Howard Tyler (Frank Lovejoy) is a family man, living in California, who can't seem to get by financially He meets up with a small-time, but charismatic, hood Jerry Slocum (Lloyd Bridges) Soon, Slocum convinces Tyler to participate in gas station robberies to get by Later, they kidnap a wealthy man in hopes of getting a huge ransom Things go wrong when the man is murdered by Slocum then thrown in a lake Tyler reaches his limit emotionally, and he begins 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 which eventually lead 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 arrests them both 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 A masterpiece, it was Cy Endfield’s last film before he felt compelled to move to Britain