The Sound of Fury

A flawed but strikingly dark thriller about a World War II veteran (Lovejoy), unable to provide for his family, who drifts into petty crime, is inveigled by an unbalanced acquaintance (Bridges) into a kidnapping that goes wrong, and ends on the wrong side of a lynch mob. Although based on a factual case from the '30s, it is designed as an anti-McCarthyist plea (Endfield was blacklisted soon after), and its weakness lies in the elements of message: the journalist who whips up mob hysteria against the criminals, and the Italian professor who provides a civilised commentary deploring what is going on. But the background is sharply observed, the first half is rivetingly done, and the tension reasserts itself for the lynching finale.