Blueprint for Murder

On February 9th, 1972, the 7th and final episode of Season 1 aired - Blueprint for Murder. It starred Patrick O'Neal as an ambitious architect who wants to plan and a build a new "city", all he needs is the funding. He's managed to charm the lovely young wife of an wealthy oil man into it, but the cranky old oil man (played by Forrest Tucker) isn't interested.

📺You can watch it for free here: https://www.imdb.com/tv/watch/tt0068395 (May not be available in all regions)

This episode was directed by Peter Falk himself, something he fought long and hard with the studio to do. In fact, directing this episode was apparently the concession that he won from his "sick-out" on Dead Weight earlier in the season.

What to watch for

A few things I found interesting during the episode...

Very 1972...

Bo was in Europe and there was no way to reach him before the episode, then he's supposedly gone off to Europe and can't be reached...a very pre-mobile phone world. 

Meet John Finnegan

Blueprint for Murder is the debut of Columbo regular John Finnegan, a friend of Peter Falk's who ultimately ended up in 13 episodes. He plays Carl the construction foreman in this episode.

Quiet murder

Columbo was pretty renowned - especially in the early series - for antiseptic murders. No blood, not much real violence, most of it simply implied. This one takes that even further, Architect Elliott Markham takes cranky rich guy Bo Williamson into the stable shed at gun point and...cut to a scene of Markham driving Bo's car.

No gunshot, no body. I suppose it could be argued that it leaves open the slightest chance that Markham actually forced Bo to leave the country, and didn't kill him...but I think we all know Bo is dead at that point.

Too quiet, really

I have a hard time believing that big, brash, Bo...who actually slapped Markham earlier in the episode, is just going to meekly march to his death. Given that his situation was dire, you'd have expected him to charge Markham and fight him when they got out of the car. Make him shoot you under duress, or at least out in the open with jockeys and other folks in the area. 

Bo made it much too easy for Markham.

Bo's car

Markham may have been driving Bo's car, but WHICH car. Bo drives a gold-colored Cadillac coupe, but in the close-ups you can see that his car has gaudy, custom, six-guns mounted above the door handles.

Thing is, in the more distant shots you can see that the car doesn't have any six-guns on the door.

Bo's Caddy has an after-market tape player. It's separate from the car stereo, which is why the car stereo was turned off, but Columbo was listening to Bo's country music tapes. When he stopped the tape player and turned on the radio he heard the classical music.

Speaking of cars...

Elliott Markham drives the same Mercedes that Ken Franklin did in Murder by the Book. Note the license plate - XSM 494.

While they're reusing...

Elliott Markham's office might seem familiar. It's the same office that doomed Uncle David used in the previous episode: Short Fuse.

(Top: Blueprint for Murder; Bottom: Short Fuse)

Kudos to Columbo fan Julien Derosiaux for spotting this one.

Safety...ummm, 3rd?

At the dedication ceremony about 15 minutes into the episode many of the guests (including women in dresses) are wearing hard hats. Not surprising at a construction site. But many of them, including Markham and Jennifer Williamson, aren't. So clearly it's not much of a rule. 

Mike in the line

When Columbo goes to the Building and Safety Office to ask about tearing out the pile to search for Bo, there's a familiar fellow in line behind him. Yep, the legendary Michael Lally!

There's a fellow at the dedication ceremony earlier in the episode who LOOKS like Michael Lally, but I've decided it's not him because at one point Columbo is standing next to him and the fellow at the ceremony is clearly a few inches taller than Columbo. And famously Mike Lally was almost exactly Peter Falk's size. 

Reuse, Recycle, Renew...

The scene at the end where Markham is driving Bo's body to the construction site and gets a flat tire right in front of a motorcycle cop was originally written for Murder by the Book but was cut from that episode. 

It's interesting that the motorcycle officer has to go to a phone to call the tow truck. That was necessary for the story, but in 1971 the police radios weren't nearly as robust as they are now and clearly the officer wouldn't have a mobile phone in his pocket.

Props get reused too...

If you look VERY closely at the ID that Markham hands the motorcycle cop you might notice that it's actually Columbo's ID.

A few plot holes...

I hate to poke but...

• Bo told the jockey training his horse that he'd be back in a few days to check on the horse. Did Columbo talk to the jockey, who was perhaps the last person to see Bo alive (other than Markham)? If so, it might cast more doubt on whether Bo would have immediately gotten on a flight to Europe.
• If Columbo had gone to see the jockey, he might have looked around a bit and found Bo's body in the equipment shed.
• As above - I found it hard to believe that Bo would just walk quietly into the shed so Markham could kill him. No fight at all?

Just a few more things...

• The security guard at the building dedication is Nick Dennis but he's occasionally mistaken for Columbo regular Vito Scotti. There is a passing resemblance I guess. 
• It's never quite clear if Jennifer and Markham are sleeping together. My guess is no, but there does seem to be a bit of sexual tension between them.
• About 20% of Miss Sherman's dialogue seems to have been "Yes, it is." 
• The construction site the episode was filmed at was an active construction site. This made filming tough because they didn't stop building during the filming - so pre-planning shots and doing reshoots was almost impossible because the site changed from day to day as things were built and other work was done on the site.