Product Details

• Actors: Peter Falk, Gene Barry, Katherine Justice, William Windom, Nina Foch
• Directors: Richard Irving
• Format: Collector's Edition, NTSC
• Language: English
• Run Time: 99 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B0007KWR5Y
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #262,263 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Uhhh..Just One More Question...., May 17, 2005

By 

L. Shirley "Laurie's Boomer Views" (Huntington Beach,CA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Columbo Collector's Edition (Prescription: Murder) (VHS Tape)

When Peter Falk as Columbo utters the words, "Uhhh, just one more question...", we know he is on to his prime suspect. And what's more, the suspect knows it too!

"Prescription Murder" aired in 1968, was the pilot movie for the enduring and fun "Columbo" series. The audience, always knowing, right from the beginning who the murderer was of each episode, had the fun and pleasure of watching Coulmbo unraveling the mystery, as he made squirming paranoids out of the main suspects, who usually started out as cool and collected, with intricate plans and never thinking they left a trail.

In each episode, there was always great guest stars. The biggest star usually being the perp. In "Prescription Murder", it is Gene Barry,(who had his own hit series in the 60's, on which he was the cop, in "Burke's Law"), a prominent psychiatrist who devises and carries out what he thinks is a fool proof plan to murder his wife(she had all the money, of course). Columbo dogs him from the get go, and you begin to wonder just who is analyzing who in the Dr. Vs. Dectective dialouge! At one point after being gnawed away at by Columbo's innocent little questions, Barry tells him, "You know, you are like a sly little elf, who should be sitting under a toad stool somewhere!"

It's always a wonderful cat and mouse game, and this pilot epsiode should get you rehooked on this fabulous series. William Windom also stars as Barry's buddy, and happens to be a D.A, that makes things just a little tougher(but of course, not impossible) for our guy Columbo.

If you really love this fabulous series, this vintage episode along with the 8 other greats of the first season, including "Murder By The Book", directed by Steven Spielberg, is sold in a beautiful DVD set, and is probably the best way to go for fans. (Seasons 2 and 3 are also out now).

Get a clue...with Columbo!...enjoy...Laurie

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars PILOT NUMBER ONE, May 9, 2007

By 

Daniel S. "Daniel" (Geneva, Switzerland) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Columbo Collector's Edition (Prescription: Murder) (VHS Tape)

The first TV pilot of COLUMBO, PRESCRIPTION: MURDER, was broadcasted on Feb. 20th, 1968, more than three years before the broadcasting of the first episode. It's also possible to see this pilot in the DVD standard by purchasing Columbo - The Complete First Season. Gene Barry, the first mean guy who ever confronted Columbo, is mostly appreciated by movie buffs because he starred in two Samuel Fuller films : Forty Guns and China Gate.

We have to accept it: there is a huge difference between this pilot and the Columbo episodes of the first season. For example, PRESCRIPTION: MURDER looks a lot more like a stage play and still belongs to the TV world of the sixties. But there are also in it a few sparkles that announce the grandness of the first episodes. I'm specially thinking here about the scene when Dr. Ray Flemming, a psychiatrist, dissects the way and the recipes Columbo uses with the suspects. This scene alone is worth the 99 minutes of this TV movie.

A VHS for the Columbo buffs.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars SEASON ONE, EPISODE ONE, April 10, 2007

By 

Daniel S. "Daniel" (Geneva, Switzerland) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Columbo Collector's Edition (Murder by the Book) (VHS Tape)

After two pilots, Columbo: Prescription for Murder aired in February 1968 and Columbo Collector's Edition: Ransom For A Dead Man aired in March 1971, the first episode of Columbo, MURDER BY THE BOOK, was finally broadcasted on Sept. 15th, 1971. It's also possible to watch this episode in the DVD standard by purchasing Columbo - The Complete First Season.

I was somewhat anxious before watching MURDER BY THE BOOK because I feared that the pleasure I had, during the seventies, to watch Columbo on TV was only associated with my teen years and hadn't pass the test of time. How was I wrong ! The quality of this episode is undeniable, even measured according to our actual standards. Steven Spielberg, who directed MURDER BY THE BOOK, was already yeasty in his direction. He managed to create a suspense drama during the first 15 minutes of the episode while everybody had already understood, since the first 15 seconds of MURDER BY THE BOOK, that Jim Ferris would be murdered by Ken Franklin. The suspense simply lied in the fact that we didn't know how Ferris would do it. Spielberg, with a few Hitchcockian scenes, compelled us to successively believe that Franklin was meant to die poisoned, drowned and shot to death.

Peter Falk is perfect and Jack Cassidy, as the villain, also top-notch. A special mention though to Barbara Colby who, in the role of the blackmailer Lilly LaSanka, shines in all the scenes she appears in.

A VHS for your library.