Negative Reaction story
After years of marriage to his domineering wife, Frances, professional photographer Paul Galesko decides to kill her. He hires ex-con Alvin Deschler to rent an isolated ranch house. Galesko persuades his wife to accompany him there and she grudgingly agrees. He ties her to a chair, photographs the scene, and then shoots her. He sets things up so it will appear he is elsewhere when the pictures were taken. Galesko meets Deschler at a junkyard. After shooting Deschler with a revolver, Galesko shoots himself in the leg with the pistol used in the first murder, then plants that gun on Deschler so that it will appear the "kidnapper" was killed in self-defense. JoAnna Cameron plays Galesko's assistant, with whom he is planning a romantic getaway. Final clue/twist: Columbo stages a false accusation using a mirror-inverted version of the kidnapping photo Galesko used to fabricate an alibi. The reverse negative shows a different time on a clock in the photo, a time for which Galesko has no alibi. An increasingly riled Galesko accuses Columbo of framing him with false evidence, and becomes more incensed when Columbo tells him the original photo was accidentally destroyed. Galesko grabs a camera from a shelf where there are twelve other cameras, and shows Columbo a negative that is still inside it. Galesko says the negative proves him right about which way the clock is pointing in the original photograph. Galesko has thus given himself away. He had no way of knowing which camera had been used as part of the kidnapping scheme, or that the negative was still in the back of that camera. Galesko, defeated, realizes that Columbo had staged the false arrest with the exact purpose of getting him to lose his cool so he would rashly identify the camera. The outside set of Deschler's hotel room is the set of Psycho. Directed by: Alf Kjellin. Story by: Peter S. Fischer.
18 total · 2 choice · 7 major · 9 minor
| Theme | Level | Motivation |
|---|---|---|
| how to murder someone and get away with it | choice | The Pulitzer Prize winning photographer Paul Galesko shot his domineering wife dead, and went to elaborate lengths to make it look as if she'd been kidnapped and killed by a certain ex-con. One gathers that he would have gotten away with his crime had it not been for the meddlesome Lt. Columbo. |
| spouse murder | choice | The plot turns on Paul killing his wife, Frances, to get out from under her thumb. |
| controlling partner | major | Paul killed his wife, Francis, who he described as a domineering, nagging, suffocating woman who took all the joy out of his life. |
| framing someone for a crime | major | Paul went to elaborate lengths pin his wife's murder on the ex-con Alvin Deschler. |
| husband and wife | major | The plot turns on Paul killing his wife to get out from under her thumb. |
| law enforcement | major | The bumbling but sharp-witted homicide detective Lt. Columbo was tasked with the following murder mystery: Was Frances Galesko killed in a botched kidnapping, or was something more sinister afoot, perhaps implicating her disgruntled husband? |
| photography | major | The villain of the story Paul Galesko was a two time Pulitzer Prize winning photographer. In addition to Columbo taking a great interest in Paul's livelihood, Columbo exploited that a mirror-inverted version of a photo can be produced by reversing its negative to out Paul as the murderer. |
| ransom kidnapping | major | Paul Galesko shot his wife dead and made it look as if she'd had been kidnapped with a $20,000 ransom demand, and later killed by her "kidnapper". |
| romantic infidelity | major | Frances' suspicions about her husband Paul having romantic designs on his assistant, Lorna, were borne out to be true. This is likely part of the reason why he killed Frances, after which he was together with Lorna many times. |
| alcohol abuse | minor | The investigators did not give much credence to the testimony of the boozer that inhabited the junkyard where Alvin was shot. |