The Successful Formula of the Rumpled Detective

Don’t you think it’s about time you admitted how much you love Peter Falk?

You’ll probably watch his Lt. Columbo mystery Saturday (the 1990 “Unhappy Likes the Crown”) on ABC but then, for the past 20 years, you’ve watched the clever, rumpled sleuth who has caught L.A.’s cleverest killers in more than 50 television mysteries.

You’ve loved his movie performances, too: a small-time thief-made-good in “The Brinks Job,” a CIA rogue in “The In-Laws,” a sly grandfather in “The Princess Bride,” and an ex-angel in Wim Wenders’ art film “Wings of Desire.”

Falk is pleased when a fan remembers his first starring series role, as the clever, rumpled criminal lawyer Daniel J. O’Brien, a precursor of Lt. Columbo, in “The Trials of O’Brien.”

“I do remember one line from that show. I’ve used it in my personal life since,” Falk said. “I remember O’Brien saying to his ex-mother-in-law, ‘You know, if we all pull together, I think we can make this divorce work.’ ”

Falk had no idea that Columbo (whose first name remains as great a mystery as where he gets spare parts for that 1950 Peugot he drives) would become television’s greatest detective, as well as one of its best-loved characters.

“I loved this guy from the start,” he said. “I loved everything about him.”

The series, created by Richard Levinson and William Link, always attracted the top tier of TV actors and writers.

“The scripts have always been the toughest nut to crack,” Falk said. “There’s no producer or writer who’s ever been connected with the show who didn’t come out and say, ‘Let me out of here! ... You don’t have any action! You don’t have any guns! There’s no cars!’

“If you’re going to sit there for an hour to find out how you’re going to catch ‘em, you’ve got to have a curtain,” Falk said, using the theater’s term for an act’s emotional finale, “and you can’t have Moishe the Explainer.”

Moishe you’ve seen in any number of flawed dramas, where a policeman or doctor or judge explains the plot points and circumstances that the writer somehow couldn’t bring out in the exposition.

Oh, just one more thing: What the writers didn’t imagine was the pure, inventive craft that Falk has brought to the role.

“Actors know one thing: If you’re left just with words, you’re in trouble,” he said. “Good actors are always looking for props. They’re looking for behavior. It makes it a lot easier. You’re not solely dependent of what’s coming out of your mouth. You’re also less self-conscious, less aware of the camera.”

Take the business Falk invented with Columbo’s muddled notes.

“The first time I did that I thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be fun to come out with a whole pile of papers?’ ” Falk said, riffling through a stack of papers. “Hmmm, ‘Buy a bottle of milk and a head of lettuce’ ... No, that ain’t it. ... Here’s a bill. ... Oh, jeez, I gotta pay that!’

“Stuff like that! It’s fun to say and it’s fun to do.”

Oh, there’s just one thing that bothers me, sir. Is there any danger of Lt. Columbo taking early retirement?

“I don’t think of walking away from it and I don’t think about staying with it,” Falk said. “I think about the next script.”