''The Sound of Fury'' (reissued as ''Try and Get Me!'') is a 1950 American crime

film noir Film noir (; ) is a cinematic term used primarily to describe stylish Hollywood crime dramas, particularly those that emphasize cynical attitudes and motivations. The 1940s and 1950s are generally regarded as the "classic period" of American ' ...

directed by

Cy Endfield Cyril Raker Endfield (November 10, 1914 – April 16, 1995) was an American screenwriter, director, author, magician and inventor. Having been named as a Communist at a House Un-American Activities Committee hearing and subsequently blacklisted ...

and starring

Frank Lovejoy Frank Andrew Lovejoy Jr. (March 28, 1912 – October 2, 1962) was an American actor in radio, film, and television. He is perhaps best remembered for appearing in the film noir '' The Hitch-Hiker'' and for starring in the radio drama '' Night Beat ...

Kathleen Ryan Kathleen Ryan (8 September 1922 – 11 December 1985) was an Irish actress. She was born in Dublin, Ireland of Tipperary parentage and appeared in British and Hollywood films between 1947 and 1957. In 2020, she was listed as number 40 on ''Th ...

, Richard Carlson. The film is based on the 1947 novel ''The Condemned'' by Jo Pagano, who also wrote the screenplay. The Pagano novel was based on events that occurred in 1933 when two men were arrested in

San Jose, California San Jose, officially San José (; ; ), is a major city in the U.S. state of California that is the cultural, financial, and political center of Silicon Valley and largest city in Northern California by both population and area. With a 2020 popul ...

for the kidnapping and murder of

Brooke Hart Brooke Hart (June 11, 1911 – November 9, 1933) was the eldest son of Alexander Hart, the owner of the L. Hart & Son department store in downtown San Jose, California, United States. His kidnapping and murder were heavily publicized, and the su ...

. The suspects confessed and were subsequently

lynched Lynching is an extrajudicial killing by a group. It is most often used to characterize informal public executions by a mob in order to punish an alleged transgressor, punish a convicted transgressor, or intimidate people. It can also be an ex ...

by a mob of locals. The 1936 film '' Fury,'' directed by

Fritz Lang Friedrich Christian Anton Lang (; December 5, 1890 – August 2, 1976), known as Fritz Lang, was an Austrian film director, screenwriter, and producer who worked in Germany and later the United States.Obituary ''Variety'', August 4, 1976, p. 6 ...

, was inspired by the same incident.

Plot

Howard Tyler is a family man from

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

, living in

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

with his wife and boy, who has trouble finding a job. He meets charismatic small-time hood Jerry Slocum, who hires Howard to participate in gas-station robberies. Later, Jerry concocts a plan to kidnap the son of a wealthy man to receive a large

ransom Ransom is the practice of holding a prisoner or item to extort money or property to secure their release, or the sum of money involved in such a practice. When ransom means "payment", the word comes via Old French ''rançon'' from Latin ''red ...

. Things go wrong when Jerry kills the man and throws the body into a lake. Howard, who did not know that his and Jerry's criminal exploits would include murder, reaches his emotional limit and begins drinking heavily. He meets a lonely woman and, while drunk, confesses to the crime. The woman flees and informs the police. When the two kidnappers are arrested, a local journalist writes a series of vicious articles about the two prisoners. A vicious mob assembles outside the police station, overpowers the guards and storms the building, seizing the two men in order to kill them.

Cast

as Howard Tyler *

as Judy Tyler * Richard Carlson as Gil Stanton *

Lloyd Bridges Lloyd Vernet Bridges Jr. (January 15, 1913 – March 10, 1998) was an American film, stage and television actor who starred in a number of television series and appeared in more than 150 feature films. He was the father of four children, includi ...

as Jerry Slocum *

Katherine Locke Katherine Locke (June 24, 1910 – September 12, 1995) was a Broadway actress in the late 1930s. Early life She was born in Kalinkavičy, in what is now Belarus, and raised in the U.S. Her father, Morris Locke (Mendel Lakomowitz ), was a ...

as Hazel Weatherwax *

Adele Jergens Adele Jergens (November 26, 1917 – November 22, 2002) was an American actress. Early life and career Born in Brooklyn, New York, as Adele Louisa Jurgens (some sources say Jurgenson), she rose to prominence in the late 1930s when she was named ...

as Velma * Art Smith as Hal Clendenning *

Renzo Cesana Renzo Cesana (30 October 1907, Rome – 8 November 1970, Hollywood, California) was an actor, writer, composer, and songwriter most famed for his title role on the American television show ''The Continental (1952 TV series), The Continental''. He ...

as Dr. Vido Simone *

Irene Vernon Irene Vernon (born Irene Vergauwen, January 16, 1922 – April 21, 1998) was an American actress. Background Vernon was born Irene Vergauwen in Mishawaka, Indiana, and graduated from Mishawaka High School. Following graduation, she moved to ...

as Helen Stanton *

Cliff Clark Cliff Clark (June 10, 1889 – February 8, 1953) was an American actor. He entered the film business in 1937 after a substantial stage career and appeared in over 200 Hollywood films. In the last years of his life, he also played in a numb ...

as Sheriff Lem Deming * Harry Shannon as Mr. Yaeger * Donald Doss as Tommy Tyler (as Donald Smelick)

Reception

Critical response

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'' film critic

Bosley Crowther Francis Bosley Crowther Jr. (July 13, 1905 – March 7, 1981) was an American journalist, writer, and film critic for ''The New York Times'' for 27 years. His work helped shape the careers of many actors, directors and screenwriters, though his ...

panned the film, writing: "Although Mr. Endfield has directed the violent climactic scenes with a great deal of sharp visualization of mass hysteria and heat, conveying a grim impression of the nastiness of a mob, he has filmed the rest of the picture in a conventional melodramatic style. Neither the script nor the numerous performances are of a distinctive quality." Raymond Borde and Etienne Chaumeton, in a work on American

, wrote that "the prison assault remains one of the most brutal sequences in postwar American cinema." In 1998,

Jonathan Rosenbaum Jonathan Rosenbaum (born February 27, 1943) is an American film critic and author. Rosenbaum was the head film critic for ''The Chicago Reader'' from 1987 to 2008, when he retired. He has published and edited numerous books about cinema and has ...

of the ''

Chicago Reader The ''Chicago Reader'', or ''Reader'' (stylized as ЯEADER), is an American alternative weekly newspaper in Chicago, Illinois, noted for its literary style of journalism and coverage of the arts, particularly film and theater. It was founded by a ...

'' included the film in his unranked list of the best American films not included on the AFI Top 100.

Accolades

Nominations *

British Academy of Film and Television Arts British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

Awards: Best Film from Any Source, 1952.

Restoration

Among the final films made in the U.S. by blacklisted writer/director

before he relocated to England, ''The Sound of Fury'' has been restored by the Film Noir Foundation. The restored version was aired for the first time on

Turner Classic Movies Turner Classic Movies (TCM) is an American movie channel, movie-oriented pay television, pay-TV television network, network owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. Launched in 1994, Turner Classic Movies is headquartered at Turner's Techwood broadcasti ...

on January 25, 2020, and was introduced by

Eddie Muller Eddie Muller (born October 15, 1958) is an American writer based in San Francisco. He is known for writing books about movies, particularly film noir, and is the host of Noir Alley on Turner Classic Movies (TCM). Early life and education Muller ...

References

External links

* * *
''The Sound of Fury''
at Film Noir of the Week by

Glenn Erickson Glenn Erickson is an American film editor and film critic. A graduate of the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television, he started in the film industry in 1975 as an editor of low-budget films and later worked in minor technical crew capacitie ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sound of Fury, The 1950 films 1950 crime drama films American black-and-white films American crime drama films Film noir Films about kidnapping Films based on American novels Films directed by Cy Endfield Films scored by Hugo Friedhofer Films set in California United Artists films 1950s English-language films 1950s American films