NFR Project: 'Fury' (1936)

 

NFR Project: ‘Fury’

Dir: Fritz Lang

Scr: Bartlett Cormack, Fritz Lang, Norman Krasna

Pho: Joseph Ruttenberg

Ed: Frank Sullivan

Premiere: June 5, 1936

92 min.

It is arguable that German director Fritz Lang had created his greatest films before he came to America. He had already made Metropolis and M, as well as lesser-known classics such as Destiny, Spies, Die Nibelungen, and The Testament of Dr. Mabuse. His thrillers and fantasies enchanted the German and the international public.

His Jewish heritage, however, put him in danger with the Nazis in power. He was actually offered the job of the head of UFA, the dominant German film corporation, by Josef Goebbels. He wisely declined, and soon made his escape first to France and then the United States.

Fury was his first American film. It’s gritty and relentless, a “problem” picture that demonstrates a distinct lack of faith in human nature, especially that of crowds. Lang had a hand in the screenplay, and his cynicism and blunt truthfulness are unsettling, especially in an ostensibly mainstream picture.

The movie stars Spencer Tracy as Joe Wilson, a regular guy who plans to wed his beloved, played by Sylvia Sidney. Driving to meet her, he is stopped in a small town where a kidnapping has taken place. He is arrested and is taken to the town jail. Meanwhile, the inhabitants of the town begin to gossip about him, and soon the rumors swell out of proportion until the whole town is convinced that he is the kidnapper.

After a lengthy barroom session, drinking their courage up, the men march to the jail to lynch Joe. Unable to get him out of his cell, they set fire to the jail, and dynamite it as well. Joe escapes with his life, but everyone assumes he was killed in the fire.

Joe wants vengeance. He hides out as 22 of the town’s citizens are charged with murder. The townspeople fight back by declining to identify any of the suspects, hoping to avoid evidence of their participation in the attempted lynching. Unfortunately for them, a newsreel crew captured the action on film. The prosecuting attorney plays the film for the courtroom, and there the proof is: freeze-frames of the rioting show the guilty. The defendants are doomed.

Tracy enters the courtroom just at that moment, to confess his malice and to let the defendants off the hook. It’s a pat ending that does not mitigate the indictment of mob mentality that Lang illustrates here. His experiences in Germany taught him what human nature was capable of, and he takes a dim view of the wisdom of the common man. He sees mankind as deluded and malicious – even Joe, formerly a sweet guy, is transformed into a revenge-obsessed maniac.

Lang would go on to tackle all manner of genre films during his time in Hollywood, most notably in film noir. He manages to smuggle in his subversive view of human nature in everything he makes, but it was never so openly on display as in this film.

The parallels with contemporary history are obvious. We just saw 1,500 violent rioters pardoned by a criminal president, and their crimes painted as innocuous, or denied completely. When people lose control and lash out at each other, it is their ill will that reconfigures their memories into more pleasing shapes.

The NFR is one writer’s attempt to review all the films listed in the National Film Registry in chronological order. Next time: Master Hands.