Howard Tyler (Frank Lovejoy) is a family man living in California who struggles financially. He meets up with a small-time but charismatic hood, Jerry Slocum (Lloyd Bridges). Soon after, Slocum convinces Tyler to participate in gas station robberies to make ends meet. Later, they kidnap a wealthy man hoping to get a huge ransom. However, things go wrong when the man is murdered by Slocum and thrown into a lake. Tyler reaches his emotional limit and starts 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 (Richard Carlson) writes a series of hate-filled articles about the two prisoners, leading to a brutal lynching. The despair of the lower middle-class: A family man ashamed of being unemployed allows himself to be convinced by a gangster to take part in a kidnapping. The police arrest both of them and the anger of the small town's population is unforgiving. "THE SOUND OF FURY" is a dark crime movie that builds up to an apocalyptic storm, but never loses sight of social realities, thus telling a lot about the daily despair of the working-class. It is considered a masterpiece and Cy Endfield's last film before he felt compelled to move to Britain.
