Columbo : Camera in Negative Reaction

May have been discussed before, but how many polaroid type cameras existed back when this episode was made. Columbo reverses the photo of the crime scene to trick Dick into incriminating himself , but I am sure that Dick's character was shown an original photo earlier in the episode. I can't imagine that there were too many types of camera that made instant photos around. When he is incriminated by identifying the camera, could he have said that he knew which camera took the photo due to the type of photo the original was?

I might be wrong but anyone know if there were other instant cameras on the shelf when Dick grabbed the camera that took the photo?

I can't answer all your questions. But I can say that the 'negative' of the title - which is referred to as such in the final scene - is not a true negative. It is in fact a reversed positive matrix (with the time on the background clock looking like 10am instead of 2pm) from which a correctly-oriented positive print would have been developed inside the instant camera. It is shown in close-up, still inside the camera, in an early scene.

I don't know if this type of instant camera and film ever existed or if they were invented for this episode of "Columbo" in 1974. But they would have been needed by the killer to plant false evidence against his second victim. When the camera is found in this man's room with the positive matrix still inside it the police regard that as conclusive proof of his guilt. They haven't been shown to the real killer - so he shouldn't be able to identify the camera or know that the matrix was still inside it unless he was guilty. Early on, the police sergeant told Columbo that he 'used to own one' of this type of instant camera and that it was 'an old model' - meaning that there were other old instant cameras identical to it and that newer models had become available. (The killer gets his stooge to buy this old-model camera secondhand because he knows that it will serve his purpose when planting evidence against him. He steals the camera so that he can use it. Then he deliberately leaves the positive matrix, with its view of the crime scene, inside it instead of removing it and disposing of it. Columbo must have rightly wondered why any killer would do that.)

If the true killer had been really innocent why wouldn't he ask to be shown the camera instead of picking it out himself from a whole range of camera models, old and new, so that they could all check a 'negative' which he couldn't know had been left inside it?

But there would have been a real negative that could have saved the killer if he had thought about it in time - which, as a professional photographer, he should have. To produce the 'huge blowup' which Columbo uses in the final scene a police photographer would have had to copy the original positive print by photographing it and using the resultant internegative to produce the positive blowup. Checking the internegative would reveal if it had been printed the wrong way round - which it was. Unless, of course, Columbo claimed that he'd accidentally destroyed the internegative as well as the original positive! Even then there would have been no conclusive proof of the real murderer's guilt. He had to be induced to incriminate himself - which he did.

There is also the case of The First Photo Print and its matrix, which were discarded by the real killer at the murder scene. Columbo discovers them, still intact, in a fireplace, and a close-up shows the critical clock in the background of the print. The murderer is even shown this print by Columbo later on - but he totally forgets about it in the final scene, although it too could have saved him.

If the murderer had in fact remembered it, would Columbo then claim that he had accidentally destroyed that positive print as well? At which point even the viewers might begin to wish that Columbo would drop himself into a 'batch' of hydrochloric acid.

The murderer had other resources available as well. I thought of those when watching a recording, and I was pleased to discover that they had also occurred to a contributer in the User Reviews, jceepf from Japan. (25 June 2011, Page 3.) He admired the show - 8 stars'a great episode''a very good Columbo' - but he complained that 'the end is a little hard to believe'. He pointed out that 'neither the house, nor Mrs. Galesco, nor her clothing were mirror symmetric'. Her hair was parted on the left side and she wore a display on the left side of her jacket, the clock and a glass ball were on the right-hand side of the mantelpiece, the fire irons were on the right of the fireplace, there was a long chest to the right of the chimneystack, the chair in which she was tied was also to the right. In Columbo's blowup these positions were all reversed. A police photographer was taking the requisite pictures of the murder scene when Columbo got there. The murderer could have demanded that these should be produced to verify the details in Columbo's blowup. (Please don't ask us to believe that Columbo managed to destroy all of them as well, both negatives and positives.)

The climax is, at least in retrospect, a disappointment. Columbo fails to find proof of the killer's guilt - it was almost the perfect murder - and has to resort to trickery. And the murderer, in spite of all his knowledge and ingenuity, allows himself to be tricked too easily.

Of course, Columbo was lying when he said that he accidentally destroyed the original print which was the source of the blowup. It was a calculated ruse - but it worked. And what law says that you can never lie, even to a killer?

PS: At the end of the final scene Columbo sits down on a table with his back to the camera. It would have been a nicer touch to have him sit on a chair at the table, open a drawer and take out a photograph - the one he pretended to have accidentally destroyed. Then have him take out another photograph - the one he showed to the murderer, who completely forgot about it.

Outstanding analysis, momurr. Posters like you help me appreciate episodes like this even more.


My people skills are fine. It's my tolerance of morons that needs work.

Polaroid Land Cameras were invented by Edwin Land and manufactured and sold by the Polaroid company. They were first sold to the public in 1948. In the original cameras, like the one in this episode of Columbo, the film developed inside the camera. You can read more about them here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_Camera.

I don't remember much about them, but one of my uncles and my grandfather had them back in the fifties. My sister had a "Swinger" camera in the sixties that I do remember and used myself on occasion. Those however you pulled the pack out through the side of the camera and it developed outside, and then you peeled the picture off the negative.

Thanks for the reply.

I don't tend to nitpick Columbo and usually when the Lt dupes people like this, I can appreciate the irony better than the ingenuity.

This one always just felt like cheating though. It helps a bit that Van Dyke's character is less than sympathetic.

Glasgow's FOREMOST authority.

I believe the Polaroid "shoot and peel" cameras showed up in the early-to-mid 60s (certainly no later than that). My dad got one around 1967 with a flash so friggin bright that it gave me a flash-phobia that I never fully got over.

He would take the photo, wait a minute or two, then peel off the negative. He would then coat the photo with a smelly chemical to keep it from fading and apply a card-like backing to the treated photo to keep it from curling up.

That was a lot of work to get a few photos.


My people skills are fine. It's my tolerance of morons that needs work.

Cool.

I agree that was a lot of work.

If this episode was shot more recently, I would say that Polaroid photos were far more distinctive. They had a horrible shape, and you would instantly tell that the photo was from a Polaroid. However, those camera's might not have had the "Negative" in them.

The way Columbo catches Galesko seemed very iffy. I always thought it would've been better if the wife had been wearing an item with a reflective surface and once they begin blowing up the photograph you could easily identify Galesko as the one taking the picture. A small detail that trips up the murderer.

Jesus is the Son of God and my Lord and savior. Pretty cool.