History Film / Fury1936

No connection to [[Film/{{Fury2014}} a 2014 film]] starring Creator/BradPitt.

* ConvictedByPublicOpinion: Joe gets arrested because "it seems he knows more than he lets on" about a kidnapping. GossipEvolution inflates it into everyone "knowing" he's the kidnapper, forming a Lynch mob and burning down his prison.

* GossipyHens: All the old biddies of Strand that gossip about Joe's arrest and wind up flaming the passions of the mob. Lampshaded when Lang inserted a shot of actual hens during the gossip montage.

* HeelFaceTurn: Joe. In the trial over his murder, the townspeople are found guilty, but before they can hang for the crime, Joe has a change of conscience and shows up in the courtroom as the sentences are being read and saves them from execution.

* OnePhoneCall: Averted. Joe wants to call Katherine but is denied any phone call because the sheriff fears Joe could be using the call to warn his partners in crime.

* ReportsOfMyDeathWereGreatlyExaggerated: Exploited. Joe is presumed dead [[spoiler:but actually escaped the blaze. However, he stays in hiding in order to get the townspeople sentenced to death for his murder.]]

* ThisIsAWorkOfFiction: Disclaimer after the open credits that characters and events are fictional.

* TwoScenesOneDialogue: The sheriff tells his nervous deputies that the National Guard has been summoned. Cut to a very quick scene in which the mustered Guardsmen are told they will be standing down. Cut to governor saying "''why?''", as his political boss says that sending the Guard into a town could be damaging.

* ReasonableAuthorityFigure: The sheriff. He promising Joe a square deal and keeps his word when defending him against the angry mob.

* ArtisticLicenseHistory: In the original case, the two men lynched by the Mob are agreed to have been the actual culprits. For the sake of the film, the incident is fictionalized and the accused is made an innocent. Fritz Lang who wanted to explore the idea of capital punishment felt that this was a weakness since according to him you can only make a convincing case against the death penalty by stating that even the guilty shouldn't be executed.

* StealthHiBye: TheBarber's customer who disappears behind his back after some joking about [[SlashedThroat cutting a throat]].

* RippedFromTheHeadlines: The script was based upon the 1933 kidnapping and murder of Brooke Hart, the son of the owner of Hart's Department Store in San Jose, California. The two kidnapping suspects were pulled from jail by a group of vigilantes, who dragged them across the street to St. James Park and lynched both of them. The story also inspired several letter films, including Cy Enfield's ''Try and Get Me!''

* RippedFromTheHeadlines: The script was based upon the 1933 kidnapping and murder of Brooke Hart, the son of the owner of Hart's Department Store in San Jose, California. The two kidnapping suspects were pulled from jail by a group of vigilantes, who dragged them across the street to St. James Park and lynched both of them.

Fritz Lang's first Hollywood film (he had fled from ThoseWackyNazis in 1933, making a pit stop in France). Listed on the NationalFilmRegistry.

* ProducePelting: A tomato thrown at the sheriff escalates the riot at the jail house.

* ItsQuietTooQuiet: After they barred themselves up in the jail house, the sheriff gets suspicious of the silence outside. Cue the mob ramming the door.

* {{Revenge}}: [[spoiler:Joe]] seeks to get the 22 members of the mob sentenced to death for murdering him.

* InternalReveal: When [[spoiler:Joe returns home, only Charlie and Tom (and the audience) know that he is still alive. Until Joe reveals himself to the world in the final court room scene.]]

''Fury'' is a 1936 film starring Sylvia Sidney and Creator/SpencerTracy. It was directed by Creator/FritzLang. Joe (Tracy) is a hardworking owner of a gas station who sets out on a drive to meet up with his fiancée, Katherine (Sidney). On the way he is stopped and arrested on suspicion of being party to a kidnapping that is making newspaper headlines. The residents of the ignorant little town of Strand where Joe is being held whip themselves up into a frenzy, form a lynch mob, and burn down the jail with Joe in it.

[[quoteright:350:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/c0110b2f0332ca86b9909c5a5175bfb0.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:350:Who wants s'mores?]]

* AntiHero: Joe starts out as a good guy [[spoiler:But after the traumatic events of almost being burned alive by a raging mob, he become a HeWhoFightsMonsters, trying to get justice for the crimes committed against him, even if it means to forge evidence.]]

* MementoMacGuffin: The family ring Katherine hands Joe during their TrainStationGoodbye. It later turns into a ChekhovsGun in court.

* AntiHero: Joe starts out as a good guy [[spoiler:But after the traumatic events of almost being burned alive by a raging mob, he turns to the dark site, trying to get justice for the crimes committed against him, even if it means to forge evidence.]]

* InternalReveal: When [[spoiler:Joe returns home, only Charlie and Tom (and the audience) know that he is still alive. Until Joe reveals himself to the world in the final court scene.]]

* AntiHero: Joe starts out as an IdealHero. But after the traumatic events of almost being burned alive by a raging mob, he turns to the dark site, trying to get justice for the crimes committed against him, even if it means to forge evidence.

* AnswerCut: The sheriff tells his nervous deputies that the National Guard has been summoned. Cut to a very quick scene in which the mustered Guardsmen are told they will be standing down. Cut to governor saying "''why?''", as his political boss says that sending the Guard into a town could be damaging.

* HeroicBSOD: Katherine slips into catatonia after watching Joe (apparently) die.
* ItsQuietTooQuiet: After they barred themselves up in the jail house, the sheriff notices the suspicious silence outside. Cue the ramming.

* RippedFromTheHeadlines: Lynching and anti-lynching laws were big political issues in TheThirties. Of course, most lynching were of black men in the Confederacy, not white folks like Joe.
* SanitySlippage: Joe undergoes one in the third act through the guilt that is weighing heavily upon him. He [[HearingVoices hears Katherine's voice]] when watching the shop window, he sees the number 22 at the calendar at the bar and can't help but think of the 22 accused. After he leaves the bar and walks along the street, he sees some of the faces of the mob in a store window. Frightened, he begins running down the empty road as if he's being chased, the camera follows him, only showing the audience what seems to be following Joe - nothing, only his conscience.

''Fury'' is a 1936 film starring Sylvia Sidney and Creator/SpencerTracy. It was directed by Creator/FritzLang. Joe (Tracy) is a hardworking owner of a gas station who sets out on a drive to meet up with his fiancee, Katherine (Sidney). On the way he is stopped and arrested on suspicion of being party to a kidnapping that is making newspaper headlines. The residents of the ignorant little town of Strand where Joe is being held whip themselves up into a frenzy, form a lynch mob, and burn down the jail with Joe in it.

!!Tropes:

* ChekhovsGun: Joe's inability to correctly spell "memento" winds up being the clincher that convinces Katherine he's alive. (The same error is on the anonymous note.)

* GossipEvolution: The scanty evidence against Joe is magified by the GossipyHens and everyone else in town until it becomes an iron-clad case.

* NeverFoundTheBody: Everyone apparently assumes Joe was burned to ash. He's still alive.

* UnableToSupportAWife: Joe can't, which is why Katherine leaves town to find a better job. Joe makes good with the gas station and sets out to reunite with Katherine, only to be tragically interrupted.

[[quoteright:720:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/c0110b2f0332ca86b9909c5a5175bfb0.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:720:Who wants s'mores?]]

Or so they think. One of the townspeople threw a stick of dynamite which actually wound up blowing open the bars of Joe's cell. 22 people of the town wind up going on trial for Joe's murder, and a vengeful Joe stays in hiding rather than reveal himself and save the townspeople. The film is based on a real-life incident revolving around the kidnapping of Brooke Hart and the subsequent lynching by mob of the persons held to be responsible for the crime.

Or so they think. One of the townspeople threw a stick of dynamite which actually wound up blowing open the bars of Joe's cell. 22 people of the town wind up going on trial for Joe's murder, and a vengeful Joe stays in hiding rather than reveal himself and save the townspeople.