The Sound of Fury

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The Sound of Fury
Movie poster (aka title)
Directed by	Cy Endfield
Written by	Joe Pagano
Starring	Frank Lovejoy Kathleen Ryan
Release date(s)	1950
Running time	85 min.
Country	U.S.A.
Language	English
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IMDb profile

The Sound of Fury (also known as Try and Get Me) is a 1950 black-and-white film noir directed by Cy Endfield, starring Frank Lovejoy and Kathleen Ryan. The film is based on Joe Pagano's novel The Condemned, who also wrote the screenplay.

The film is based on factual events that occurred in 1933, when two men were arrested in San Jose, California, for kidnapping and murdering a man, Brooke Hart. The suspects confessed and were lynched by a mob of locals. The Fritz Lang-directed 1936 film Fury was about the same incident.

[edit] Plot summary

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Howard Tyler (Frank Lovejoy) is a family man, living in California, who can't seem to get by financially. He meets up with a small-time, but charismatic, hood Jerry Slocum (Bridges). Soon, Slocum convinces Tyler into participating 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 (Carlson) writes a series of hate-filled articles about the two prisoners which eventually lead to a brutal lynching.