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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mel O&#039;Drama" data-source="post: 276737" data-attributes="member: 23">Dagger Of The Mind / Requiem For A Falling Star continued Americanisms from British characters were mostly avoided - though not entirely. The most jarring for me came from Sir Roger Haversham who - just before being killed - threatened “I’m going out front and tell them”, which sounded very off (the actor is British, but I imagine he was saying it exactly as it was written). There was one tiny moment where Honor Blackman’s character said “I guess”. This has been increasingly used in the UK over the last few decades as our language becomes ever more mid-Atlantic, but five decades ago it would have sounded very American. And there’s also the two killers repeatedly discussing an “autopsy”. This last example was was especially sloppy since it started after a nice moment where a British officer mentioned a post mortem and Columbo had to ask what that was, establishing the different terminology used on either side of the Atlantic. It’s funny how I’ve become so used to him being called “Loo-tenant” that it sounded almost strange to my ears to hear the British pronunciation of his title. While it was used frequently, I’m a little surprised that more wasn’t made of it, but perhaps that would have been too obvious. As it was, there was a nice subtle touch where he seemed to fail to recognise he was being addressed until he was called a second time. The plot itself has some enjoyable turns. Reminiscent of Death Lends A Hand, the death is accidental. In true luvvie fashion it occurs when Blackman’s character Lilian Stanhope flings her jar of cold cream at two men fighting in her dressing room, landing a killing blow. This time there are two people involved to conspire to cover it up. It’s possible this is the first episode to feature two different killings by two different killers. That’s assuming it was Basehart’s character Nicholas Frame who killed butler-turned-blackmailer Wilfred Hyde-White whose name for me, despite his long and distinguished acting career, will always conjure up the infamous daffodil up the bum moment from Carry On Nurse.The Gotcha moment - in the appropriately dramatic surrounds of the “London Wax Museum”  - was enjoyable. I particularly liked that an earlier lead-in to a Gotcha was foiled by the two who realised there had been a mix-up with the umbrellas and broke into the museum to switch them. Yes, Columbo once again planted a piece of “evidence” to elicit a confession, but it felt truthful and satisfying within the reality of this series. The confession worked as well, driven as it was by the guilt that had slowly broken them down - paired, in Frame’s case, with insanity. The fact that the husband and wife actors had lead roles in Macbeth for the duration of this film added a nice symmetry as well. Giving both these episodes a sense of cohesion, Jackson Gillis wrote the teleplays for both. Dagger Of The Mind, however, has the added benefit of a story by Levinson and Link. And it’s the second of this season’s feature-length episodes, which gives lots of scope for small moments of Columboisms. Columbo’s squeamishness in certain situations is always a joy to behold. In this case it came from photos of the post mortem that the coroner joyfully shows to the colleagues over tea at a gentlemen’s club. Columbo, seated next to the coroner, passes the pictures along while averting his eyes, but is still put off his food by the coroner’s happy burbling with details of what they’re looking at and what was found inside the body. When the food was initially presented, Columbo approvingly noted how substantial it was, having feared it was going to be “tiny sandwiches”. Which prompted the steward to quip:Columbo as a tourist brought a host of brilliant moments. There was his comment that Big Ben was only a minute slow, prompting Detective Chief Superintendent Durk to quip:A nice non-verbal moment between these two came when they were on a boat cruise of the Thames. Columbo is madly snapping everything with his camera. He turns to Durk and points his camera at the side of his face, and as Durk's scowling face breaks into a smile the lines seem to blur and I wonder if actor Bernard Fox was as charmed by this endearing moment as Durk briefly seemed to be. There's also a moment with Columbo seated on a park bench next to an equally shabby looking man. Nothing was said, and no words were needed. continued... </blockquote>

Verification: Who played Sue Ellen in Dallas?