The Sound of Fury (film)

The Sound of Fury (reissued as Try and Get Me) is a 1950 American crime film noir[1] directed by Cy Endfield, starring Frank Lovejoy, Kathleen Ryan, Richard Carlson, and Lloyd Bridges.[2] The film is based on the 1947 novel The Condemned by Jo Pagano, who also wrote the screenplay.

For the album by Billy Fury, see The Sound of Fury (album).
The Sound of Fury
Theatrical release poster
Directed byCy Endfield
Produced byRobert Stillman
Screenplay byJo Pagano
Based onThe Condemned
(1947 novel)
by Jo Pagano
StarringFrank Lovejoy
Kathleen Ryan
Richard Carlson
Lloyd Bridges
Music byHugo Friedhofer
CinematographyGuy Roe
Edited byGeorge Amy
Production
company
Robert Stillman Productions
Distributed byUnited Artists
Release date
  • December 12, 1950 (1950-12-12) (United States)
  • May 5, 1951 (1951-05-05) (New York City)
Running time
92 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish

The Pagano novel was based on events that occurred in 1933, when two men were arrested in San Jose, California, for the kidnap and murder of Brooke Hart. The suspects confessed and were subsequently lynched by a mob of locals. The 1936 film Fury, directed by Fritz Lang, was inspired by the same incident.[3]

Plot

Howard Tyler (Frank Lovejoy) is a family man, living in California, who can't find a job. He meets up with a small-time, but charismatic, hood Jerry Slocum (Lloyd Bridges). Soon, Slocum convinces Tyler to participate in gas station robberies to get by. Later, they kidnap a wealthy man in hopes of getting a huge ransom. Things go wrong when the man is murdered by Slocum then thrown in a lake. Tyler reaches his limit emotionally, and he begins drinking heavily. He meets a lonely woman and confesses the crime while drunk. The woman flees and goes to the police.

When the two kidnappers are arrested, a local journalist (Richard Carlson) writes a series of hate-filled articles about the two prisoners which eventually lead to a brutal lynching.

Cast

Reception

Critical response

The New York Times film critic Bosley Crowther 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."[4]

Raymond Borde and Etienne Chaumeton, in a work on American film noir, wrote that "the prison assault remains one of the most brutal sequences in postwar American cinema."[5]

In 1998, Jonathan Rosenbaum of the Chicago Reader included the film in his unranked list of the best American films not included on the AFI Top 100.[6]

Accolades

Nominations

Restoration

One of the last films made in the U.S. by blacklisted writer/director Cy Endfield before he relocated to England, Try and Get Me! has been restored by the Film Noir Foundation.[7] The restored version was aired for the first time on Turner Classic Movies on January 25, 2020, and introduced by Eddie Muller.

References
  1. "The 100 Best Film Noirs of All Time". Paste. August 9, 2015. Retrieved August 9, 2015.
  2. The Sound of Fury at the American Film Institute Catalog.
  3. Neve, Brian (2015-07-21). The Many Lives of Cy Endfield: Film Noir, the Blacklist, and Zulu. University of Wisconsin Pres. pp. 77–92. ISBN 978-0-299-30374-7.
  4. Crowther, Bosley (1951-05-07). "'Try and Get Me,' Based on Novel, 'Condemned,' Has Frank Lovejoy and Kathleen Ryan in Leads". The New York Times (film review). p. 22. Retrieved 2018-04-29.
  5. Borde, Raymond and Etienne Chaumeton. A Panorama of American Film Noir 1941-1953. 1955. ISBN 0-87286-412-X.
  6. Rosenbaum, Jonathan (June 25, 1998). "List-o-Mania: Or, How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love American Movies". Chicago Reader. Archived from the original on April 13, 2020.
  7. "Noir and Neo-Noir TV Listings on TCM - The Film Noir Foundation". www.filmnoirfoundation.org. Retrieved 2020-01-26.
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