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My least favorite local bar might be in some legal trouble for this

At least they seem to have received good legal advice.* All you ever hear from the owner guy when he's interviewed is, "he didn't seem intoxicated to me/us," which is of course the legal standard for liability in a dramshop state.

* Actually the best legal advice is to not talk to the media.

Screenwriter David Rayfiel who worked with Sydney Pollack, Bertrand Tavernier, Sidney Lumet and Ingmar Bergman.

I was just going to post that. This is a happier death to me considering what he was going through these last few years of life.

Oh, Jesus, that hits hard. I guess he was mostly gone for years, now, but this still feels like an enormous loss

I've seen very few performances better than his in A Woman Under the Influence

His bit in Wings of Desire is a highlight, too, and I'm not ashamed to admit that I'm a huge fan of Columbo.

He honestly does make the colour sequence of Wings with it. I hope I'm not the only one to hold that opinion at least.

As well as a prominent performer in the Cassavetes' company, he was was a significant supporter of several of JC's films from his earnings on COLUMBO... One of the good guys!...

Sad news. A terrific late-career performance was his supporting part as gangster Mendy Ripstein in Walter Hill's Undisputed.

Dunno how much play it gets 'round these parts, but I loved Falk's on-screen chemistry with Cassavetes in Elaine May's Mikey and Nicky.

Husbands. All I need to say. RIP Mr. Falk.

I've had the Wings of Desire blu sitting around collecting dust since it was released. Now seems the time to pull it out and watch it. Falk was a wonderful performer, and he was definitely a highlight in anything he appeared in, including his Oscar-nominated breakthrough in the otherwise forgettable Murder Inc. I also love him as the Bogart-esque Sam Diamond in Murder by Death, where he pretty much steals the film from a cast that includes Peter Sellers, David Niven, Maggie Smith, Elsa Lanchester, and Alec Guinness.

Grew up on Columbo, I know he's done other things, but I'll never forget his ubiquitous role in my childhood. He'll be missed

Feego wrote:I've had the Wings of Desire blu sitting around collecting dust since it was released. Now seems the time to pull it out and watch it.

Same here, except I haven't seen the movie yet.

The obituary I saw used a shot of him from The Princess Bride. Let's hope that people remember him for more than that.

The "Columbo" episode "Swan Song," written by David Rayfiel and starring Peter Falk (plus Johnny Cash and Ida Lupino) is available via Instant streaming on Netflix.

British composer Cyril Ornadel (who worked on numerous Pete Walker films and Sapphire & Steel).

antnield wrote:British composer Cyril Ornadel (who worked on numerous Pete Walker films and Sapphire & Steel).

That's a shame. I was at University with his daughter, just to name-drop...

TV and radio scripwriter Bob Block, part of many a British childhood for Rentaghost.

My granddad was a massive fan of Columbo and I remember really liking what I saw of it. I mainly know Falk from Himmel ueber Berlin and his Cassavetes picture Husbands though, and he was wonderful in both. I just blindbought the HVE disc of Mickey and Nicky before it becomes prohibitively expensive and added A Woman Under The Influence to my rental list.

Columbo isn't too challenging- it's very much an omniscient detective and the cases always end pretty much the same way- but his performance is endlessly charming, and the show avoids the creepy police state mentality detective stories sometimes get into by keeping Columbo an almost completely independent investigator, and pitting him always against the rich and powerful. You can get the whole 70+ hour run of the show for like 55 pounds on Amazon uk.

Mikey and Nicky just went up on Criterion's Hulu page, which hopefully portends a release (and is in any case an easy way to watch it if you don't want to pick up the disc.)

The Columbo episode starring Cassavetes as a murderous pianist is particularly interesting to see his and Falk's wonderful back-and-forths (great clip) function so differently than in something like Husbands or Mikey and Nicky

Don't forget Machine Gun McCain, an Italian film featuring Falk and Cassavetes (and Gena Rowlands in a cameo role) the year before Husbands. I haven't seen it yet but according to the 42nd Street Forever commentary, where the trailer appeared, the film is supposed to be excellent up to the final, much talked about as being intricately planned, heist but which turns out to be rather less subtle and thought through than it had appeared to be! However it sounds like a fascinating curiosity!

Randall Adams, subject of Errol Morris' The Thin Blue Line