Recap / Columbo S 10 E 13

Episode: Season 10, Episode 13
Title: Murder with Too Many Notes
Directed by: Patrick McGoohan
Written by: Jeffrey Cava (story), Jeffrey Cava and Patrick McGoohan (teleplay)
Air Date: March 12, 2001
Previous: Ashes to Ashes
Next: Columbo Likes the Nightlife
Guest Starring: Billy Connolly, Chad Willett, Charles Cioffi

"Murder with Too Many Notes" is a 2001 Columbo TV movie.

Findlay Crawford (Billy Connolly) is a hotshot Hollywood film composer who specializes in composing scores for thrillers, and has a close working relationship with big-time movie director Sidney Ritter (Charles Cioffi). Findlay recently won an Oscar for scoring one of Ritter's films. The film studio is hosting a live concert in which Findlay will conduct his own scores. He's on top of the world!

There's only one problem: ambitious young composer Gabriel McEnery (Chad Willett), Findlay's assistant for the last five years. It seems that Findlay lost his creative spark a long time ago and Gabe has been ghostwriting most of the composing work, including the last Findlay Crawford score that won the Oscar. Gabe threatens to go to Sidney Ritter, expose Findlay, and get work on his own.

Findlay acts conciliatory, offering to introduce Gabe to Ritter and recommend Gabe to score Ritter's next film. Gabe is thrilled, but really Findlay has murder on his mind. He puts a knockout drug into Gabe's champagne, uses a freight elevator to take Gabe to the roof of the film studio, then places Gabe on the edge. Findlay goes down, sends the elevator back up—and the freight elevator's doors pitch Gabe off of the roof and to his death on the street 80 feet below.

Findlay believes he is safe, as he timed things so he was on stage in front of a concert audience at the time Gabe fell off the roof. But like 67 other murderers before him he didn't count on Lt. Columbo, who wonders why Gabe didn't scream, and observes that the shoes Gabe was wearing were two sizes too big.

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Tropes:

• Absence of Evidence: A Columbo trope since the beginning. Columbo wonders why Gabe didn't scream, or why his baton is nowhere to be found if he fell from the roof while mock-conducting as was his habit.
• Actor Allusion: "Findlay Crawford" comes from a Billy Connolly stand-up comedy routine where he cites "Findlay" and "Crawford" as irritating Upper-Class Twit names.
• The Alleged Car: Columbo's decrepit old Peugeot, backfiring and sputtering as usual.
• Brand X: We are meant to understand that Findlay won an Oscar for Gabe's score; Gabe even holds the Oscar up. But apparently the producers didn't want to pay AMPAS to say "Oscar" or "Academy Award" so the movie poster just says "Award Winner" and Findlay's award is referred to as "the grand prize" or "the big prize" or "the big awards" or "Hollywood's biggest award."
• Celebrity Paradox: As part of Findlay's lesson to Columbo about good and bad movie music, he plays the "Psycho" Strings as an example of good music, with the movie itself being namedropped. Said movie starred Janet Leigh, who also played the murderer in season five's Forgotten Lady.
• Cobweb of Disuse: Another piece of Absence of Evidence. Columbo points out that while most of the area around the rarely used freight elevator is covered in cobwebs, the UP and DOWN buttons are clean and dust-free, indicating that they've recently been pressed.
• Disney Villain Death: The crux of Findlay's plan is to send Gabriel hurtling off the roof to the street below.
• Fake Action Prologue: The opening scene shows a knife-wielding maniac chasing a woman down a dark alley; he eventually corners her and stabs her to death. It's the scene to the latest Sidney Ritter movie, for which Findlay is recording a score.
• Foil: Between Findlay and Gabe's styles of conducting and music writing. Findlay is a famous composer, but relies on putting too much into his music, to the point it virtually has no substance. Gabe, on the other hand, may be an apprentice who practices in obscurity, but he recognizes where to trim the fat and gives the bare minimum in his music.
• Graceful Loser: After Columbo exposes Findlay as Gabe's killer, how does he behave knowing his career and his freedom are lost? Why kindly of course! When two fans of his approach him for an autograph, he's nothing but cordial and obliging. And he humbly asks Columbo if the prison he may be sent to will have a musical program, already adjusting to the idea that he'll answer for Gabe's death.
• Have You Told Anyone Else?: Findlay asks Gabe "Of course you told Rebecca"—Gabe's girlfriend—"about the little deal we had with Ritter?" When Gabe answers no, that he was waiting until it was confirmed, Findlay murders him.
• Hope Spot: The first act of the episode is one big example of this trope. Findlay gets Gabe's hopes up that he'll finally get a break, that tonight would be the night all his dreams come true. He's been promised a chance to demonstrate his talent at a concert, his girlfriend Becca gifts him a new baton, and he even has a tuxedo rented for the occasion. All before Findlay drugs the boy and sets him up to be killed in an "accident".
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: After Columbo drops one of his bombs—Gabe wore a size nine shoe, but the shoes on his feet were size eleven—Findlay the music composer plays the standard dramatic "dun dun DUN" Sting on the keyboard sitting in front of him.
• Like a Son to Me: Findlay says of Gabe that "He was like a son to me."
• Make It Look Like an Accident: Crawford is hoping that it looks like Gabriel accidentally fell off the roof while mock conducting. If you think Columbo falls for it, go to the back of the class and put on your dunce cap.
• Meaningful Name: On the surface, "Murder with too many Notes" seems to simply be a music-themed title. However, it also seems to reference Findlay's tendency to water down his songs with too much music.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: Crawford looks just like legendary Real Life film/TV composer Michael Kamen.
• One-Book Author: This is the only credit on Jeffrey Cava's IMDB page.
• Plagiarism in Fiction: For years, Findlay Crawford has been slapping his name onto scores that were actually written by Gabriel. The murder kicks off when Gabriel reveals he's ditching Crawford, and plans to tell Sidney who really wrote those songs.
• Plot Hole:
  • It's not really clear why Findlay kills Gabe in the first place. Gabe was thrilled at the prospect of scoring Ritter's next movie and clearly wasn't going to spill any secrets. Gabe going off on his own obviously means he won't be doing Findlay's work anymore—but murdering him also means he won't be doing Findlay's work anymore.
  • The gotcha at the end makes no sense. The fancy conductor's baton that Becca gave Gabe has an inscription that spells out "GABE BECCA" in musical notes. Columbo reveals that the little melody that Gabe printed out spells "BECCA GABE." This is presented as the clincher but it has nothing to do with Findlay Crawford or Gabe's murder. (Some sources suggest there was an earlier version of the script that clarified that Findlay put Gabe's "BECCA GABE" melody in his newest piece, but even if he did, so what?)
    • It wasn't that Crawford "put the notes in", he was apparently just signing his own name to whatever Gabe was writing as he wasn't doing any of his own work. This gets a brief nod when Crawford tries to write his own score to a new film & the director hates it, the implication being that Crawford has become so accustomed to plagiarism that he can't do the work himself anymore.
• Series Continuity Error: Columbo asks Becca to teach him how to play "This Old Man"—but he played it himself in Season 7's "Try and Catch Me".
• Shout-Out:
  • The title is a subtle shout out to the emperor's complaint in Amadeus about Mozart—"too many notes!" Appropriate as the Gabe-Findlay relationship is apparently a Mozart-Salieri one.
  • After Columbo and Findlay finally make it home (Columbo having pretended to run out of gas, for no reason other than to irritate Findlay), Columbo says "All's Well That Ends Well!" and then helpfully adds "That's Shakespeare!"
  • Findlay gives a condescending lecture where he plays two riffs, the "Psycho" Strings melody from Psycho and the iconic dun dun dun dun shark Leitmotif from Jaws, to demonstrate to Columbo the importance of film scores.
• Slipping a Mickey: Findlay slips a knockout drug into the champagne he offers Gabe, before taking him to the roof.
• You Just Ruined the Shot: Columbo can even manage to do this with an audio recording, as the crinkly paper bag he's carrying ruins a take of the film score Findlay's trying to record.