Columbo - Grand deceptions

 This is the one with the toy soldiers annd the war books.

Famous general Padget’s name is enough for many people to donate millions to his “First foundation for American thought”, which consists in training camps for civilians and something else that is not really really clear, because I don’t think they do actual military operations, so… I don’t know…

Anyway, Colonel Frank Brailie is stealing from it, and also using its money for illegal operations like weapons smuggling and stuff. Padget asked Sgt Keegan to investigate the “special projects fund”, who knows why or how he got to know about it. Keegan found out everything about Brailie’s fund and also about his affair with Padget’s younger wife.

Brailie worked hard on a huge diorama representing Gettysburg, saying he received the books in the morning - a box labeled books arrived - and the toy soldiers only that night, so that while Keegan was murdered he was apparently very very busy putting every soldier at their right place. Colombo will prove that he did not, that he’s got no alibi, because there’s no possible was all those books fit in the box labeled books, because it’s too small… and this is ok, I get it, but I still have two problems: 1, the obvious, is why did they send him the soldiers in a box labeled books and the books in a box labeled soldiers? Aren’t they two separate shops? How did he manage that? And even if it was the same shop on war stuff, did they make a delivery like this under his explicit request? Colombo didn’t check? How long was it since he planned the murder?

Furthermore, we see him open a soldiers box: it contained five of them… judging by that, I do NOT think it even remotely possible that all those soldiers could fit in that small box… if you throw them in without their little fancy boxes, yes, otherwise: no!

I don’t like this episode because Brailie is boring and arrogant and this foundation looks to me like a waste of money. Even the comic scene at the funeral was too silly, Colombo and an officer changing seats over and over to talk privately… thus managing to be very, evry noticeable… Bah.

P.S. I want a Colombo-toy soldier like we see at the end!