Murder Under Glass

The second episode of Season 7 premiered on January 30th, 1978 as Lieutenant Columbo wandered into one of the tastiest corners of the series: Murder Under Glass. It’s got fancy restaurants, culinary snobbery, and a murderer who can weaponize a wine list.

If you’ve ever wanted an episode where Columbo is simultaneously out of his depth and completely in control, this is your dish.

📺Watch it free, here 

Meet Paul Gerard

Louis Jourdan plays Paul Gerard, a celebrated food critic with the posture of a diplomat and the ethics of a parking-enforcement scam. Gerard’s little racket is simple: he boosts restaurants with rave reviews… for a cut of the profits. If you don’t pay, you just get a bad review and he has the power to make or break restaurants.

What makes Gerard fun (and dangerous) is that he’s not the usual Columbo egomaniac who can’t stop monologuing. He’s polished, deliberate, and very aware of optics. He’s the kind of killer who would worry more about the presentation of a crime than the crime itself. Paul Gerard is a great ‘villain of manners’: every sentence sounds polite, but almost everything he says is a flex.

And because the episode leans into the restaurant world, Gerard’s arrogance isn’t just personal—it’s professional. He talks about taste like it’s a birthright.

Paul's wonderful car

On a series where most of the killers drive impressive cars, Gerard's is really quite remarkable. It's a 1974 Stutz Blackhawk, with a beautiful two-tone paintjob.

It was rather rare, hand-made in Italy, and only a few hundred were ever sold. In 1974 the typical price was $35,000. In 2026 dollars that would be more than $225,000.

The victim, the motive, and the “pairing”

Michael V. Gazzo plays restaurateur Vittorio Rossi, a man who has finally hit his limit. Rossi has been paying Gerard’s “commission” to keep his place hot but decides his restaurant has established itself well enough that he doesn’t need Gerard anymore. That refusal turns a long-running shakedown into a murder.

The method is one of the episode’s signature ideas: Gerard poisons Rossi’s wine. It’s elegant on the surface—no guns, no struggle—just a deadly little flourish at a table where nobody thinks the critic is capable of getting his hands dirty.

Some gaps...

One thing that was a little unique about this episode is what you DON'T see. We see Gerard extract the poison from the fugu fish, but we never see how he puts it in the bottle opener. And we don't see how he switched the openers. And we don't see him switch them back...or switch them again at the end. In fact, while we know that Gerard poisoned Vittorio we're not really shown HOW he poisoned Vittorio.

A lot of is just left to the imagination but it feels a bit like a gap.

A Columbo Cornucopia!

Gazzo may be best known for playing Frankie P in The Godfather Part II, but he also had a role in Brinks: The Great Robbery in 1976. What makes this interesting to Columbo fans is that that TV movie also starred:

• Burr DeBenning – AKA Captain Loomis from By Dawn’s EarlyLight
• Leslie Nielsen – from Lady in Waiting and Identity Crisis
• Bert Remsen - Mark the gofer in Fade in to Murder
• Barney Phillips – Captain Wyler in Suitable for Framing
• Stuart Nisbet – Short Fuse and Most Dangerous Match
• Hank Brandt – Played an attorney in Ransom for a Dead Man
• Lawrence Haddon – Who played Dean Gillespie in Columbo Goes to College

A veritable Columbo reunion! 

Jonathan Demme’s touch

Peter Falk saw the work of a struggling young director, Jonathan Demme, and offered to give him a chance directing this episode. It was just the shot of confidence the young man needed and Demme went on to win an Academy Award directing movies such as Philadelphia and The Silence of the Lambs.

Demme doesn’t direct this like a stately whodunit. He keeps the pace moving, lets scenes breathe just long enough for awkwardness to bloom, and then lands a joke or a character beat. It’s not flashy, but it’s lively—especially in the restaurant sequences, which could have been visually static in lesser hands.

The outburst

One strange performance decision occurs early in the investigation. Columbo angrily berating Mario. It feels very out of character for the Lieutenant, and it's not clear what the purpose of it was...unless he was putting on a show for Gerard. It's an uncomfortable moment.

Shera Danese is back as Eve Plummer/Irene Demilo

Gerard’s companion, watching the performance from close range—and reminding us that proximity to a killer doesn’t guarantee awareness.

Shera and Peter were newlyweds when this episode aired, they got married December 7^th, 1977.

Mako as Mr. Ozu

Mako is always welcome on-screen, but I have to say that his presence in this one felt kind of unnecessary. I guess it gave a little context to the fugu, and he almost saved the awkward geisha scene. But otherwise… 

Mako

Richard Dysart as Max Duvall 

The behind-the-scenes money man who knows how the game is played. Dysart doesn't get a lot to do in this episode, he's just part of the Restaurant Developers Association and has one good scene with Columbo in the kitchen.

Outside of Columbo, Dysart is better known for his starring role on L.A. Law.

France Nuyen as Mary Choy

She does a nice job as the owner of the Chinese restaurant. Fun fact, in real life France Nuyen was briefly married to Columbo luminary Robert Culp.

Antony Alda as Mario Deluca

Yes, that Alda. He’s the half-brother of M*A*S*H star Alan Alda. He wasn’t Italian, in fact he was born in France. He died young, just 52 years old, of cirrhosis of the liver.

Yukon Cornelius as Chef Albert

Well, ok, it was actually Larry D. Mann, but fans of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer may be surprised to discover that Mann also did the voice of Cornelius in the famous Christmas cartoon.

And, of course, Michael Lally

It's always a nice addition to any episode to have an appearance by the legendary Michael Lally. He's selling produce at the farmer's market.

The clue mechanics

The episode is a nice example of Columbo doing what he does best—finding the tiny procedural details the killer assumes are beneath notice. The murder plan relies on expertise and theatrical confidence, and Columbo counters with persistence and the kind of annoying follow-up questions that don’t stop until the story collapses.

Gerard’s mistake isn’t that he underestimates Columbo’s intelligence—he’s too sharp for that. It’s that he underestimates how patient Columbo can be, and how willing he is to look foolish in public if it gets him one more reaction.

Columbo learned fast...

Back in Season 2's Double Shock we saw Columbo looking pretty awkward on a cooking show. Fortunately he seems to have learned how to cook since then. 

Did you know there's a Columbo cookbook?

One big unnecessary risk

It’s not clear why Columbo took a chance on the “wine glass switch” at the end. I mean, I know it’s a good TV gotcha, but at that point it was unnecessary. He had the switched opener (undoubtedly with the poison) and he could have just called it there.

Gerard joins the short list of suspects who tried to kill Columbo at the end.

And, much like Paul Galesko, if Gerard had left well enough alone and just enjoyed his veal and wine, he might have gotten away with it. Everything else was circumstantial and while maybe there’s a bunko case with “Eve….” There’s probably no murder case without the poisoned opener Galesko provides at the end.

Plot Holes

I do have a couple other small problems with the story. First, how would Gerard know that Vittorio would open a bottle of wine and then drink from it after he left. And that nobody else would drink that wine?

And second, Mary Choy is the President of the Restaurant Developers Association but she doesn't seem to know that they have a second bank account? Or was she simply lying to Columbo?

Just a few more things…

• Columbo’s relationship with food is always funny, but here it becomes part of the investigation. Watching him learn the rules of the restaurant scene is half the charm.
  
  
• I did like the line at Vittorio's funeral where Chef Albert assures Columbo that as long as he's on this case he'll never go hungry. Columbo passing the check at the funeral is widely considered a bit impolite, but I thought it was a nice story touch.
  
  
• I must not do enough banking, I've never had a banker serve me cake when I came into the branch.
  
  
• When Columbo figures out that the bottle opener was the mechanism and he and Mario walk off to go to the banquet, Columbo is vigorously whistling "This Old Man" which is widely considered a signal that he's got his man,