COLUMBO: A DEADLY STATE OF MIND {FOURTH SEASON FINALE} (TV)
Summary
One in this series of police dramas in which Los Angeles homicide detective Lt. Columbo's unassuming manner masks his keen intelligence and sharp investigative abilities.
A woman named Nadia Donner is having an affair with her psychiatrist, Dr. Mark Collier. Her husband Carl finds out about the affair and threatens Mark; they get into a fight and Mark kills him by pounding him over the head with a fireplace poker. He and Nadia construct an alibi about a pair of robbers breaking into the house and Mark drives off in a hurry. While pulling out, Mark hits a post at the end of the driveway, as heard by a nearby blind man. Mark then drives off.
Columbo questions Nadia, who relays the alibi to him: that a pair of masked gunmen entered the house with the intent to rob it, and that her husband fought back and was killed in the ensuing struggle. While investigating the crime scene, Columbo discovers a tiny object on the floor which he cannot identify, and pockets it. Columbo soon realizes there are some holes in Nadia's story, such as her claims that they did not hear the robbers pull into the driveway and inconsistencies with the tire track imprints leading away from the house. He confronts Mark as he drives in, who acts shocked when Columbo tells him that Carl is dead.
The next day, Columbo finds Mark and Nadia at her apartment, asking her further questions about the previous night. She and Mark construct further excuses and seem to allay Columbo's suspicions. Later, Columbo meets Mark at his workplace, a psychiatric laboratory. He also encounters Dr. Anita Borden, Mark's assistant, who gives him further information. Columbo confides in Mark that he is highly suspicious of Nadia's story. Mark suggests subjecting Nadia to a polygraph test, which he can arrange. Mark goes to Nadia in private and convinces her to let him put her into a hypnotic trance, claiming it will help her overcome the polygraph. However, when he does so he instead puts a suggestion in her mind compelling her to go for a swim upon hearing a certain word, and plants Carl's "stolen" watch and wallet in her apartment.
Mark and Anita throw a party, and Columbo enters since he wants to ask Mark some further questions. He reveals that he knows there was another person at the Donner house during the night of the murder, since the tiny object he discovered before was a flint from a cigarette lighter, and the description of the robbers' masks would have made it impossible for them to smoke. Upon inspection, he determines that Mark's lighter has had its flint replaced recently. While Columbo is distracted with the other party guests, Mark surreptitiously calls Nadia and activates the post-hypnotic suggestion. The hypnosis compels her to remove her clothes and jump from her fifth-story balcony into the ground-level swimming pool, killing her.
The police find Nadia's body and inspect her apartment. They find the stolen goods planted by Mark. Columbo is mystified as to why she neatly folded her clothes and put her watch and earrings into her shoes before jumping off the balcony. He catches up with Anita the next morning and posits that Nadia could have jumped off and arranged her clothes in such a manner if compelled to by post-hypnotic suggestion, a theory which Anita balks at. He also reveals that Nadia had drugs in her system at her time of death. Columbo catches up with Mark and informs him of Nadia's death. Mark claims that it was a suicide, motivated by guilt over killing Carl and lying about it. Columbo is suspicious of Mark but has no proof. The police inform Columbo that they have the blind man as a witness; his Braille watch places Carl's murder as taking place an hour and a half before the time given by Nadia.
Columbo brings Mark to the Donner house, along with several police officers. Columbo has deduced that the barbiturates in Nadia's system were used by Mark to induce a post-hypnotic suggestion in her, compelling her to jump. Mark denies everything and Columbo produces a witness, which Mark believes is the blind man acting as though he is sighted. Mark attempts to expose Columbo's ruse, only to find that the man is, in fact, capable of sight. Columbo then produces the real blind man; since Mark would have only suspected the first man of being blind if he was at the house at the time of the murder, Columbo has tricked Mark into revealing his culpability. Commercials deleted.
Details
- NETWORK: NBC
- DATE: April 27, 1975 8:30 PM
- RUNNING TIME: 1:13:59
- COLOR/B&W: Color
- CATALOG ID: B:74418
- GENRE: Drama, police/private detective
- SUBJECT HEADING: Drama, police/private detective
- SERIES RUN: NBC - TV series, 1968-1978; ABC - 1989-2003
- COMMERCIALS: N/A
CREDITS
- Everett Chambers … Producer
- Edward K. Dobbs … Associate Producer
- Harvey Hart … Director
- Richard Levinson … Created by
- William Link … Created by
- Peter S. Fischer … Writer
- Bernardo Segáll … Music by
- Henry Mancini … Theme Music by
- Peter Falk … Cast, Columbo
- George Hamilton … Cast, Dr. Mark Collier
- Lesley Warren … Cast, Nadia Donner
- Stephen Elliott … Cast, Carl Donner
- Karen Machon … Cast, Dr. Anita Borden
- Bruce Kirby … Cast, Sergeant George Kramer
- William Wintersole … Cast, Dr. Hunt
- Ryan MacDonald … Cast, Charles Whelan
- Jack Manning … Cast, Daniel Morris
- Fred Draper … Cast, David Morris
- Glorie Kaufman … Cast, Brenda
- Redmond Gleeson … Cast, Arnold
- Vance Davis … Cast, Officer Hendryx
- Danny Wells … Cast, Gary Keppler
- Morris Buchanan … Cast, Lab Man
- Kathy Speirs … Cast, 2nd Receptionist