Fingerprints Don't Lie

This film, Fingerprints Don't Lie, ran a little over an hour. Yet somehow I felt as if it was longer than Gone with the Wind.

What a horror. A man sits in prison, convicted of murder, insisting he didn't do it. Yet his fingerprints are on the murder weapon, a telephone. His fiancée believes him innocent and begs the man who helped put him away with his fingerprint evidence (Richard Travis) to investigate the case further.

The music in this movie -- the organ -- sounded like what they used to play on the old soap operas. It was APPALLING. When someone was knocked off and came to, a choir of angels sang.

I thought the two lead women looked alike, which made things even more confusing.

Imagine - Lyle Talbot was in this and even he didn't come off that well. Lyle Talbot - a 56-year career, never out of work - I guess he must have owed someone a favor.

Richard Travis wasn't a bad actor, at least. He did very well in television.

I always liked Sid Melton. After this I may hate him. He played a doofus photographer whose flashbulb never went off. Kind of like this movie. I can only assume he was in the film to pad the script.

If someone told me this was a television drama, I would have bought it. I assume it was a B movie. I'd have been gone from the theater by then.

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.

If you removed the inane attempts at comedy by Sid Melton and the organ playing by someone who might have last played at Yankee Stadium, it was mildly entertaining if not totally predictable.

Others have mentioned the obvious low-budget but I've seen far better with lower production values. I don't regret watching it but I'll keep an eye out for other movies with this cast and keep a wide berth.

The best part was the educational value of police forensics in the 1950's. The audience of the day would have been happy to know about how advanced fingerprint and hair identification techniques were at that time. However, police protocols were not as adhered to such as the need for search warrants, inadmissable evidence and Miranda warnings.

Watch this if you have an hour to kill.

Easily the worst movie ever made - - - I think it beats "Plan 9 from Outer Space". Maybe it is Plan 10. Seems to have been made on a budget of $ 17.25. If I remember correctly, a scene at a railroad station was orchestrated by a background projection of the side of a railroad car with puffs of smoke coming from left and right! Uggh.

Paul Moody is blamed for the murder of Major Palmer by fingerprint expert Jim Stover, since Moody's fingerprints were found on the murder weapon. When journalist Brad Evans doubts Stover's conclusion, he decides to investigate the murder case further with the assistance of Carolyn, the daughter of the murdered Major Palmer.

This is a true low-budget crime story with little atmosphere, but the story isn't all that bad and there's quite a bit to enjoy. The film is also very short. The photographer, who has no interest in photography at all, is there for a bit of comedy, but it's not very funny.