- Directed by Samuel Newfield
- Written by Orville Hampton
- Starring
- Richard Travis
- Sheila Ryan
- Sid Melton
- Tom Neal
- Margia Dean
- Produced by Sigmund Neufeld
Cranked out by prolific B-movie producer Sigmund Neufeld and even more prolific low-rent director Samuel Newfield (and despite the similarity of names, I swear one’s not a pseudonym for the other), the 57-minute thriller Fingerprints Don’t Lie is a proto-C.S.I. story which, of course, revolves around an irony of the title. Not that fingerprints do lie, but they sometimes don’t say what people say they say. It’s also notable in its use of practically all of the same cast and crew as Neufeld and Newfield’s Mask of the Dragon, made the same year. You will know that an actor has appeared in both when Tinkerbell rings her little bell like this: BROING!
The fingerprints in question belong to Paul Moody (Richard Emory), a young artist on trial for murdering Mayor Palmer. As James Stover (Richard Travis — BROING!) of the police’s Scientific Investigation Department says on the witness stand, it’s clearly Moody’s fingerprints — and only Moody’s fingerprints — which are on the telephone base which was the murder weapon. (Moody starts the scene complaining aloud that his skeptical defense attorney seemed to be working for the other side. Those complaints sure hold weight when the prosecutor asks Stover if he thinks Moody is therefore guilty, and Stover agrees, despite such conclusions being outside the scope of his expert testimony. That defense attorney should have been objecting his little lawyerly heart out.)
“No, I don’t think that phone works with my network.”
During a recess — and, in fact, Stover is the only witness we ever see — Stover’s approached by a newspaper reporter and AAAGH! Sid Melton! (BROING!) This time out, our Odious Comic Relief is a photographer who can’t get his flash to go off. Comedy gold, that. Anyway, the reporter asks Stover how it feels to “kill a man,” since his testimony will surely send Moody to the chair. Stover goes back to his police lab to brood, accompanied by a flashback and the only voiceover that this movie will feature.
The facts of the case, then: Moody was in the running for a city mural project. Moody also wanted to marry the mayor’s daughter Carolyn (Sheila Ryan — BROING!). The mayor disapproved of Moody as a suitor, and retaliated by knocking him out of the running for the mural. That much Moody admits. The next thing anyone knows is that Police Commissioner Kelso (Michael Whalen — BROING!) found the mayor dead of a head wound, and Moody’s fingerprints all over the Telephone of Murder. (Oddly enough, Stover’s flashback also captures Moody’s smalltalk with a couple of model posing for him in his studio before the police arrive to arrest him, a scene for which Stover wasn’t present. Oh, and Police Lt. Grayson is played by Lyle Talbot — BROING!)
Beakers? Of colored liquids? But that must mean — there’s (investigative) SCIENCE going on here!
The flashback over, Stover receives a couple of visitors to the lab: Carolyn, and Nadine, one of Moody’s models (Margia Dean — not in Mask of the Dragon, but recently seen around here in F.B.I. Girl (1951)). Carolyn is of course sure of Moody’s innocence, but even has some facts to back her up; for instance, she knows that her father was about to order an investigation into Commissioner Kelso on bribery charges. Gee — the guy who finds the body had a motive? If only there were an investigative arm of law enforcement which looked into these things before the trial…
Other suspicious facts present themselves, like the prowler who breaks into the dead mayor’s safe that night. Carolyn surprises him before he gets what he’s looking for, but she can tell that whatever he was after, it wasn’t the considerable amounts of cash in the safe. Moody recalls, from behind bars, that despite him getting a call from the mayor’s office asking him to come and meet, the mayor said at the time that he hadn’t called the meeting at all, and also that he had had the impression, a few days before the murder, that someone had broken into his studio, even though nothing had been taken. Oh, and in congratulating Stover on an investigation well done, Kelso mentions in passing that he spent a fair amount of time studying fingerprints himself. Hmm…
“Of course I look like a criminal! Anybody looks like a criminal like this!”
Stover finally comes to the conclusion that Moody’s fingerprints were planted (no, really?) and bands together with Carolyn to help gather evidence on the real killer, which looks like it’s Kelso. Moody waits patiently in jail… Say, wait. Is the trial still going on? (Which would imply other witnesses, but…) If so, why is Moody sitting in his jail cell instead of in the courtroom? If not, how many days is the jury going to deliberate? After all, the entire police investigation looks like it took under twelve minutes.
You think that a feature only 56 minutes long wouldn’t need a lot of filler, but even so, there’s filler. Most of it involves Sidney Melton, who is quickly becoming my own personal nemesis. How many scenes of him messing up photos because he can’t get the flash to go off do we need? Then, for variety, we also get a scene of him with Moody’s two models in Moody’s studio, shooting some cheesecake photos, and getting distracted by an abstract painting. Oh, and his flash won’t go off. Comedy gold! Like Mask of the Dragon, this movie was sold to television in the 1950s, and was trimmed down to less than 30 minutes for broadcast. One could accomplish that (and earn my eternal gratitude) simply by trimming out all of Melton’s scenes.
Oddly enough, no one offers to dust the models for fingerprints.
At least the crime investigation technology, such as it is, is within the realm of the plausible. Kelso gets caught by having his practice printmaking equipment in his hotel room (I assume this is before the introduction of the exclusionary principle, in which the breaking and entering by a police investigator without a warrant would render any evidence so gather inadmissible in court). And Stover vows to never… well, he actually doesn’t express any hard-won wisdom about going beyond the evidence presented. But Moody’s out of prison, so all’s well that ends well, right?
Actually, it ends with a close-up on Melton’s face, right after he gets himself in the face with his recalcitrant flashbulb. So maybe, all’s well that just ends.
WANTED For Crimes Against Comedy
Some Notable Totables:
- body count: 3
- breasts: 0
- explosions: 0
- flashbacks: 1
- ominous thunderstorms: 0
- actors who’ve appeared on Star Trek: 0
