Fingerprints Don't Lie

This movie from director Sam Newfield belongs to one of his lasts. It is not that bad but lousy enough to avoid it if you have something else to do. The plot sounds like those B flicks from the thirties and forties. So imagine in the fifties, and not for TV industry but big screen cinemas....oh, it is agreeable to watch, I repeat: not that bad but forgettable at the most with many nearly comedy lines. The quality of the copy I watched is tremendous, and I admit that helps a lot to appreciate the film. So, if you are a Sam Newfield's filmography explorer, you can try this one without any problem.

After reading those comments by other viewers I was prepared for the worst, but I enjoyed this movie more than I expected to; that organ music in the background is a real scream. By the way, has anyone other than myself noticed that the outside shot of the Marsden Building is flopped (printed in reverse)? Try reading the street number or the name Marsden over the entryway! This film was apparently shot back-to-back with MASK OF THE DRAGON, which has an almost identical cast, including hapless Sid Melton who is saddled with badly-timed "comic relief" scenes in both films, which is a pity since Melton was a talented comic when given good material; fans of the Gomer Pyle TV series may remember Melton as a bumbling con artist in several episodes. Appearing as a brutal thug in both films is huge wrestler "Killer" Karl Davis, known as the man with the world's coldest stare. (Davis also made an unforgettable zombie in the unsettling opening scene of 1955's CREATURE WITH THE ATOM BRAIN; watch for it!!)

The sad thing about Fingerprints Don't Lie is that it has a very good plot premise. Over the past several years we've seen an explosion of stories dealing with forensic evidence. The idea of planting fingerprints at the scene of a crime to frame someone is good. But the general shoddiness of production of this Lippert Picture makes it no better than the worst episode of CSI.

Richard Travis plays a crime scene investigator specializing in fingerprints though during the course of this short film shows he has an eye for other types of forensics. The prospective son-in-law of the current mayor of this small city Richard Emory is arrested for the murder of the mayor, his fiancé Sheila Ryan believes he's innocent and her earnestness persuades Travis to reexamine the evidence.

Sure enough Travis convinces himself he was wrong and the rest of the film is his reappraisal of the evidence and the bringing to justice of the real guilty parties.

Lippert Pictures perennial Sid Melton is in this and his comedy relief as an idiot news photographer is both grafted in and quite unfunny in this one. That seems to be a running criticism in the Lippert Pictures I've seen Melton in. But in this case it really is true.

I think had this story been done at a major studio you might have seen a decent film.

A forged signature...fingerprints that are just too perfect on a murder weapon...a dead crusading mayor...a fingerprint expert who decides to find out how he was fooled into making a mistake that convicted an innocent man. And let's not forget what really makes this murder mystery memorable: A pipe organ playing melodramatic background music, augmented by a groaning chorus of singers.

Fingerprints Don't Lie is an awkward, amateurish movie. It lasts 57 minutes. It was shot on a miniscule budget. It tells us a lot about fingerprints. If you watch this dog, look for two things. First is the credit line for the director. The name is Sam Newfield. Between 1926 and 1956 he directed nearly 300 movies, and I suspect they all were as bad as this one. The other is Syra Marty. She plays Syra, a blonde artist's model. She only made three movies. She can't act. But she sure looks provocatively overbalanced in a bathing suit.

The movie concerns a young man (Emory) who stands accused of murdering the mayor over a dispute between the two. After being crucified by a police fingerprint expert (Travis) who testified that his fingerprints were all over the murder weapon, the condemned man pins his only hope for proving his innocence on the daughter of the murder victim and the very man whose testimony could send him to the gas chamber!

The writer who previously reviewed this movie and said this movie is worse than Plan 9 From Outer Space was totally wrong. Although this movie was a low budget movie, it wasn't really a bad movie at all.

One more thing. The writer said that he recalled that a scene from a railroad station showed smoke going the wrong way. That's funny as there wasn't any railroad scene in this movie. I guess he must have had it confused with another movie.