Fritz Lang's Depiction of a Lynch Mob in Fury (1936)

Lang has a constant interest in the phenomenon of the mob. In Fury (starring Spencer Tracy and Sylvia Sidney, above), he redevelops some of the themes of M, in an American perspective. Once again, you have the mob, thinking it knows what is right; once again, you have a weak state that is scarcely able to provide actual rigorous law and order. And once again, you have a reversal of expectations--while in M, we end up sympathizing with Peter Lorre's character, in Fury, the persecuted outsider becomes bitter and evil and we start feeling sorry for the mob that lynched him.

As in M, we have echoes of fascism--the burning courthouse is like the burning Reichstag.

Here's the lynch scene.

And here's the trailer.