Rip Off

Rating: 6/10 (9 April 2007)

'The basic story is a rip off of a Columbo episode from 1976 featuring Nehemiah Persoff. It was titled: Now You See Him'
The Great Santini, a successful Los Angeles night-club illusionist, is really an ex-Nazi named Stefan Mueller. When his employer, Jesse Jerome, threatens to reveal his true identity to the Israeli government, Santini kills Jerome in a cleverly conceived scheme to commit the crime while in the process of performing an act on stage, in which he is bound by chains and submerged in a tank. Lieutenant Columbo, the cheaply dressed yet extremely intelligent detective from the LAPD's Homicide Division, arrives to investigate Jerome's murder and instantly suspects Santini. Columbo patronizingly pursues Santini with incessant questions while searching for a clue to prove Santini's guilt and to dispel the illusionist's "perfect" crime. Written by Kevin McCorry {mmccorry@nb.sympatico.ca}
The Great Santini is a brilliant stage magician with a hidden past. His real name is Stefan Mueller and he was an SS officer assigned to the concentration camps. Jesse Jerome, his current employer, has learned of the illusionist's Nazi career and is using the information to blackmail him. One night, while ostensibly performing his celebrated trick of being locked in a steel cabinet and dowsed in a tank of water, Santini is really disguising himself as a waiter and walking unseen to Jerome's office. When Jerome turns up dead, it looks like a contract killing. But the rumpled, redoubtable Lt. Columbo of the LAPD, assisted by the overeager Sgt. Wilson, has a few tricks of his own. Written by J. Spurlin