TRY AND GET ME! (1950)

(aka THE SOUND OF FURY)

United Artists, 92m 18s

"...some of you guys get out here in California, and the damn place is so crazy you just gotta get something to eat some way, don't you?"

—Johnny Cash, recorded live at San Quentin State Prison on February 24, 1969

Not sure if Johnny Cash knew the story of Howard Tyler (Frank Lovejoy in a gripping performance), but I have a feeling Cash would have felt something for this noir protagonist's unenviable plight. One of the doomed individuals of this high-tension noir thriller, Tyler is the type of character even casual film noir fans should recognize as prototypical:  a basically good guy who goes horribly wrong while down on his luck. Thanks to muscular direction by Cy Endfield, the emotional power of TRY AND GET ME! remains forceful almost 70 years after its initial theatrical run.

The material probably would not resonate quite as well without the performance of Lovejoy, who finds himself ideally cast as Tyler, an everyman who has found gainful employment elusive since he relocated his family to California from Massachusetts. The humiliation of unemployment is taking its toll on Tyler, who proudly gives his son Tommy (Donald Smelick) some spending money dad truthfully cannot afford to squander. And with his sweet wife Judy (Kathleen Ryan) pregnant, Tyler feels increased pressure to become a consistent earner. In a chance meeting at a bowling alley, a demoralized Tyler is befriended by Jerry Slocum (Lloyd Bridges), a flashy, self-assured man apparently doing pretty well for himself. It turns out the two attended basic training at the same location. Almost instantly Tyler is drawn to the smooth talker Slocum, who offers Tyler a job as his getaway driver. Without a doubt Slocum is the homme fatale of this narrative, always fussing over his appearance. He prides himself on expensive colognes and silk shirts. In one of my favorite scenes to emphasize Slocum's vanity, Tyler helpfully holds a mirror while Slocum runs a comb through his product-infested hair.

Annoyingly stuck with no other source of income, Tyler joins forces with the temperamental Slocum, who unleashes a detestable mean streak during his first stickup with wheelman Tyler, who does not witness Slocum preying on a defenseless old couple and their son. It is not long before Slocum sets his sights on a bigger payoff than what petty robberies make possible. Slocum and Tyler kidnap Donald D. Miller (Carl Kent), the son of a wealthy man. In one of film noir's most startling scenes, Slocum bludgeons Miller to death while Tyler grimaces. A man without compassion for anyone else, Slocum never harbored any intention of allowing Miller to survive. At this juncture, one suspects both Tyler and Slocum are in for some sort of serious retribution, but the events of the film's final act came as quite a surprise to me. If there ever were a film to go into knowing absolutely nothing about it, this is it.

TRY AND GET ME! opens with a blind preacher (Emerson Treacy) not being heard, with the local populace in an agitated state for reasons not revealed at the outset. The root cause of all this commotion is the inherent problem of a public service that functions as a for-profit enterprise. Newsman Hal Clendenning (Art Smith) is in the business of frightening readers into buying his Santa Sierra Journal. Given the recent robberies of service stations and liquor stores, the opportunistic Clendenning believes a little scaremongering will boost the publication's circulation. Thus the work of a two-bit hoodlum gets reported as a crime wave, with sophisticated out-of-towners pegged as the suspects. Somehow in the middle of all this is Dr. Vido Simone (Renzo Cesana), the rational voice for an objective press that does not strive to condition public opinion. Interestingly, the film’s man of reason is a foreigner. Simone immediately casts doubt over Clendenning's practice of injecting conjecture into reporting, and reminds ace reporter Gil Stanton (Richard Carlson) of his responsibilities to report fairly and accurately. Essentially Simone tells the viewer what to think, for instance, "...if a man becomes a criminal, sometimes his environment is defective." The filmmakers underscore that sentiment early on when they show the reporter Stanton hanging out at the same bowling alley where Tyler fatalistically encounters Slocum. As Simone strongly suggests, it indeed seems the noir environment factors in the downfall of all three of these men. Obviously the noir psychopath Slocum is positioned as the face of evil (especially in his jail cell), but Stanton and Clendenning are arguably more dangerous due to their influence over the mood of the populace. The most insidious thing about the brand of news reporting endorsed by Clendenning is the shared sense of moral superiority it cultivates in its readers. This film noir dishes out an unsparing review of yellow journalism tactics that stoke public adrenaline in the wrong direction.

In terms of genre compliance, TRY AND GET ME! enlists many of the components that had come to define the film noir approach by 1950. The noir narrative is noted for its darkness in terms of both themes and visuals, and this is a fine instance of nocturnal noir in which evil runs rampant at night. When Tyler's association with Slocum begins in earnest, Tyler tells his wife he has returned to the labor force via the night shift. He is being truthful to some degree since his "work" always takes place at night. The raucous final act also fittingly transpires during evening hours. Prior to this film, cinematographer Guy Roe had completed RAILROADED! (1947), BEHIND LOCKED DOORS (1948), TRAPPED (1949) and ARMORED CAR ROBBERY (1950). Roe's acuity of vision reveals a difference between the two condemned men in the jailhouse sequence, when the caged animal Slocum is photographed completely differently from Tyler, with whom we are meant to sympathize.

Thanks in part to the oft-present femme fatale, the film noir sometimes becomes intertwined with misogyny. That this noir entry will go down that road is apparent in the introductory sequence, when a Wells Truckways driver makes his feelings about women known to Tyler. In reference to Tyler's wife and son, the driver comments, "They sure drop the net over you, don't they?" Later the trucker continues with, "...take my old lady, and I'm not kidding, you want her you can have her." In regard to the typical female, Slocum opines, "...they're all partial to the same color:  green." Then there is the two-timing girl at the rock quarry, who explains to her date Johnny she repeatedly has made excuses with her boyfriend so she could rendezvous with Johnny.

The dates Slocum arranges for the sake of cover do not show much substance, at least when introduced. His girl Velma (Adele Jergens) likes the cash Slocum always seems to have, and he likes her idea of running off to Havana for obvious reasons. Initially Velma's manicurist friend and Tyler's blind date Hazel Weatherwax (Katherine Locke) shows little depth ("I hope he isn't bald.") but proves to be a woman of morals, "saving" herself for the right man who does not drink excessively. She also correctly senses Slocum is not trustworthy. Between her and the tender matriarchal figure Judy, who remains fiscally responsible after her husband starts to bring home some money, it might be argued that female archetypes achieve some balance. But that balance is called into question when the story's most respectable female loses everything; the scene when Judy surprises Stanton with a letter from her husband is heartbreaking. Tyler marches down the wrong path in the interest of helping his wife, and instead he destroys her. Does the narrative blame Judy? To a certain extent, it does.

Another line of analysis implies economic isolation and a propensity toward alcohol abuse combine to drag Tyler into an awful place. In the opening act we learn he owes the local market, and his wife thinks of themselves as beggars since they relocated to California. Tyler demonstrates a bad habit of throwing his money around when he does have it, a trait common to Slocum, but otherwise Tyler seems like an ordinary individual, a decent fellow. It is a lack of income that drives him into his reluctant partnership with the heel Slocum. Alcohol absolutely contributes to Tyler's downward spiral, tellingly during his first encounter with Slocum. In another hallmark noir motif, Tyler badly deteriorates mentally after becoming an accomplice to a brutal crime. While trying to maintain his composure in front of a proud new father (Bob Jellison), Tyler suffers a flashback of the murder he witnessed. His cratering continues during the nightclub sequence, where an onslaught of oblique camera angles encourages the viewer to share in his trauma. Tyler is starting to lose possession of his faculties. His breakdown finds completion at Weatherwax's apartment, where he returns in an edgy state after recognizing he no longer has any proper place at his own home. The absent or broken family is another recurring theme of the noir film, and TRY AND GET ME! concludes with the devastation of the Tyler family, along with full recognition of what an irresponsible press inflamed. This sense of loss is best expressed when Tommy is awakened by nightmares in the middle of mob rule in the story's concluding moments.

Jo Pagano's screenplay is an adaptation of his 1947 novel THE CONDEMNED, which was based upon the kidnapping and murder of Brooke Hart that took place in 1933. The alleged killers Thomas Harold Thurmond and John M. Holmes were lynched by an enraged mob of citizens in San Jose, California. It was the first time in American history that lynch mob activity mutated into a media event. Originally the film was released as THE SOUND OF FURY, but after disappointing at the box office it was reissued as TRY AND GET ME! before falling into obscurity. The same year Cy Endfield directed the film noir THE UNDERWORLD STORY, another indictment of yellow journalism. Both films raised the eyebrows of The House Un-American Activities Committee, and Endfield was declared a Communist Party sympathizer. Faced with the prospect of naming names, Endfield moved to England in 1951, where he continued his filmmaking career.

As a confirmed film noir fan for the past 30 years, it pains me to admit I never even had heard of this vitally important noir permutation until I noticed it in a Facebook post from Eddie Muller. TRY AND GET ME! debuted on Turner Classic Movies last month, with an introductory segment by Muller, a welcome listen given the absence of any supplemental material available on the Olive Films single-layered Blu-ray disc released in 2016, which served as the basis for this review. The Olive Films transfer looks outstanding framed at 1.37:1. The source material I assume is the 35mm print owned by Martin Scorsese that was restored by the Film Noir Foundation back in 2011.

Three other films were inspired by the Brooke Hart case:  Fritz Lang's FURY (1936), the short film NIGHT WITHOUT JUSTICE (2004) and Tim Boxell's VALLEY OF THE HEART'S DELIGHT (2006).