Overview
Release Date:
4 November 1973 (USA)
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Plot:
Senatorial candidate Nelson Hayward murders his domineering campaign manager, staging it to appear that Hayward himself was the intended victim of a mob hit gone wrong. Columbo hits the campaign trail to catch the killer.
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Awards:
Won Primetime Emmy.
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User Comments:
Jackie Cooper tries to turn the tables on our redoubtable detective in this excellent episode
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Crew believed to be complete
Additional Details
Runtime:
93 min
Color:
Color (Technicolor)
Aspect Ratio:
1.33 : 1
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MOVIEmeter: 
5% since last week
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Fun Stuff
Trivia:
The children's song, "This Old Man" appears in almost every episode of the Columbo series, sometimes as background music, but more often Lt. Columbo is seen singing, humming, or whistling the tune. The episode, "Candidate for Crime" is the only episode where the murderer ('Jackie Cooper', as political candidate Nelson Hayward) is seen using it, in this case whistling it, as he prepares to film a campaign commercial.
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Goofs:
Continuity: When Columbo speaks to Linda Johnson to introduce himself, a woman with a white woollen hat with holes in passes in front of them. In the next shot the same woman is having a conversation with someone behind Columbo and Miss Johnson.
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Soundtrack:
This Old Man
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FAQ
What is the watch Columbo said "You can't break"?
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Nelson Hayward (Jackie Cooper) is running for senate as a man tough on crime. His campaign manager Harry Stone (Ken Swofford) demands the candidate dump his mistress (Tisha Sterling) and backs up the demand with threats to expose the politician's shady past. But Stone approves of the candidate's publicity-minded lie that anonymous killers are threatening the politician's life, little guessing that Hayward will murder him and blame it on these invented assailants. Hayward sets up a tricky alibi for himself that includes a surprise birthday party for his wife (Joanne Linville). No one guesses the truth except that annoying Italian cop in the rumpled raincoatour redoubtable Lt. Columbo (Peter Falk).
Except for comic scenes included to pad the running time, this is a top-notch "Columbo" episode. The dialoguefrom a script credited to four writers, not counting the story creditis particularly sharp, especially in the scene where Cooper turns the tables on Columbo and insists on giving him his undivided attention; this time it's the suspect interrupting our clever detective with irrelevancies. Swofford, Linville and Sterling all give sterling support; and Jackie Cooper makes a splendid villaina charming but unscrupulous politician with a wrinkled but handsomely boyish face that makes him look like a mortified schoolboy in the last scene.