**SPOILERS** With his wife winning a raffle where she got a trip for two on a pleasure cruise in the tropics Let. Columbo, Peter Falk, is looking forward to a week of rest and relaxation. Still like a magnet murder follows him even on the cruise ship. Looking for his wife who got lost in the crowd Let. Columbo gets involved in a murder almost by accident.
Telling the ship's Captain Gibbons, Pactrick Macnee, which for some reason to Capt. Gibbons displeasure Columbo keeps referring to his ship as a boat, he's contacted the first evening by him in helping solve the murder of the ships star entertainer singer Rosanna Wells, Poupee Bocan.Rosanna was found dead in her dressing room with a bullet in her back. With Capt. Gibbon as the man in charge of Rosanna's murder investigation, since the murder occurred on the high seas, Columbo could only be an assistant to him and not have any authority in the inquiry making things a bit stressful for the L.A police detective.
We learn right from the start that big time car dealer Hayden Danzinger, Robert Vaughn, had a affair with Rosanna on a cruise a few months earlier. Rossana was blackmailing Hayden by threatening to tell his wife Silvia (Jaen Greer), who's the one with the money in the Danzinger marriage, about it if he doesn't pay up. Hayden concocts a scheme to kill Rosanna and then frame her boyfriend pianist Llyod Harrington, Dean Stockwell, for her murder and then end up being home free. He didn't realize that Let. Columbo was on the ship and he's an old pro in exposing and bringing to justice high class and arrogant schemers and murders like Hayden.
Faking a heart attack, by sniffing ammonium nitrate capsules, at poolside Hayden is brought into the ships hospital for treatment and observation for 24 hours. During the time in sickbay Hayden sneaks out and, with a master key that he stole from the captains quarters, gets into Rosanna's dressing room and shoots her to death leaving the red letter L with her lipstick on her mirror. This implicates her boyfriend LLyod, whom she had a fight with just hours before.
Slipping back in his room in the ships sickbay, without anyone seeing him, Hayden now has the perfect alibi to where he was when Rosanna was murdered. Like all criminals, who think that their too smart for their own good, Hayden made some stupid mistakes that had Let. Columbo hot on is tail setting him up for a very unceremonious fall. Hayden plants a receipt, in his cabin, for a gun that Llyod "bought" in Las Vegas in oder to implicate him for Rosanna's murder The planting of the receipt wasn't that bright on Hayden's part since it was obvious, to Let. Columbo, that it was planted there because it had nothing at all to do with all the other receipts that Llyod had in his cabin. The receipt that Lloyd had was to do with tax write offs for his work as an entertainer, the gun receipt could not be used to write off any of Llyod's taxes but only to implicate him in Rosanna's murder! There's also the fact that Rosanna died instantly so how could she have written the letter L on her mirror after she was shot unless it was written by the killer himself.
Hayden's wearing surgical gloves when he shot Rosanna was also very foolish on his part showing that it wasn't Lloyd who killed her. Why would he go through all this trouble to cover up his crime and then forget not to get rid of a receipt for the gun, minus the fingerprints, that murdered Rosanna? Hayden trying to shift Let. Columbo away from himself and towards Llyod, as being Rosanna's murderer, only made Columbo suspicious of Hayden not Llyod
P.S By the way Let. Columbo did finally find his missing wife at the end of the movie but we, the audience, never got a chance to see what she looked like.
Telling the ship's Captain Gibbons, Pactrick Macnee, which for some reason to Capt. Gibbons displeasure Columbo keeps referring to his ship as a boat, he's contacted the first evening by him in helping solve the murder of the ships star entertainer singer Rosanna Wells, Poupee Bocan.Rosanna was found dead in her dressing room with a bullet in her back. With Capt. Gibbon as the man in charge of Rosanna's murder investigation, since the murder occurred on the high seas, Columbo could only be an assistant to him and not have any authority in the inquiry making things a bit stressful for the L.A police detective.
We learn right from the start that big time car dealer Hayden Danzinger, Robert Vaughn, had a affair with Rosanna on a cruise a few months earlier. Rossana was blackmailing Hayden by threatening to tell his wife Silvia (Jaen Greer), who's the one with the money in the Danzinger marriage, about it if he doesn't pay up. Hayden concocts a scheme to kill Rosanna and then frame her boyfriend pianist Llyod Harrington, Dean Stockwell, for her murder and then end up being home free. He didn't realize that Let. Columbo was on the ship and he's an old pro in exposing and bringing to justice high class and arrogant schemers and murders like Hayden.
Faking a heart attack, by sniffing ammonium nitrate capsules, at poolside Hayden is brought into the ships hospital for treatment and observation for 24 hours. During the time in sickbay Hayden sneaks out and, with a master key that he stole from the captains quarters, gets into Rosanna's dressing room and shoots her to death leaving the red letter L with her lipstick on her mirror. This implicates her boyfriend LLyod, whom she had a fight with just hours before.
Slipping back in his room in the ships sickbay, without anyone seeing him, Hayden now has the perfect alibi to where he was when Rosanna was murdered. Like all criminals, who think that their too smart for their own good, Hayden made some stupid mistakes that had Let. Columbo hot on is tail setting him up for a very unceremonious fall. Hayden plants a receipt, in his cabin, for a gun that Llyod "bought" in Las Vegas in oder to implicate him for Rosanna's murder The planting of the receipt wasn't that bright on Hayden's part since it was obvious, to Let. Columbo, that it was planted there because it had nothing at all to do with all the other receipts that Llyod had in his cabin. The receipt that Lloyd had was to do with tax write offs for his work as an entertainer, the gun receipt could not be used to write off any of Llyod's taxes but only to implicate him in Rosanna's murder! There's also the fact that Rosanna died instantly so how could she have written the letter L on her mirror after she was shot unless it was written by the killer himself.
Hayden's wearing surgical gloves when he shot Rosanna was also very foolish on his part showing that it wasn't Lloyd who killed her. Why would he go through all this trouble to cover up his crime and then forget not to get rid of a receipt for the gun, minus the fingerprints, that murdered Rosanna? Hayden trying to shift Let. Columbo away from himself and towards Llyod, as being Rosanna's murderer, only made Columbo suspicious of Hayden not Llyod
P.S By the way Let. Columbo did finally find his missing wife at the end of the movie but we, the audience, never got a chance to see what she looked like.