Last night, in Lippert Pictures' "Fingerprints Don't Lie"(1951), our old pal Sam Newfield does his best with a minimal script in a fairly interesting CSI-type drama that could've been a lot better if they didn't overdo it with a guy named Sid Melton. As the movie opens, police crime lab specialist "Jim Stover" (Richard Travis), has just proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that Paul Moody's fingerprints are on a telephone that was used to kill "Mayor Wendell Palmer" (Ferris Taylor). We're talking a heavy, old-fashioned hard plastic dial phone as a blunt instrument of murdalization. "Moody" (Richard Emory), a mural artist, is engaged to "Carolyn" (Sheila Ryan), the Mayor's daughter. Mayor Palmer had just fired him from a city-contracted mural job, which is seen by the police as enough motive, and Stover has just identified his prints in court, on the Mayor's phone. Prosecutor Tom Neal nails him dead to rights, and it's too bad this is Neal's only scene. We' could've used more of him and less of Sid Melton.
Moody swears he didn't do it, and it's pretty obvious he didn't. How then, did his prints get on the phone? As the title states, fingerprints don't lie, but is it possible to fake them? Carolyn Palmer asks that very question as she goes to great lengths to get Jim Stover to reexamine his evidence against Moody, who is sitting in jail pending sentencing and will surely be sent to The Chair.
Carolyn happens to mention that police commissioner "Frank Kelso" (Michael Whalen) was the man who found the body, and that her Dad, the dead Mayor, had suspected him of being in the pocket of a local casino owner/Mob boss named "King Sullivan" (George Eldredge). This is enough for Stover to reopen his investigation, but there's still the matter of Moody's prints on the telephone. Stover tells her, "Even if I prove Kelso is in cahoots with Sullivan, that still doesn't clear Paul of the murder."
That's when she asks if its possible to fake someone's prints. Stover says, "Yes, in fact it is possible, but it's extremely difficult". He mentions a method using putty, "but you'd have to have a background in forensic science and be diligent." It turns out Kelso was a cop prior to becoming Commissioner. It's possible he knows forensics. But now here comes Sid Melton, right when the plot gets cooking, to insert a five minute comedy routine, based on his ineptitude as a photographer. I'm sure you've seen seen him: short, big nose and butt-chin, full head of black hair, always plays the dumb, funny Brooklyn guy in war movies. His schtick is the confused, malaprop-laden dumbbell who mutters to himself. Here, he's a newspaper photog who can't get his camera to work. This is funny in small doses for the first two or three times we see it, but Sam Newfield doesn't know when to let up, so here's Melton again, and again, and again, and yet again, in what is supposed to be a serious crime film in which a guy is gonna fry in The Chair.
The evidence will eventually weigh against Commissioner Kelso, after Stover and Carolyn Palmer break into his pad to search for clues. This, in turn, will deliver King Sullivan (the mobster/casino guy), along with his thug, and peroxide blonde girlfriend, after Stover finds a sample of her hair on a coat, in another bit of early CSI technological innovation. This is back in 1951, and they could already match hair samples and even tell if you'd had a perm. But can Stover "disprove" his own fingerprint/phone/murder weapon evidence against Paul Moody in time to save him from execution? He can if he can stop Sid Melton, who must've financed this film to get so much screen time. He's probably the reason for it's 4.4 rating on IMDB, but pay no attention to that, it's actually an involving crime flick, minus the ongoing (and unnecessary) hijinx. Two Big Thumbs Up. Old pro Lyle Talbot plays "Detective Grayson", who investigates independently of Jim Stover and acts as a foil for Melton. The picture is very good. ////
The previous night, we had George Nader in "Man Afraid"(1957), this time as "David Collins", a minister whose life is upended when a burglar breaks into his home. We saw Nader the other night as the alcoholic reporter in "Appointment with a Shadow". Here, he's the polar opposite, a straight-arrow Reverend. Nader should've been huge; he had it all, looks, athletic physique, Pasadena Playhouse talent, onscreen charisma. I don't know why he was relegated mostly to TV, but anyhow, the burglar enters and tries to strangle his 12 year old son (who looks 8). Collins' wife "Lisa" (Phyllis Thaxter) is temporarily blinded when the burglar whips her with a rope he cut from a swing set in the front yard. He seems to be more a psycho than a burglar, lashing out also with a hunting knife. Reverend Collins has no choice but to defend his family, and, as he's also his church's boxing and baseball coach, he beans the burglar with a snow-globe fastball, a strike to the forehead. The burglar goes down for the count.
At the police station, "Lt. Marlin" (Harold J. Stone), takes the Reverend's statement. The case is ruled a justifiable homicide. No one but Reverend Collins feels sorry for the burglar, a troubled youth with a long history of crime. His father "Carl Simmons" (Eduard Franz) is also at the station to pick up his son's belongings. He looks like death warmed over if death was a homeless alcoholic. Reverend Collins, seeing him in the hallway, and being a minister, does the Christian thing, wanting to apologize and explain what happened, to try and make peace or bring understanding, but Simmons just walks away. Then, for the rest of the movie, which is long at 83 minutes, he stalks the Reverend's family with the objective of getting even. He specifically wants to kidnap Collins' son (played by Tim Hovey, who went on to become the Grateful Dead's road manager and died of a drug overdose). When little Timmy is playing on the wharf on an old abandoned boat, Simmons stalks him, then again when Timmy goes over to his friend Stinky's house one night to watch TV. I loved this scene, because that was a "thing" when I was a little kid, going to your friend's house at night, for an hour or two, specifically to "watch TV". TV was such a big deal then; kids nowadays wouldn't even believe it. I can remember the first time I saw Color TV, an episode of "Batman" at Ernie Ortega's house. But in the movie, little Timmy never makes it to his friend's house, because creepy old Carl Simmons is stalking him in the bushes.
"Stay! Out! Da bushes!" - Jesse Jackson
The problem is that Reverend Collins doesn't believe Timmy. He thinks his imagination is running away until he starts seeing Simmons, too, lurking in the back of his church. Then he turns the tables and confronts Simmons to protect his family. Detective Marlin, a surly type doing a Brian Dennehy-meets-Peter Ustinov impersonation, sides with Simmons, because he thinks Reverend Collins is out for revenge, but its really Simmons who is provoking the situation. He finally breaks into the Collins' house, just like his son did, and tries to kill Collins' wife, still blinded from the earlier attack. She's rescued at the last minute by her nurse, a former Navy WAC.
The problem with the Simmons character, as played by Eduard Franz, is that, in reality, he'd have a hard time getting out of bed, let alone stalking anyone relentlessly. He's a four-pack-a-day smoker, is 55 but looks 70, and yet he's more unstoppable than Jason and The Mummy put together. He never says one word the entire movie, his silence is some kind of metaphor, as is the blinded wife, who wears a sleep-mask blinder for most of the movie and super dark shades for the rest.
Once Reverend Collins starts believing his son's assertions, it's a chase to find evidence on Carl Simmons, but cynical Lieutenant Marlin won't take preventative action. Really good is the movie's atmosphere, which is expertly interspersed, showing Collins teaching nighttime Bible classes, in which young Marty Milner is a student, and at the church carnival, where Carl Simmons is hiding behind a tent. Collins referees a pee-wee boxing match between his kid Timmy and Stinky, who's Dad is a recalcitrant father. This is some excellent screenwriting. They even make time for Stinky to run away from home and the Reverend to shepherd him back. There's a ton of stuff going on, George Nader carries the movie, but all the while Carl Simmons keeps on coming, like Michael Myers on steroids, even though it's patently ridiculous that he could muster the energy to do so.
Most implausible is the finale, which - due to motion picture law - takes place in the timbers underneath the Santa Monica Pier. Little Timmy has to climb (of course) to get away from Carl Simmons' final attempt to catch him. The ending signifies the mutual redemption of Reverend Collins and Simmons, who cries and walks away down the sandy beach after the Reverend rescues him from the surf. A weird and metaphorical movie for sure, featuring heavy 1950s melodrama. But an absolute ton of atmosphere, and for that it gets Two Huge Thumbs Up. I looked for the location of the small beach town on IMDB when the movie was over, and was surprised to see it was the Universal back lot! Holy smokes, who knew it was that huge? The picture is very good. ////
And that's all I know for tonight. My blogging music was "Tales From Topographic Oceans" by Yes, an all-time Top 25 album for me, and my late night is still Handel's Julius Caesar in Egypt Opera. I send you Tons of Love, as always. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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