El grito de la furia

Watched this film tonight for the first time and expected a standard film noir but got a thrilling story of a heartless killer (Lloyd Bridges), a man whose life is spiraling out of control (Frank Lovejoy) and an ending that left me speechless. I am shocked that this film is not talked about more in the lists of the best noirs of all time.

Interestingly, a prior movie, Fury (1936) presented a similar scenario about a man wrongly accused of committing a similar crime as in this story. But two different stories by different writers, however; and very different outcomes. If you can find a copy of Fury, it's well worth your time.

Anyway, I recall seeing Sound of Fury when I was around ten, on a Saturday afternoon matinee at the local cinema.

I recall being quite upset when I watched it; I recall also the two main actors, the reserved worker, Frank Lovejoy (Howard) and the flamboyant, arrogant conman, Lloyd Bridges (Jerry) - such a brilliant contrast of characters, even then at ten. Thereafter, I followed both actors in subsequent movies.

Of course, I did not follow this story very well at that age, but the final fifteen minutes or so riveted me to my seat, never to be forgotten. Hence, when I saw it recently again, I felt an odd mix of the same emotions from over seventy years ago.

Briefly, Howard (Lovejoy) is reluctantly enticed by Jerry (Bridges) to embark on a life crime because he has no job. Eventually, Jerry commits a truly heinous murder of a young man and forces Howard to help dispose of the body. When they are arrested for the murder, they are held at the central police station under heavy guard, awaiting trial.

Soon, though, the local media whips up citizen anger about the murder and eventually a mob begins to congregate at the cop shop, demanding justice. Without doubt, this story and production still ranks with me as a superb exposition and critique of how the media (and authority) gave the base aspects of American culture an opportunity to overwhelm due legal process.

The pacing and dialog are appropriate, the acting is superb, and the finale is a tour de force in editing and directing.

I think Sound of Fury should have won awards. Maybe the topic revealed much more than the producers were expecting in those times? Simply because it viscerally displayed a hard truth that many preferred to keep in the background, out of sight, even then.

Eight out of ten for this excellent production.

Recommended for adults, young and old.

Despite a catch-penny tile, "Try and Get Me" (aka Sound of Fury) remains a truly frightening movie whose disturbing imagery lingers long after the voice-over reassurances subside. The director, Cy Endfield, was one of the lower profile victims of the Mc Carthy purges. Viewing this movie now, it's easy to see why.

Family man and returning vet Howard Tyler (played by the always low-key Frank Lovejoy) is recruited into a life of crime by no more than ordinary desires for the American Dream. Desperate and unemployed, he falls into the clutches of a swaggering stickup man superbly played by a preening Lloyd Bridges. (Notice how subtly Bridges bends Tyler to his will on their first meeting at the bowling alley.) Joining Bridges, Tyler finally gets the standing he desires, but the spiral he has entered dooms him and his family's share of America's promise. (Note that conspicuous among the lynch mob's vanguard are fraternity boys, true to the actual event on which the movie is based.)

Throughout, the lighting and photography effectively undermine the facile voice of reason that the producers probably felt obligated to include. Endfield may have wanted an anti- violence film, but the resulting visual landscape implies a world of endemic violence. A sense of powerlessness pervades the film, one that mere admonishments cannot overcome. As a result, the characters appear caught in some terrible metaphysical web from which there is no escape. Events march relentlessly on to a conclusion that remains one of the most harrowing in Hollywood history. This is film noir at its darkest and most frightening.

Something should be noted in passing about the compellingly exotic performance of Katherine Locke as Hazel the manicurist. Watch her facial expressions as this highly repressed plain-faced woman experiences yet one more rejection in what a paste-on smile shows to be a lifetime of rejections. Never has a blossom perched so precariously on a cheap hairdo conveyed as much lower-class longing as hers, while the car ride with a guilt-ridden Tyler could serve as tawdry inspiration for a dozen feminist tracts. What ever became of this unusual actress, I wonder.

Without doubt, however, the film's dramatic high point is the lynch mob. It's one of the most coldly unnerving 20 minutes in movie annals, far surpassing (in my view) the better-known Fury (1936) in its depiction of mass violence. The fact that the mob is made up of ordinary citizens brought to fever pitch is especially telling. Unthinking violence is thus shown as potentially present in us all.

At the same time, the screenplay refuses to take the easy way out. In fact, Howard and Jerry are guilty, unlike, say, the three unfortunate cowboys in The Oxbow Incident (1943). Thus, what repels us is not the fact that innocent men are killed for a crime they didn't commit. That would be too easy. Instead, I think we're unnerved by how the crowd appears to celebrate the brutality of vigilante justice. Endfield succeeds in making this aspect especially ugly. Yes, in a very general sense, justice is served—murderers are in fact punished for their crime—but if so, justice is served in a particularly barbaric way even if the act does have popular support. In my little book, Endfield has fashioned the most effective of all anti- lynching movies, in part because it doesn't take the easy way out.

That Endfield exiled himself to England and a conventional career with Stanley Baker, shows how much was lost among those purge victims whose disappearance, unlike many others, went generally unnoticed. Just a couple of years after the remarkable "Try and Get Me" (and Endfield's also provocative "Underworld Story"), Hollywood began sanitizing the screen with the escapism of period spectacles, Technicolor westerns, and full-cleavage sex goddesses. Indeed times had changed. As Endfield already knew, the studios had to fight the Cold War too. There would be no more thought-provoking Try and Get Me's.

I, too, saw this picture as a child, on television, alone, late at night, and I can still recall the powerful impression it made. Truly frightening in its revelations of human depravity and mob violence. Lloyd Bridges' best performance by far, he is absolutely gripping as the deranged and heartless murderer. The scene in which he is in his cell, with the mob breaking into the prison and coming to get him, is stunning in its power. I haven't seen the film in a half century, but I still remember those moments.

Howard Tyler (Frank Lovejoy) is a good honest family man living in California who just can't catch a break. Struggling financially and upset that he can't support his family, he falls in with small time hoodlum Jerry Slocum (Lloyd Bridges) who convinces him to join him in robbing gas stations. However, things start to get out of control as they kidnap the son of a wealthy family to hold for ransom. But what follows will have far reaching consequences for all involved...

Also known as Try And Get Me, The Sound Of Fury is directed by Cy Endfield and is based on the novel The Condemned by Jo Pagano (who along with Endfield also writes the screenplay here). The story is incredibly based on a factual episode known as the Brooke Hart case that occurred in 1933 in San Jose, California. Fritz Lang's 1936 film Fury was also loosely based on the same story, which probably explains why Endfield's film had a name change to Try And Get Me.

A brilliant crime thriller, the film is a damming indictment of uncontrolled violence in small town Americana. Its themes involving class divides, the uncivilization and ignorance of some Americans, moral and social collapse and the irresponsibility's of the press, are all rammed home with force by the soon to be blacklisted director. By definition, Endfield and Pagano have crafted the ultimate social conscious movie. Filling it with relevance that will last the ages, the undervalued Endfield also come up trumps in mood setting and visual flourishes. This be prime film noir too. Tumbling pebbles, a crime shown in reflection, our protagonist standing in the dark ruefully looking out a window, a complete night club sequence shot off kilter, all indelible images that linger long in the memory (Guy Roe on photography). Then there's the finale, a brutal and shocking ending that had Raymond Borde & Etienne Chaumenton (A Panorama Of American Film Noir 1941-1953) proclaiming it to be one of the most brutal sequences in postwar American cinema. They aren't exaggerating, it is, and it caps off a stunning movie.

There can be a reasonable argument put forward that the film asks for pity towards the hoodlums of the piece. But that's a confliction that serves as a call for a deeper thought process with the film. The makers are merely adding drips of fuel to an already incendiary device. Hugo Friedhofer provides the music and Kathleen Ryan, Richard Carlson & Katherine Locke fill out the support cast. However, this is Bridges' movie, Lovejoy is excellent as the increasingly fretful Tyler, but Bridges goes from smarm to charm with ease and then to crazy psychotic in the blink of an eye, an unnerving character given the treatment by the big man. Still awaiting a DVD release, any chance you get to see this film you should grab with both hands. Powerful, intelligent stuff. 9/10