Ransom for a Dead Man (1971) on Netflix
Approved19711h 38mCrimeDramaMystery
Leslie Williams, a lawyer, kills her husband Paul and fakes his kidnapping to collect the ransom. Lieutenant Columbo and the FBI take the case. Paul's daughter Margaret comes home.
- Watch on NetflixThis title is not on Netflix right now. Please check back later for updates.
- Watch on Prime
- Watch on NordVPN
- Netflix3.8/5
- IMDb7.6/104,601 votes
- Rotten TomatoesNot available
Plot summary
Leslie Williams is a lawyer whose practice and income came from the office of her husband, Paul. She kills him and disposes of the body, then reports him missing; hours later a caller demands ransom money for him. The police and the FBI take up the search, and Lieutenant Columbo is one of the officers assigned to it. Leslie offers to deliver the ransom in person, traveling by helicopter into the desert to hand the money over. Paul's daughter Margaret, home from school in Switzerland, dislikes her stepmother and believes she married Paul for his money. Columbo keeps asking Leslie about her late husband's car.
Cast
- Richard Roatas Perkins
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Ransom for a Dead Man (1971)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- After the ratings success of the 1968 TV film Mord nach Rezept, NBC asked Universal Television for a Columbo series, but creators Richard Levinson and William Link and star Peter Falk refused, calling 22 episodes a year impossible. Universal Television president Sid Sheinberg then devised a new concept, the NBC Mystery Movie.
- Writer and producer Dean Hargrove invented Columbo's love of chili, his fascination with new technology and more action and humor, and convinced Peter Falk the role needed a signature tone-on-tone wardrobe dedicated to Falk, who supplied brown shoes and a dark green tie with white dots from his own closet and chose a loose coat he would wear for the next 20 years.
