"She doesn't get eaten by the eels at this time."

Peter Falk died the other day, after living a good, long life of acting. Of course his most famous role was as Detective Columbo, and naturally I saw a whole bunch of variations on his standard "Oh, yes, one more thing..." quirk as Columbo on Twitter and Facebook yesterday. I love Columbo as well, although I was a bit too young to really enjoy it in its first run; I came to know Columbo through re-runs in syndication years later and through ABC's resurrection of the character in the late 80s. (One episode I recall had William Shatner as the murderer, who was also a Rush Limbaugh-type talk radio loudmouth. Shatner and Falk played off each other pretty well in that episode.)

As much as I like Columbo, though, Peter Falk's iconic role for me is -- and always will be -- the Grandfather who reads to Fred Savage in The Princess Bride. All he does is sit in a chair and gruffly read a book, but it's just so pitch-perfect a performance. The final line of The Princess Bride is, for my money, one of the best closing lines to a movie ever, and the movie gives that line to Peter Falk. The line? It's just three words, and Falk delivers it perfectly.

Here's a video I found, with Falk's entrance in the first scene and his exit in the last scene of The Princess Bride, complete with that oh, so perfect final line.



Thanks for the entertainment, Peter Falk!