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.
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.