★ 9 / 10
Tormentors and the tormented given Lang's gifted touch
John Chard
Tormentors and the tormented given Lang's gifted touch. Out of MGM, Fury is directed by Fritz Lang and stars Spencer Tracy and Sylvia Sidney and features…
Tormentors and the tormented given Lang's gifted touch.
Out of MGM, Fury is directed by Fritz Lang and stars Spencer Tracy and Sylvia Sidney and features Walter Abel, Bruce Cabot, Edward Ellis and Walter Brennan in support. It's adapted by Lang and Bartlett Cormack from the story "Mob Rule" written by Norman Krasna. Loosely based around the events that surrounded both the "Brooke Hart" murder in 1933 and the "Lindbergh" kidnapping/murder case in 1932, the story sees Tracy as Joe Wilson, an innocent man who is jailed and apparently killed in a fire started by a rampaging lynch mob. However, as the lynch mob go on trial for his murder, Joe surfaces but is twisted by thoughts of revenge on those who happily watched him burn.
Widely and rightly considered a classic, this first Hollywood outing from director Fritz Lang is a remarkable look at mob violence and one man's limit pushed to its breaking point - and then some. That Lang survived studio interference to craft such a penetrating study of injustice is a minor miracle. Fury is neatly put together as a story, the calm before the storm as Joe & Kath are brought to us as the happy face of Americana. Then it's the middle section as rumours run out of control, the dangers of idle prattling rammed home as things start to escalate out of control - culminating in the savage assault on the jail (a gusto infused action sequence indeed). Then the fall out of mob rule actions, the court case and Joe's malevolent force of vengeance, that in turn comes under scrutiny.
The film was said to have been Lang's favourite American film, which is understandable given it bares all his trademarks. The expressionistic touches, shadow play dalliances and supreme cross-cutting between tormentors and the tormented, for sure this is prime Lang, with no frame wasted. While it's no stretch of the imagination to think that Lang, having fled Nazi Germany, was pondering what he left behind as he moulded the picture together. Of the cast, Tracy is majestic as our main protagonist, while Sidney is brightly big eyed and hugely effective as the moral centre of Joe's universe.
Controversial at the time, the film has naturally lost some of that controversial power over the decades. However, as the film points out with the lynching statistics, there was once a time when inhumanity was able to rear its ugly head in the blink of an eye. Fury serves to remind two-fold that not only is it a potent social commentary, but also that it's a damn fine piece of skilled cinema. 9/10
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★ 9 / 10
At first it seems like it is meaninglessly meandering...
AlsExGal
... because you have this typical Depression era love story with a young couple in love but not enough money to get married at a time when married women were…
... because you have this typical Depression era love story with a young couple in love but not enough money to get married at a time when married women were not expected to work after marriage. The guy, Joe WIlson (Spencer Tracy) is an optimistic fellow, living with his pseudo gangster brother and his baby brother that the gangster brother is trying to influence.
Joe quits a dead end job and buys a gas station and starts to make plenty of money. His fiancee (Sylvia Sidney) has been away from him a year working as a teacher to also save money. And then the day comes for them to reunite - there finally is enough money. He drives a car across country to meet up with her. And she waits and waits for him. Joe is never late. But little does she know that things have gone terribly wrong. That's where this tale goes to a very dark place.
Without giving away too much, a chain of events are set off that rips all optimism away from Joe and leaves him a changed and bitter guy, and he sets off on a really terrible yet understandable road of revenge.
This is probably the first real meaty role at MGM that Spencer Tracy got, and others followed soon after. It's also a rare 1930s message picture from that studio, dealing with mob mentality and violence. Although most mob violence was directed at African Americans during that time, so it does not quite have the courage of its convictions, it is still engaging.
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