The “third-degree” method of interrogation has long been dismissed, in all but the most florid of 1940s film noir, and today's detective is likely to come across more like a friendly bank manager or solicitous insurance agent than a table-pounding brute with bad breath and scant regard for civil rights.
Watch footage of an effective police interview (the case of serial sexual predator and killer Russell Williams is a prime example) and you will see investigators artfully building up bonds as their subjects slowly dig their own graves.
Columbo did this in spades, pardon the pun.
He researched his subjects' backgrounds, ingratiated himself into their worlds, played to their vanities, laughed at his own ineptitude — and politely waited until they fell into his trap.
Oh, one more thing: He was short. Though more diverse, too many of today's fictional cops still look too much like stereotypical, tall, broad-shouldered cops (blame those technical advisers again).
When Columbo arrived in his battered Peugeot, often with his sad-sack basset hound in tow, he looked, sounded and acted anything like a hardbitten homicide cop. And that will always bring a smile.
Columbo reruns air Thursday nights on Visiontv.