Worth the price of admission just to watch Columbo stab Morey Amsterdam with an ice pick. Everything else is pretty forgettable, especially the ending.

It benefits from being based on a true account. Everything that makes sense you can tell was taken from the book, sometimes because it's forced in via voiceover narration. The fictional dialogue, however - which is most of it - drips with melodrama and seems hell-bent on undermining the story's realism. I suppose it is interesting to see Stuart Rosenberg and Peter Falk taking their first steps in directing and acting respectively.