I love the old TV series "Columbo." There was a TV movie that aired all the way back in 1968, "Prescription For Murder," that essentially served as a pilot for the regular series that most people are familiar with however, from 1971 to 1978. Other Columbo TV films actually aired less frequently from 1989 to 2003. The great Peter Falk actually wanted to appear in one more Columbo film in 2009, when he began to exhibit signs of dementia before his death. Falk did other things, but like Gregory Peck who starred as Atticus Finch in To Kill A Mockingbird, you might want to escape an iconic character, but at some point, that isn't any actor's decision.
In the great comedy drama The Princess Bride, Peter Falk appears as The Grandfather in the little frame scenes that lead to the story. He's absolutely doing his Lt. Columbo. I don't know anyone who was disappointed in that casting. Columbo isn't saintly in a sort of untouchable way like Atticus Finch, but he's unquestionably virtuous in an everyman sort of way. Levinson and Link, who created Columbo along with Falk, would later create Murder, She Wrote starring Angela Lansbury. If her starring in an impressive series of films for children doesn't make the point, the shocking popularity of her "Jessica Fletcher" on Murder, She Wrote indicates a big part of the formula: We want our heroes to step into the darkness, but not be tainted by it. (Murder, She Wrote ran for 12 years, and Lansbury last played the murder-solving widow who writes mysteries in 2000.)
The Columbo episodes need Columbo, but they need amazing villains, and some great actors (and singers) did that. Everybody from William Shatner to Johnny Cash. I don't figure that I would have enjoyed living in the 1970s, but there really was great entertainment at that time. I don't try to lean too hard into nostalgia, but these days, many writers want to cast doubt upon who is good, and who is evil. Personally, I don't like that.
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