Print of Death (1958) User Reviews

Print of Death

[Prismark10 · 6/10 · 26 March 2021]

There is a wages snatch by someone dressed up as a policeman. It leaves two people shot dead. Some days later a director of a factory is shot dead in his car and money stolen from the case he had.

Fingerprint evidence points to an armed robber called Joseph Shelton. He has just been released from Dartmoor prison and seems to back to his old tricks again.

Only no one has seen Shelton. Docks and airports are on the lookout for Shelton but it seems he managed to do a robbery in Tangiers as well.

Superintendent Reynolds helped by a visiting American policeman called Kovacs have a hunch after a corpse is found with his head and hands removed. What if Shelton is dead and someone is planting his fingerprint at these robberies.

A rather sinister and macabre instalment of Scotland Yard. It goes at a brisk pace. There is a chase scene across the bombed out houses leading to a train yard which is very much of its era.

A harsh and rather humourless crime short with the accent on gruesome detail, but effective nonetheless.

[jamesraeburn2003 · 24 August 2018]

Scotland Yard's Supt Reynolds (John Warwick) enlists the help of a visiting American policeman called Kovacs (Phil Brown) to solve a double murder and a £50,000 raid on a security van. Ballistics identify a fingerprint at the scene as belonging to that of a dangerous armed robber called Joseph Shelton who has recently been released from Dartmoor prison. In addition, the bullets that killed the two security guards are identified as having been fired from his gun, which had fatally wounded a night watchman in the job that got him sent down for ten years. The gun, though, was never recovered. Days later a managing director of a small factory is found shot dead in his car and the suitcase chained to his wrist, which contained a £20,000 payroll was forced open and the money stolen. Again, Shelton's fingerprints are found at the scene and the murder weapon was his gun. The problem is nobody has neither seen or heard from Shelton since he got out; his wife Annie (Roberta Huby); her kid brother Tony (Richard Bennett) and their lodger Webber (Edwin Richfield) cannot vouch for his whereabouts nor can any of his underworld friends. Meanwhile, Interpol informs the Yard of a crime in Tangiers in which Shelton's fingerprints were found at the scene as well. Could he have somehow slipped through the net and escaped abroad? However, a breakthrough happens when a body with its head and hands amputated is found at a building site. The pathologist finds a scar on the body indicating that whoever the dead man was had recently undergone surgery to have a kidney removed. Supt Reynolds ascertains that Shelton had had such an operation whilst at Dartmoor. These developments leave Reynolds and Kovacs to find out how it is a dead man can commit armed robberies, a triple murder and leave his fingerprints behind at the scene of the crimes. Could somebody have perfected a scientific technique of removing somebody else's fingerprints and preserve them in order to implicate them in someone else's crimes? And, if so, whom?

A harsh and rather humourless little crime drama with the accent on gruesome forensic detail and brutal murder methods. Of course, there isn't any visually graphic gory detail of limbs actually being severed, but close ups of amputating knives and an axe found by the Yard at the killer's house are enough to make your stomach twinge a little bit. For those who can take it, though, this is an effective crime short. With the possible exception of Edwin Richfield, there are not many faces in the cast who will be recognisable to a modern audience, which is rather unusual for the Scotland Yard series. Nevertheless, everybody plays their parts convincingly be they goodies or baddies. It is proficiently directed by Montgomery Tully who was one of the UK's most prolific makers of 30-minute and hour long second features throughout the 1950's. He clocked up 14 episodes of this series in total and he sees to it that the storyline is kept moving along briskly to its conclusion and stages an exciting showdown between the cops and the villains in a busy railway goods yard. Geoffrey Muller's editing is sharp and John Wiles' b/w camerawork gives the proceedings a vivid sense of realism for 1950's London. Nostalgia buffs will love the old Wolseley cop cars and Ford Thames vans motoring about as well as the odd reference to skiffle; a popular type of music at the time this came out.