Colombo - Ashes to ashes

 Well, not one of those that merit countless reruns, but not too bad. It’s only a bit boring at times, but i was nice to see the same face that portrayed Mr Finch in Agenda for Murder :)

My main problem with his one is that I don’t understand the logic of why he did what he did, other than it was necessary otherwise Colombo would not have been able to catch him…

What I liked though was seeing Colombo taking to the taxi-drivers and then making up some story about a cousin when talking to Prince; he’s always done that, but it was never so openly like this. I’ve always known that he lies constantly to his suspects, but it’s finally in the open :)

The story:

Verity Chandler is a tv journalist and is working on a new piece on a funeral home, but she also wants to confront Eric Prince personally. He’s the owner, and they’ve been lovers in the past, I think. She’s uncovered a very dirty secret on how he made so much money: years ago, when famous actress Dorothy Page died, he stole her very precious diamond necklace. She appears during the funeral of a war veteran and even kisses him leaving evident traces of lipstick so the woman working there (Prince’s assistant) uses her handkerchief to wipe it out, and then Verity confronts Prince with a photo of a house, Dorothy Page’s house, and tells him she will expose him in a few days time, so he kills her right there and then. After the funeral, he exchanges the bodies in the coffin, burning Verity and keeping the veteran frozen. He gives the ashes to the veteran’s rich widow who throws them over the Hollywood sign, even if it’s forbidden. Prince then puts Verity’s shoes and earrings in her house, near a desk with a glass smeared with lipstick, and then he writes something on her computer changing the date, to make it look like she was home in the evening.

It’s Verity’s secretary that insists the police must investigate because she’d never stay so many hours without answering her phone or contacting him, especially after he left her three messages.

I did not like this guy, this secretary was so annoying and so patronising towards Colombo; in a way he was right, something serious had really happened, but he was annoying nonetheless.

At first it does look like she had been home and then someone entered by force and kidnapped her, but then they discover that Verity’s puppy had been left alone for hours without food or water and he gets angry, and sure that nobody would have bought a puppy and then left him alone to starve like that.

The secretary knew Verity was going to the veteran’s funeral, so Colombo has a place to start. Prince says that he sometimes called her, when it was someone famous’ funeral, because it was all publicity for him, he even says that he called her to come for the veteran’s funeral. And yet, he mentions having another famous man’s funeral to organize but he did not call her for this. 

The assistant tells Colombo that Verity came in a taxi and gives him the handkerchief she used to wipe off the lipstick, so Colombo can see that it is not the same shade on the glass on her desk, clearly put there to make people think that she had been home.

Prince has another cremation, of a short man that died in an explosion, so there’s a small body in a sack, and Prince puts this Lerby together with the veteran’s body and burns them together, and puts all the ashes in the same urn. 

Talking to the taxi driver, Colombo realises that the picture is of a house in Sunset Boulevard that now belongs to a sheik, but it once belonged to actress Dorothy Page, and Colombo learns of the case of the missing diamond necklace. 

This is how it went: when Page died, she was sent to the funeral home with the necklace on her; somebody called right away, Prince denied having seen it and a search found nothing - because diamonds don’t burn, so he shoved them down her throat and took them after cremating her. He used the taxi driver’s help to sell it.

Colombo now has a problem, because there’s no body and no way to prove there ever was a murder. His only chance is to prove that there was a switch in bodies, that he burned Verity before the veteran… and he can do this because the war veteran had a metal plaque in him of a metal that won’t burn, so he gets hold of that urn and shakes it, and we clearly hear a noise, and Colombo shows us that there is a piece of metal inside, proving that the veteran’s ashes are in Lerby’s urn.

…It was important for the plot, of course, the only way… but it’s still silly to me that there was a switch ata all, he should havec burned both bodies at the same time, and kept only part of the ashes… it’s all a bit of nonsense in my opinion. 

This story is set in 1997, October I think. 

 

ITA scandali a Hollywood