Peter Falk as Columbo | Rian Johnson

Good evening and welcome to the Billy Wilder Theater, home of the public programs for the UCLA film and television archive. I'm Mark Wigley, John H. Mitchell, television curator for the archive, and we're happy that you're here tonight. Thanks for joining us. [Applause] We're in the midst of a tragic time for Los Angeles and we're grateful to be able to make this time for a brief respit to celebrate one of the most beloved actors, characters, and series in TV history, Peter Faulk and Columbbo. And we are extremely grateful to have filmmaker Ryan Johnson with us tonight to introduce tonight's screening. Thank you very much, Ryan, for joining us. I'm going to turn the stage over to him in just a few moments. A few notes first. Archive screenings in the Wilder are free. You might have noticed that. Thanks to a gift from an anonymous donor and tonight's screening is underwritten by the Johnny Mitchell Television Programming Endowment. Thanks also to the Hammer Museum, our community partners at the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, the great team at Ryan's T Street Productions, and Allison Martino of Vintage LA. Let's give them all a hand. In the house tonight, we have Ryan Cassidy, son of our first Columbbo villain, the truly great Jack Cassidy. Thanks for joining us, Ryan. His mom is Shirley Jones, too. So, there's that. Um, also with us tonight is the family of legendary DGA Lifetime Award recipient Robert Butler. Mr. Butler Mr. Butler was our stage guest twice here at the Wilder, a frequent patron of this theater. He was as kind and generous as he was talented. His unbelievable list of credits includes directing the pilots to the original Star Trek, Batman, Hill Street Blues, Moonlighting, episodes of the original Twilight Zone Colombo, and so much more. He's greatly missed, so we're happy to have his family here tonight. Last notes, we'll have a brief intermission after Steven Spielberg's superb entry, Murder by the Book. And when we return, we're going to screen Peter Fox's brilliant Emmy acceptance speech from 1972. So, you'll be rewarded if you come back after the intermission. After that, we're going to uh have a little experiment with Robert Butler's superb entry, Double Shock, starring Martin Landau. We're we've intercut it with original commercials and bumpers from a rare halfinch open reel recording of an original broadcast from 1973 in New York. So, you're going to see all the commercials, the original mystery open, every every way, every shape form of weirdness you can imagine. Um, and you're going to notice a drop in image quality for that, but we think you're going to find the experiment worthwhile. So, stick around. Our special guest tonight, Ryan Johnson, is an award-winning feature film and television multi-hyphenit with an incredible filmography that we don't have time to do justice to tonight. So, to that point, I'll just focus on the fact that he knows more than a thing or two about the construction of complex mysteries, related master villains, and charismatic dogged detectives. Ryan's two critically acclaimed Knives Out Mystery features uh star Daniel Craig as a supremely gifted unorthodox private detective and his third film in that beloved series, Wake Up Dead Man, a Knives Out Mystery arrives later this year. So, I can't wait for that. [Applause] very relevant also to tonight. Ryan created Peacock's hit streamer Poker Face, an instant classic television mystery series that he and irreplaceable series star and multi-hyphenate Natasha Leon have fashioned in part in the tradition of Columbbo, right down to the show's distinctive 70s era Universal Studios look Helvetica block yellow titles, which like when I first watched that pilot, that like blew me away. I was in with the titles. I was in. Last year, I spoke to Ryan for like two seconds at a reception here and mentioned I was planning on presenting Columbbo on the big screen. He kindly replied, "I'd come to that." And true to his word, here he is. So, please welcome filmmaker extraordininaire Ryan Johnson to the stage. Hey guys. Uh, I'm going to keep this really brief as all intros should be, I strongly believe. Um, but thank you guys for being here and thank you Mark so much for putting this on. Uh, this is a really rare and really special thing to get to see these with a crowd on the big screen. Um, and I feel like especially right now uh cuz I feel like with all the pain and loss of the c last couple weeks in this city, there's been even more uh uniting and even more coming together as a town. And I've felt in myself and there's just been just kind of a swelling of a desire to celebrate Los Angeles. And I'm going to plant a flag. I think Columbbo is the all-time great LA show. Uh, and if you're like me, if you love watching TV of this era shot in LA and location spotting, you know that Columbbo is a 30year span of just a temple to Oh my god, that's that corner. Oh my god, that's that office block. Uh, in the very first episode we're going to watch tonight, you're going to see the original tale of the pup restaurant. Uh, also it's really fun. The um the very last Columbbo that was ever ever released in 2002, Columbbo uh loves the nightlife when Faulk was 75 years old. Uh there's a scene set in uh the Swingers on Beverly with like the cow wallpaper which is a total head trip because I'm sure there are people in here who like me spent a lot of drunk nights at swingers in 2002 and to have that whiplash is amazing. Um, all right. So, 1971, the first one that we're watching, uh, Murder by the Book. Um, this was not the pilot for Columbbo. They had done a couple of kind of pilot, uh, TV movie, uh, episodes prior to this, but this was the very first episode that aired in season 1 proper where Levenson and Link were kind of given the keys to the show and they kind of sat down and codified, okay, this is going to be the format of the show. This is going to be kind of the rules of it. Um, and this was the very first episode episode to air. It was written by Stephen Botchko. This is years. Yes. Bring it up. Uh, he was 26 years old. This is years before Hill Street Blues. And basically, and I love this, um, uh, you know, William Link and Richard Levenson, who were the geniuses who really, like I said, were kind of the originators of the show. uh they took him under their wing and they really mentored him and he kind of cut his teeth right in Columbos. Um uh if you know one thing about this episode, you probably know it was directed by Steven Spielberg who was 24 years old and I think for years I thought this was his first gig. It wasn't. Uh he actually Sid Shinberg um had been really pushing him at Universal at the time and so he had directed multiple episodes. He had directed a couple episodes of a show called The Psychiatrist. He had directed Rod Serling's show called Night Gallery. And he had he kind of cut his teeth and been around a bit. Um, but it's funny, Faulk had uh kind of final say. He Faulk could nyx directors if he didn't like him. And so they had to sit Faulk down and show him an episode of The Psychiatrist to get him to approve Steven Spielberg. Uh, and he said yes. Uh, thank God. uh stars the great Jack Cassidy who is such a great Columbbo villain that he joined yes along with uh Patrick Mcuan along you know with Robert Culp he's one of the ones who were was a multi-timer they brought him back to play multiple villains that's how delicious he is um and then uh and then the second episode we're seeing Double Shock I'm so excited that Martin Landau was just fantastic in it again directed by the great uh Robert Robert Butler and uh who had just an incredible career and it has one of the all-time great cooking sequences that you will ever see on anything. Uh guys, this is a really really special thing. I'm going to shut up so that we can all start watching some Columbbo. So, thank you guys for being here and yeah, thanks again Mark.