Jack Cassidy: The Perfect Villain For Lieutenant Columbo

Source:Columbo Phile- Jack Cassidy as Ken Franklin in Murder By The Book (1971)

Source:The New Democrat

“The first episode made available on the channel was the seminal Murder by the Book, which opened Columbo‘s first season in September 1971. Starring the irrepressible Jack Cassidy as Ken Franklin, and directed by Steven Spielberg, it remains one of the best pieces of episodic television ever made and you can view in HD glory below.”

From the Columbo Phile

“The Columbo calendar year of 1974 got off to the most arresting start imaginable in the shape of Publish or Perish.

Not only were the opening credits an extraordinary combination of explosions and freeze frames, but consummate villain Jack Cassidy was back in his second appearance as a killer – this time sporting an evil moustache to accentuate his inherent wickedness.

A publishing backdrop, reassuringly familiar to fans of Murder by the Book, promised to make Publish or Perish a series highlight. But is it a the equivalent of an Allen Mallory best-selling novel, or an amateurish effort set to languish in the bargain bucket? Let’s set our clocks back to 18 January 1974 and find out…

Source:Columbo Phile- left to right Peter Falk & Jack Cassidy.

From the Columbo Phile

“ALAKAZAM! As if by magic, master villain Jack Cassidy returned to give Columbo‘s fifth season a much-needed boost in the illusion-packed Now You See Him on 29 February 1976.

The presence of Cassidy as The Great Santini, the return of Sergeant Wilson and the unique and mysterious backdrop of the Cabaret of Magic help Now You See Him stand tall in the memory. But is the end result as good as the ingredients itself? Or to put it another way, is this a water tank illusion of an episode, or merely a simple card trick?

Let’s don our most luxurious capes, twirl our moustaches and bust out of some unbreakable handcuffs as we investigate…

Source:Columbo Phile- left to right; Jack Cassidy & Peter Falk.

From the Columbo Phile

“A star of stage and television for over two decades, actor Jack Cassidy embodied the vainglorious, self-absorbed side of his profession in a series of Tony-winning and Emmy-nominated turns that made him a much-loved performer until his tragic death. Cassidy’s rich, mellifluous voice and fair-haired good looks made him a popular leading man on Broadway in the late 1940s and early ’50s, where he met his first wife, dancer Evelyn Ward, who would give birth to their son, future pop star David Cassidy…

From Turner Classic Movies

Just to give you my personal observation about Jack Cassidy, someone who’ve I had a platonic man crush on for about 10 years now, since MeTV, The Hallmark Channel, Sundance, CoziTV, and other have been doing their Columbo marathons:

I think the Columbo TV series is at its best, when the murderer is almost as sharp and as witty as Lieutenant Columbo himself. Someone who can go toe-to-toe with the Lieutenant up to the point where he not only figures it out, but now can prove it. That’s where you get all the great wisecracks back and forth, the suspect now playing defense attorney for himself, or herself, because he or she now knows that the Lieutenant has figured out, but only has to prove it.

I think all of these factors are what made Jack Cassidy so great in all 3 of his appearances which were his charm, his self-confidence, his humor, his comedic timing, and his intelligence, as well as the intelligence of his characters. And of course the overconfidence of all 3 of his characters, thinking that he’s just pulled off the perfect murders, even though he’s an amateur murderer.

I’ll give you a little bit but what I think of Jack Cassidy’s 2nd and 3rd episodes on Columbo, but I’m mostly going to concentrate on Murder By The Book (1971) because it’s not only his best episode, his best performance on Columbo, but I believe the best Columbo episode in the entire series.

If you are familiar with the original USA Network TV series In Plain Sight (from 2008-2012) starring Mary McCormack (as Deputy Marshal Mary Shannon) then you have probably seen the pilot episode as well. There’s a scene where she’s about to question her lead suspect of this murder (or killing) and she’s walking up this kid’s father’s place and about to meet his father. And I haven’t been able to find the exact quote anywhere, but she’s referencing Lieutenant Columbo. (Played by Peter Falk) And she says something to the effect:

“You know when you are watching a Columbo episode and the Lieutenant figures out who the ,murderer is as soon as he meets that person…

Columbo hasn’t figured out who the murderer is as soon as he meets Ken Franklin. (Played by Jack Cassidy) But thanks to the victim’s wife, (played by Rosemary Forsyth) Franklin is already the lead suspect. She tells the Lieutenant about his partnership with her husband Jim Ferris (played by Martin Milner) and how much Franklin is about to lose financially, because now they’re breaking up and their both authors, but Ferris does most of the writing. And Ferris is about to go out on his own and that could cost Franklin a lot of money and so-forth.

So now Ken Franklin is the only suspect to this crime, even though Columbo hasn’t even met him yet. And they are at the Ferris home when Franklin shows up and Columbo still hasn’t figured out who the actual murderer is. But it gets really interesting after the Lieutenant starts talking to Franklin.

If you have ever played the game Follow The Trail, where you have to keep finding clues that lead you to where you are going and finally end up, that’s what Murder By The Book is:

Franklin and Columbo are at Franklin’s office that he shared with his partner Jim Ferris, the night of the murder. What Franklin really wants to do is detour Columbo and get him looking at other people like West Coast organized figures as suspects that his Jim Ferris was doing research on to write a book about. What Franklin does instead is make himself look even guiltier. He explains to Columbo that instead of flying back to Los Angeles from San Diego, he drives back instead. Now, San Diego is only a 2 hour drive from Los Angeles. But it suggested to Columbo that Franklin wasn’t in a hurry to get back and find out what happened to his missing partner and friend. And he showed no emotion whatsoever about the fact that his friend and partner was missing.

And now they’re at Ken Franklin’s place and Franklin of course knows what happened to his friend and partner, since he murdered him and has been keeping the dead body in the trunk of his car and now decides to dump the body on his lawn and report it to the police. So Franklin and Columbo are now in his home and Columbo asks Franklin to retrace his steps and movements once he found the dead body and what he was doing and after he founded the body. And he tells Lieutenant Columbo that he was looking at his mail and going through his mail, even though he just discovered a dead body on his lawn, who just happened to be his partner, as well as best friend. Franklin is still trying to put this murder on a list of West Coast organized crime figures. But he doing that while dropping all sorts of clues on the floor about his own guilt.

And you get into the facts that Ken Franklin and Jim Ferris both has insurance polices on each other. That Franklin who was doing very well financially, but was a playboy bachelor with very expensive women and taste. But Franklin who is the co-author of the very book where the murder that he just committed was literally laid out, thinks he just committed the perfect murder.

Publish Or Perish (1974) and Now You See Him (1976) are both excellent Columbo episodes. The 2nd and 3rd Jack Cassidy episodes are both in my Columbo top 5-10. But Murder By The Book is my personal favorite, because the murderer thinks he just committed the perfect murder. But his so overconfident that he literally proves himself guilty of the crime, because of his arrogance and he kept leaving little clues that only Lieutenant Columbo could put together to solve the crime.

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