Fingerprints Don't Lie (1951) User Reviews

agonizing five and ten version of CSI

[blanche-2 · 4/10 · 18 July 2015]

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.

A sorry little cheapie

[Handlinghandel · 4/10 · 23 December 2007]

This movie was clearly made on a low budget. Its idea of action is having a character open a balsa wood door. Rarely have I seen a movie so obvious in its poverty.

The lot has potential: A fingerprint expert's testimony sends a man to the chair. He is sure of himself and we don't like him. But he is convinced to reconsider and he does so. Indeed, he tries to solve the mystery. He knows he initially made a mistake.

The actors are rather wooden but OK. What really sinks it are the recurring attempts at comic relief: Sid Melton (of whom I have never before heard) keeps turning up. Generally he is an inept photographer.

Not only do his scenes defy logic: The police know he can't handle a camera. They wouldn't let him keep trying to snap photos at crime scenes. Also, though, he simply is not funny. He pushes so hard as to make Abbott and Costello seem like Restoration Comedy.

(He's demanding, too. It seems as if he keeps wanting us to say how adorable he is. As I say, I have never seen or heard of him before this but he is most unappealing here. And I in fact don't find him adorable.)

The studio must have done what it could to get this thing an audience. But they miscalculated. A terrible product, after all, does not lie.

Despite Melton, a trifle better than you might expect!

[JohnHowardReid · 4/10 · 24 September 2013]

This movie of course sets out to prove the opposite and presents a pretty convincing case. Unfortunately, the good work done by Richard Travis and Sheila Ryan is to some extent undone by the almost constant presence of Sid Melton, playing an inept photographer who repeats his one gag – which wasn't the least bit funny the first time – on at least ten or twelve occasions. Mr. Melton was presumably signed simply to bring the movie up to 55 or 57 minutes. That's a pity because by the humble standard of director Sam Newfield, it's otherwise not too bad. And needless to say, the exotic Swiss model Syra Marty who is so prominently featured in the movie's poster, has but a small role. Blink and you'll miss her. This is her first of only 4 films, including the 2010 documentary Syra Marty telling us her life story and her adventures in Hollywood. (That sounds like a much more interesting movie than this one! And I wonder if Syra survived the 26-minute TV cutdown that was aired in the early 1950s?)

Not Bad Enough to Laugh at...But Trying

[secondtake · 2/10 · 28 May 2009]

Fingerprints Don't Lie (1951)

A throwaway goof, not a spoof, and clunky and weirdly dull.

The bumbling faux-comic photographer in this pre-CSI hour-long feature might not seem to be the main character here, but he appears, and intrudes, so often in the film you begin to wonder what was going on in the producer's and director's minds. And the last shot in the film, when his flashbulb goes off, we get a last laugh. What for? Is the whole thing a farce?

Or just bad?

Either way, it's not a rewarding experience unless you are really bored, really a film addict, or just plain quirky. (I must be one of the three, because I watched the whole thing.)

Quickly, then: the director, Sam Newfield (who directed almost 300 minor films like this, and was brother of the producer, Sigmund Neufeld), bears the brunt of the responsibility here, because there were actors of reasonable ability, emphasis on reasonable.

Sheila Ryan, as the daughter of the deceased and girlfriend of the accused, is solid, and the boyfriend (Richard Emory) is pretty convincing as an innocent accused (and less convincing as an artist). The fingerprint man, played by Richard Travis, carries the narrative with dull proficiency. The others are up and down, here and there. The filming is dull, the editing functional, the story wooden. And there's the photographer, Sid Melton, like a goofy Joe Pesci (if that's not redundant, and I think of him not only because of a cursory resemblance, but from Public Eye, that forgettable film where he holds the same camera in the same era, playing Weegee). The cameras, by the way, are fun to watch for the obsessed (I'm a press camera 4x5 photographer in my off time), and the camera in the criminal's wooden box, toward the end, seems to be a fairly rare Meridian 4x5, made in New York. The photographer's camera is a more usual and fabulous Graflex, which shows up in most movies then and now whenever a hand-held 4x5 is needed.

Anyway, you won't find a less convincing, or less funny, cameraman than Melton. Or worse music! The soundtrack organ is so bad you can't even laugh at it. And to find a less convincing film you have to dig deeper into those unreleased B-movie coal mines.

What starts off intriguing ends up even less than Poverty Row material.

[mark.waltz · 2/10 · 14 April 2014]

With an organ music score that sounds like something straight out of a silent "Our Gang" comedy short, this streamlined bottom of the barrel thriller starts off on the right note but ends up flat within the first 20 minutes. A man on trial for the murder of a big city mayor seems destined to go to the gas chamber because the only identifiable finger prints on the murder weapon (a telephone!) belonged to him. After testifying to this fact, fingerprints expert Richard Travis is questioned by the press as to how it feels to send a man to his death, and haunted by this, begins to look back at the case which in retrospect then isn't as clear cut as he thought. Along with the mayor's daughter (Sheila Ryan), he begins to investigate further in detail which leads to the suspicion that perhaps the condemned man was framed.

Had this continued the way it started off, there is no doubt in my mind that this would have been at least an acceptable programmer, but when it moves into subplots of pure silliness (involving photographer Sid Melton) with that organ music in the background (even during serious scenes), the movie moves straight down into the line of what could have been done on a T.V. crime anthology show, and what would be done a thousand times, and much better. Fortunately, this has an extremely short running time which makes it a lot easier to take. Any longer, and I would have thrown my own telephone at the screen.

"Bingo...that makes this check a real hot potato!" It's even more down hill from here

[Terrell-4 · 2/10 · 18 September 2008]

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.

Laughingly Bad!

[Gunn · 2/10 · 2 November 2007]

Sam Newfield gives Ed Wood a run for his Worst Director Ever title. This movie is so bad I don't know where to begin. I agree with the previous reviewer on the $17.95 budget but I hope they didn't pay the organist for that 'god awful' music score. That eerie electric organ music is more irritating than a dentist's drill. The acting is pretty bad all around with Sid Melton, embarrassingly unfunny as the comedy element, as the worst of the bunch. Sheila Ryan as the wrongly accused's fiancée, shows virtually no emotion in his situation. Richard Emory comes off best as her fiancée, probably because he has very few scenes. The story wasn't that bad and a better director could have made this a hit. I got this in a set titled Forgotten (Film) Noir and now I know why it was forgotten. If it wasn't for that terrible organ music I'd recommend it for laughs!

no classic but lots of fun, especially for boo-boo spotters

[pmsusana · 5/10 · 23 July 2008]

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!!)

This Is Not That Bad Of A Movie

[thomasja5 · 7/10 · 12 May 2007]

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.

Fingerprints point to an innocent man in a murder case.

[michaelRokeefe · 4/10 · 13 February 2017]

A small town mayor is murdered and fingerprint expert James Stover (Richard Davis) determines fingerprints at the scene belong to Paul Moody (Richard Emory); but reporter Brad Evans (Rory Mallinson) suspects the fingerprints have actually been forged and convinces Stover to help him look for the real murderer. Moral support in the investigation is supplied by the dead mayor's own daughter (Sheila Ryan). The murder may just be politically motivated instead of something personal.

This Black and White 57 minute quickie also features: Tom Neal, Margie Dean, George Eldridge, Lyle Talbot and Sid Melton.

Fingerprints Don't Lie

[CinemaSerf · 6/10 · 2 June 2023]

When the mayor is bumped off, the local police force conclude that it must have been "Moody" (Richard Emory) because all the fingerprint evidence points to him. He, of course, protests his innocence and luckily local journalist "Evans" (Rory Mallinson) takes up the cudgels creating just enough doubt in the forensic expert's mind to have him think twice. "Stover" (Richard Travis) has every faith in his science but gradually, working with "Carolyn" (Sheila Ryan) - the daughter of the murdered man - he is faced with the prospect that there has been some manipulation going on. Back to square one? Who is the real culprit? This is a perfectly watchable crime drama that tries to develop the role of new technology in policing, and one that also points out that the infallible is rarely that. It can't have had much of a budget, so neither the acting nor the writing is particularly noteworthy, and I found the ending to be just a little too convenient, but it passes an hour effortlessly enough.

Sam Newfield's films don't excit

[searchanddestroy-1 · 16 October 2023]

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.

So horribly cheap and lousy that a good plot is completely lost within the dreck.

[planktonrules · 2/10 · 7 August 2008]

This film gets my award for worst soundtrack in film history. I honestly feel that using no music at all would have been an improvement. Heck, just playing a baby crying throughout the film might just have been an improvement!! Instead of an orchestra, the cheapskates that made this film used an organ. While this is bad, I've heard this in a few other ultra-low budget films. But here it is so much worse because the music is so invasive--rarely silent, often ridiculously out of sync with the action and occasionally combined with moaning singers! In some ways, it was like old-time radio music for a drama or soap opera--but even worse!

Since this was a very, very low budget film, rotten music isn't the only problem. The biggest is the inclusion of Sid Melton--the king of irrelevant low-budget "comic relief" stars. He appeared in tons of low-budget films for such forgettable studios as PRC and Lippert. The problem is that Sid (most famous for playing "Alf Monroe" on GREEN ACRES) just wasn't funny--in fact, like the music he was distracting whenever he appeared--which was too often. I really liked it when Lyle Talbot called him "a brilliant idiot"--my sentiments exactly! What maniac thought a murder mystery needed comic relief?!? That's like giving a fish a bicycle!

Sid wasn't the only bad actor in the film. While a few did good jobs, many couldn't remember their lines or spoke over others as they gave their lines. However, my favorite part of the film is the "exciting confrontation scene" near the end. The acting was terrible but the best part was when the bad guy got shot. Instead of falling normally, he took a step and threw himself forward to go out the window--a completely unnatural and silly reaction indeed! He was apparently standing in the wrong place and instead of re-shooting it to get it right, you see an incredibly dumb death!

As for the plot, that really isn't bad at all--despite the rest of the film being so terrible. A man is easily convicted of murder because of fingerprint evidence. The convicted man's fiancée just can't believe he did it and convinces the state's expert to re-examine the evidence. At first he's not convinced--after all, you can't fake prints...or can you?!

Despite this being such a compelling plot and having occasionally decent acting, the film cannot be recommended because the music is that bad, some of the actors were very poor and Sid Melton is pretty much detestable--as he often was in these low budget films (though I liked him on GREEN ACRES). As a result, these factors manage to ruin the basis for what could have been a pretty fair movie.

Incidentally, if you look close at the radio at the 40 minute mark, it says "Packard Bell". I had no idea this company had been around this long or that they made anything other than cheap computers. Apparently they've been around since 1926.

Worse than "Plan 9..."

[Stefan-85 · 1 October 1999]

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.

Dude, these other reviews are killing me! : )

[lathe-of-heaven · 2/10 · 10 February 2009]

Oh man... What can I POSSIBLY add to these wonderful and absolutely hilarious reviews! FUNNY... if you have ever wondered how important a director is to a finished film, this movie should without ANY doubt prove the case... FOREVER!!! Of the thousands of films that I have seen and own, quite a few of my favourites being FILM NOIR like I believe this one is ATTEMPTING to be, I must say that this one takes the all time award for screwing up what could have been a decent, low budget Noir.

Again, what can I add...? I'm sitting here in absolute disbelief as this church organ plays mournfully and earnestly in EVERY scene. And then... I'm saying to myself, is that a 'Choir'...??? GEEZ... And yes, the 'photographer'...

Yes, boys and girls, if EVER you doubted the relevance of a director and how bloody VITAL his influence is on a film, this one should set you straight...

This one (along with the GREAT reviews here) will keep me laughing for quite a while...

Cheap Production Values Don't Lie

[oldblackandwhite · 1/10 · 26 March 2014]

Which is not to say that entertaining, even good-looking pictures couldn't be made economically during the Classic Era. But there is a level below which the cheapness of production will betray even the best of stories and a solid cast. Fingerprints Don't Lie sinks as far below that point of no return as possible. Not to imply that a good story or a competent cast was around for the atrocious production values to betray. This astonishingly awful picture features one of the most ignominious displays of tacky sets peopled by seedy actors in the history of cinema.

Richard Travis, the tenth magnitude star of this Z-grade cops-and-robbers programmer was a wooden actor at his best. Here, under the inept direction of Sam Newfield, Travis and rest of the cast turn into a virtual petrified forest. Cimematogaphy, as well as direction, is remarkably bad. A single camera simply follows the actors around the small, shabby sets, or sits still as they stand stiff as manikins blankly reciting the dull dialog. Instead of springing for a decent orchestral score , cheap, tightwad producer Sigmund Neufeld settled for a weird, screechy, and very irritating organ accompaniment, which at times when there was no dialog made it seem like watching a silent movie -- a very, very bad one. Speaking of irritating, Sid Melton in what was presumed to be comedy relief, was excruciatingly irritating as he pulled the same unfunny camera gag over and over.

Not even the presence of veteran character actor, Lyle Talbot could save this turkey. Nor could frequent shots of a certain buxom, Swiss model and Burlesque queen in a two-piece bathing suit. Oldblackandwhite is too much the gentleman of the old school to blacken the names of any of the lady players by connecting them in print to such a shamefully awful picture as Fingerprints Don't Lie.

Cheap, dull, slow-moving, lifeless, even stupid, this movie is a serious stinker! Not recommended even for the most abysmally desperate insomniacs or even those peculiar old ladies who will watch practically any mystery. All involved in this wretched production from producer and director down to prop man and gofer should be ashamed of it. Come to think of it, why am I reviewing it, when I should be ashamed of watching it? Uhg!!!!

Early CSI

[bkoganbing · 3/10 · 31 July 2013]

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.

I could have been so much better

[neilcharkow · 3/10 · 4 February 2024]

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.