Ever wondered why Lieutenant Columbo insists on wearing that damn mac whatever the weather? It's generally assumed that Columbo's coat is a meaningless quirk, at best a visual distraction concealing the real nature of this super-smart detective. Truth be told, his mac - cream, creased and sweat-stained - is a semiotic minefield full of resonance and heritage. Like a mono-colour dream coat, it tells us not only about the man but also something about America’s cultural landscape.
On a personal tip, the coat is a kind of uniform; a show of his true allegiance. Columbo is first and foremost an outsider. His working-class roots are displayed, literally, on his sleeve. Surrounded by LA's well-to-do - the people who make Hollywood pop - he wears his coat like a rebels badge of honour or a shield, protecting him against the hail of La La Land bullshit which he has to confront everyday on the job.
Like the actors and Hollywood fakers Columbo has to interact with, he too dons a mask when at work, an on-screen costume. 'In it' but not 'of it', there he is in the city of dreams... the coat lets us know that it's his job to contend with the sordid world lying just beneath Hollywood’s glamourous surface. For Columbo, it's always raining.
His mac is also an essential part of the Columbo Art of Detective Work - a totally functional device. His bend-over backwards deference is so extreme it's impossible to deflect...just one more thing, he says, catching his suspects off-guard, casually throwing them a noose in the guise of an unintended life-line. Just one more thing, sir, he says, stopping at the doorway... Just one more thing ma'am, he says, having already made his initial exit.
In some ways, the coat like the man is also part of the great American pilgrimage to the West; a transplant from the East Coast to the promised land of California, where the sun shines brightly and dreams can and do come true. Like so many easterners, heading west, Columbo sees that this paradise at close proximity is anything but sweet and pure...Like Dorothy’s ruby slippers, the coat , if not actually capable of taking Columbo back to his own slice of Kansas, is at least a relic, a reminder of his former home. Perhaps it triggers off in him a New York state of mind.
Historically, he’s not the only detective to have a deep-rooted attachment to the trench coat. Enter Americas greatest gumshoes of them all, Sam Spade and another LA inhabitant Phillip Marlowe, for whom the wardrobe of resistance, the anti-hero costume is the double-breasted trench coat. The mono-tone, hard boiled poets of the noir movie and pulp novel have inspired everyone from Goddards’ Alphaville, Parks’ Shaft and Moore’s Rorschach. Columbo, in his own way carries the gumshoe mantle, the reconstructed tough guy who’s mild demeanor allows his prey to imagine him clumsy and baffoon-like. A soft touch. Big mistake.
