Recap / Columbo S 01 E 04

The "gotcha" moment (and in most fans' minds, the "gotcha" moment)

Episode: Season 1, Episode 4
Title:"Suitable for Framing"
Directed by: Hy Averback
Written by: Jackson Gillis
Air Date: November 17, 1971
Previous: Dead Weight
Next: Lady in Waiting
Guest Starring: Ross Martin, Don Ameche, Kim Hunter, Rosanna Huffman

"Suitable for Framing" is the fourth episode of the first season of Columbo.

Art critic Dale Kingston (Ross Martin) comes home to his uncle Rudy's mansion one night and shoots Rudy dead as Rudy plays piano. Right after he does the doorbell rings—but it's his girlfriend Tracy (Rosanna Huffman), who is his partner in crime. Together they stage an elaborate cover-up, trashing Rudy's house, stealing some paintings from Rudy's art collection, and using an electric blanket to keep Rudy's corpse warm and thus deceive the cops about his time of death. With the warmth of the body to make police think Rudy was killed later than he really was, Dale goes to an art showing and makes sure he is seen. But of course Lt. Columbo is not fooled, not even when Dale tries to steer suspicion towards Edna (Kim Hunter), Rudy's ex-wife, who just inherited Rudy's obscenely valuable art collection.

Don Ameche has a supporting part as Edna's lawyer.

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Tropes:

• Amicable Exes: Rudy seemed to be on good terms with his ex-wife Edna until his death and rewrote his will, which leaves the entire art collection to her. Dale tries to frame her so that he will inherit the art collection instead.
• And Starring: Kim Hunter gets a "Special Guest Star" credit.
• Bait-and-Switch: The episode initially seems to be building up to a reveal that Dale murdered his uncle to inherit his art collection... only for the will-reading to reveal that the collection is instead going to Edna, and that Dale knew this. Though it's played with, since it turns out that Dale is in fact intending to frame Edna for the murder so that he can inherit the paintings after all.
• Bluff Worked Too Well: Played with. Dale spends a lot of time playing the sympathetic friend to Edna trying to protect her from Columbo. Thus, he covers his tracks with plenty of false insistence that Edna couldn’t possibly be involved in his murder. He’s left completely stunned when Columbo seems to believe him.
  Dale: Don’t you think you should [investigate Edna’s house]? I mean, for her protection. Then when you fail to find the paintings, you can cross her name off the list entirely.
  Columbo: Well, it hardly seems worth the trouble. Neither of us think she’s guilty, why bother?
  • Of course, the real reason it does or doesn't work has nothing to do with Dale's bluffing skills; in true fashion, Columbo has been suspecting him all along.
• Chekhov's Gun: Columbo trying to take the paintings out of Dale's case. Dale seems to have a narrow escape, as he successfully deflects Columbo's attention before he removes the paintings from the case and sees that they are the "stolen" paintings. This is later how Columbo nails Dale, as finding Columbo's fingerprints on the stolen paintings confirms that they were in Dale's possession after the murder.
• Cloud Cuckoo Lander: Ex-wife Edna is a little flighty and not quite aware of what is going on, which is what Dale tries to take advantage of.
• Corpse Temperature Tampering: Dale and Tracy use an electric blanket to keep Rudy's corpse warm and thus deceive the cops about his time of death.
• Double-Meaning Title: "Suitable for Framing" can refer to either Rudy's paintings or how Dale attempts to pin his crime on Edna.
• Faux Affably Evil: Dale, being a famous art critic, knows how to apply the charm when he needs to, but it always comes off as insincere. Underneath it all he's a self-centred jerk motivated entirely by greed. He's also incredibly two-faced; he's all charm with the artist whose gallery opening he attends, but later reveals that he's dismissive of his work and shamelessly intending to trash it in his review. He's clearly stringing along Tracy by telling her she has talent and saying he loves her, only to bare-facedly rubbish her artwork and profess to have no knowledge of her when Columbo later confronts him about her. He's also planning to set up his aunt Edna for murder while putting on an act of being the concerned nephew looking out for her interests.
• Frame-Up: Dale's plan all along is to frame Edna for the murder of her ex-husband.
• Fresh Clue: Staged by Dale, as he puts an electric blanket over Rudy's body, to keep the corpse warm and fool the cops into thinking that Rudy was killed later than he really was. The episode never mentions that mottling would give the game away.
• Funny Background Event: One of the patrons, interested in one of the paintings are the art show, complains that the expensive picture's flowers were the wrong color for her wallpaper. The next day, Columbo goes to visit the artist, he is painting a picture with a different color pink, since he is in his "commercial" phase.
• Hate Sink: Even moreso than most Columbo murderers, Dale has essentially no redeeming qualities - not even the dignity of being a Graceful Loser.
• Hypocrite: When Columbo begins to corner him, Dale complains that he's the victim of entrapment, even though the lynchpin of his plan involves framing his aunt for the murder he committed.
• Inheritance Murder: One with a bit of a long game to play. Dale is hoping to inherit the two paintings from Rudy, but they're meant to be inherited by Dale's aunt Edna. It's his framing of Edna that will get the paintings in his possession.
• Jerkass: Dale Kingston is not one of the more likeable murderers to appear on Columbo; he's smarmy, condescending, two-faced, manipulative, ill-tempered and greedy.
• Make It Look Like an Accident: After bashing Tracy over the head with a rock, Dale attempts to make her death look like a car accident in which she drove off a mountain road.
• Meaningful Background Event: It's not exactly in the background, but it's certainly not called to your attention until the Wham Shot: throughout the climactic scene where the police are searching Edna's home, pay very close attention to Columbo. For all his pottering around, he never once removes his hands from his pockets of his overcoat.
• Oh, Crap!: Two moments in the climax:
  • Dale's composure first starts to slip when the police captain who has been overseeing the search of Edna's home reveals that Columbo is still in charge of the case, despite Dale trying to have Edna's lawyer pull strings to go over Columbo's head.
    Frank: Do you intend to formally charge her, captain?
    Police Captain: It's up to Lt. Columbo. It's his case.
    Dale: [Startled] What do you mean, it's his case? I thought—
    Police Captain: [Coolly] We know what you thought, Mr. Kingston.
  • Then, it really falls apart when Columbo reveals that they're looking for Columbo's fingerprints on the paintings, not Dale's — and Columbo reminds him of their earlier encounter when he tried to see the paintings that Dale was bringing home.
• Propping Up Their Patsy: Dale Kingston is his aunt Edna Matthew's most ardent defender when she comes under suspicion of the murder of his uncle (and Edna's ex-husband) Rudy. That just makes it all the more heart-wrenching when a police search (encouraged by Dale so that Edna can be completely cleared as a suspect) discovers some of the missing paintings in Edna's house. Of course, then the police captain and Lieutenant Columbo prove that Dale was in possession of those same paintings after his uncle's murder...
• Public Exposure: Columbo is uncomfortable when he goes to interview the artist to check on Dale's alibi and encounters a nude model posing for a painting.
• Recycled Script: Tracy's role as a female accomplice to murder who has second thoughts is roughly similar to Joan's in "Prescription: Murder", down to both characters getting antsy and contacting their male partner too early. The difference is that Dale kills Tracy while Ray Flemming never gets around to that "little accident" he had planned for Joan.
• Scenery Censor: The nude model posing for the artist has her naughty bits carefully hidden by the placement of the artist's canvas.
• Silence Is Golden: The first five minutes, in which Dale kills his uncle and starts staging the scene, take place without any dialogue. This is the only episode of Columbo in which the murder victim doesn't have any lines.
• Villainous Breakdown: The formerly unflappable Dale starts freaking out when Columbo drops the bomb about looking for Columbo's fingerprints on the paintings, screaming that it's all a setup and that Columbo planted the prints himself just now. Columbo then delivers the "gotcha" moment when he holds up his hands and shows that he's wearing gloves.
• Wham Line: A panicking Dale sneers when Columbo says they're looking for fingerprints on the painting, saying that he'd handled that painting many times in Rudy's home. Columbo then says "Oh, we're not looking for your fingerprints." They're looking for Columbo's fingerprints, and when they find them, they prove that the paintings were in Rudy's possession after the murder. This in turn leads to...
• Wham Shot:
  • Dale, really losing it now, starts yelling about how Columbo is trying to set him up and has planted his prints on the paintings just now when everyone's attention was distracted. Columbo, by now clearly fed up with this guy, just silently removes his hands from his pockets where he's had them all throughout the scene... only to reveal he's been wearing gloves the whole time.
  • The very first shot of the episode is one of these. We open on Dale's uncle sitting in a room full of paintings, playing a lovely piece of music on his piano. Dale enters the scene, smiling fondly as he listens to the music... then suddenly produces a gun and shoots his uncle dead with no preamble whatsoever. It's one of the quickest and coldest killings in the series.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Dale bludgeons Tracy to death with a rock after collecting the paintings from her.

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