FURY: Blu-ray (MGM, 1936) Warner Archive

In the years before Louis B. Mayer became the undisputed raja of MGM, he and his VP in Charge of Production, Irving G. Thalberg frequently clashed over the artistic merits of some of the movies Thalberg put into production, despite the fact Thalberg possessed an uncanny knack for knowing precisely what the public wanted to see. Case in point, Fritz Lang’s first American movie, Fury (1936) – a rare and unsettling critique of mob rule and its malignant and lingering effect on an innocent man. Fury is, arguably – and regrettably - a picture to have come of age in our present day, where politically-driven juggernauts place a price on the heads of innocent men, wrongly indicted, and thus, to be subjected to the reprisals of a crazed community, all too eager and quick to embrace their guilt before examining the facts. Fury offers us an unvarnished portrait of humanity’s mad, inhuman noise, and, the ageless fragility in our sanctimonious opinion that its assorted classes and rule of law are enough to keep the checks and balances functioning in tandem, granting liberty and justice for all. Lang’s critique is far more sober and ugly. Vigilantism, briefly inferred in Lang’s European-made masterpiece ‘M’ (1931) is at the forefront of Fury, a grisly, yet gripping probe into man’s natural and base desire to destroy himself.

Mayer speculated the public would not pay to see a story about an innocent man being lynched by an angry mob. He was misinformed. Fury would go on to become one of the highest-grossing pictures of the year. But Mayer also reasoned MGM should not be the studio making movies about this darker side of humanity. ‘Ripped from the headlines’ was Warner Bros. bread and butter. Mayer’s domain was the ultimate ‘dream factory’ and after Thalberg’s untimely passing this same year, Mayer would pretty much have his way – tossing out the grotesques to focus on his gloss. So, Fury premieres right at the end of the studio’s ‘experimental’ age where pictures like Freaks (1932) and Mad Love (1935) were permitted to intermingle with the likes of gargantuan escapist entertainments like Dinner at Eight (1933) and A Night at the Opera (1935). During Hollywood’s early evolution, foreign directors held a particular ‘charm’ – the possibility of culling talent from all over the world under one creative umbrella, leading to a vast assortment of continental imports, exacerbated by the advancing unrest in Europe to force many an artist from his homeland into greener pastures abroad. Lang’s Americanization, however, was not as assured as, say, Ernst Lubitsch or Billy Wilder, primarily because Lang possessed a rare autocratic gift for seeing through the courtly façade of men and women, burrowing down and deep into the more disturbing reality of their psyches. ‘M’ is a prime example of a movie that could never have been made in Hollywood – even, in its pre-code era where pictures of a questionable, more laissez faire attitude towards sin and sex, arguably, prevailed.

At its crux, and despite its rather haplessly tacked on ‘happy ending’, Fury remains deeply troubling, with Lang, and screenwriters, Bartlett Cormack and Norman Krasna, laying bare the rawest shame and dread of the story. Once described by Mayer as a galoot, Spencer Tracy as garage-keeper, Joe Wilson, reveals the kind of strength of character, indominable in essence, yet easily wounded and warped in practice, that would eventually brand him as one of the finest American actors ever to appear in films. Herein, Tracy offers up a seemingly unassuming and decidedly authentic victim, offset by co-star, Sylvia Sidney as Katherine Grant – Joe’s fiancée, just a small-town teacher caught in the crosshairs of an unanticipated and disturbingly wicked throng. Sidney’s performance is a minor revelation, profoundly imbued with the realities of agony and hesitation in her unwavering compassion. No cheaply embroidered sentiment here. Just commonplace human consideration as Kate and Joe endure – saying farewell from a rain-soaked railway station, faces and hands pressed against foggy window panes. And the momentum of their love is hardly diminished by the awful fate to befall Joe shortly thereafter; the public’s rush to judgement and attempt to unlawfully murder the wrongfully accused, all in the name of justice.  Suspected of kidnapping, the public is not interested in the truth as it girds its rising hysteria into a fevered pitch of justification for stoning, then burning the county jail with a man trapped inside.

Spencer Tracy’s devolution from innocent victim, clutching ‘Rainbow’ – his beloved mutt – to narrowly escaped convict, consumed by his anger and near crazed with revenge, is one of the finest portraits of a man teetering on the edge of self-destruction. Although Lang inexplicably loosens the yoke of the melodrama near the end, Fury remains a penetratingly efficient picture. Lang, of Austrian extraction but Catholic/Jewish background, once to have been offered total autonomy under Joseph Goebbels, to run Germany’s UFA studios as the state’s chief propagandist, though having successfully eluded the Nazis, was soon to discover American picture-makers came with their own set of artistically confining precepts, telescopically focused on more mainstream and saleable projects, preprocessed with restrictions placed on the artist at the helm in order to be marketed to the general public. Fury is unusually adept at straddling this chasm between Hollywood’s predilection for cinema spectacle and Lang’s disposition for testing the boundaries of the medium by delivering a one-two knock-out punch of truth to power. Fury was both financially successful and critically acclaimed, and this – mostly - without sacrificing Lang’s original and distinct personal vision. It also did wonders for Spencer Tracy’s career.

Our story begins with Joe Wilson, a workaday grease monkey from Chicago, determined to chart the course of true love by following his lover, Katherine Grant to her new job across country. On route, Joe stops in a small town terrorized by a kidnapping ring, the simple folk who populate it, all too ready to presume Joe is the one responsible for their crime wave, especially after he receives a $5 bill with serial numbers to match those marked as ransom money. Joe is taken into custody. But the resolute sheriff (Edward Ellis) positively refuses to give up his prisoner – even to the angry mob amassing outside. And thus, the mob take matters into their own hands. The citadel stormed and torched, Joe presumably perishes in the flames. But wait – no. He has survived, transformed by his literal trial by fire into precisely the sort of criminally-minded reprobate the public feared, with a crazed determination to see as many of the rioters tried and executed for his ‘murder’. The D.A. (Walter Abel) gathers the main perpetrators for trial, with virtually all turning on each other or lying about their complicity in the lynching. At this juncture, the seemingly hopeless case receives a boost when newsreel footage exposes 22 members caught in the maelstrom of their own tyranny. It looks as though Judge Daniel Hopkins (Frederick Burton) will have no choice but to find the men before him guilty of murder. That is, until Kate learns Joe has survived and is presently being concealed by his brothers who believe his cause just. Her pleas, at first, fall on deaf ears. But gradually, Joe’s former self – virtuous to the core – begins to reestablish itself. As Hopkins prepares to condemn the accused, Joe strides into the courtroom to set the record straight.

Fury is, arguably, Fritz Lang’s best American-made movie. Without question, it is a potent picture, only occasionally to veer into a preachy testament about the wickedness of mob rule. Tracy's principled humanitarianism ensures he is less of a disillusioned philosopher, rotted out by the absolute failure of the legal system to protect his rights as a law-abiding citizen, than an honest fellow, whose circumstances have momentarily managed to twist, then warp his goodness into bitter revenge. Joseph Ruttenberg’s cinematography is exquisite; graceful tracking shots intercut with reflective close-ups, truly to heighten the drama, as well as the reality of these gruesomely genuine and exhilarating moments. Behind the scenes, tensions flared between cast and crew over Lang’s imperious methods to create cinema art. In one instance, Lang – who preferred to eat a quick lunch between set-ups, and unaccustomed to the labor laws – thought he would merely steamroller his way through a full day’s work without break. Instead, Tracy deliberately smeared his make-up, calling ‘lunch’. Lang did not forget the incident and thereafter proceeded to work Tracy to the bone – presumably, to refine his performance. Tracy vowed thereafter never to work with Lang again. During the filming of the riot scene, Lang hurled a smoke bomb in the midst of the crowd for dramatic effect. Unfortunately, the device struck costar, Bruce Cabot in the noggin; Cabot, having to be forcibly restrained from picking a fist fight with the director.

Sylvia Sidney, who never made another movie at MGM, was so desperate to work with Lang she agreed to a pittance of her usual salary for the opportunity. And while Sidney was fast establishing a reputation in the industry for her challenging temperament, on Fury, she got on famously with her director. Regrettably, by the early forties, her reputation preceded her, and, after being branded ‘box office poison’, her career greatly diminished. Although she continued to work in pictures, the work became intermittent and undistinguished. As for Lang – much to his dismay, he soon discovered movies made in Hollywood are movies made by committee, rather than the clear-eyed directorial vision of a single artist. In viewing the picture’s rough cut, Mayer and Thalberg made the executive decision their show should end on a passionate courtroom kiss between its protagonists instead of the close-up of Sylvia Sidney’s tears-stained visage. Lang, begrudgingly, complied, but was never satisfied with this alteration.

Fury arrives on Blu-ray via the Warner Archive (WAC) and, in typical fashion, looks every bit as gorgeous as one might expect. The B&W image is free from age-related artifacts and exhibits a subtly nuanced gray scale to reveal stunning amounts of fine detail. Contrast is vastly improved. We get rich, velvety black levels, minus the crush and faded ‘grayish’ quality that accompanied the DVD release. Better still, this image reveals all sorts of sumptuous detail in skin, hair and fabrics. It’s like viewing Fury on opening night. WAC has done its due diligence on the 2.0 DTS mono audio too, free of hiss and pop with crisp sounding dialogue. Peter Bogdanovich’s expert audio commentary from the DVD is ported over, interpolated with audio interviews from Lang, conducted decades earlier, offering invaluable insight into the making of this movie. The only other extra is a theatrical trailer. Bottom line: Fury is one of those rare ‘outtakes’ from Mayer’s glamor factory that has withstood the test of time. It may not be MGM’s usual fare, but boy, does it still pack a wallop. The Blu-ray is immaculate and well worth your coin. Highly recommended!

FILM RATING (out of 5 – 5 being the best)

4

VIDEO/AUDIO

5

EXTRAS

1