Editing Cy Endfield (section)

== Reputation and legacy ==
Endfield’s first critical success (apart from the studio and trade praise for the largely unseen 1943 short, ''Inflation'') came with the release of ''The Sound of Fury'' (''Try and Get Me!''). The film attracted positive attention, despite its commercial failure. The ''Saturday Review of Literature'' (in February 1951) welcomed the low-budget feature that ‘challenges comparison with the million-dollar epics.’ After the film’s UK release, [[Gavin Lambert]] reviewed it in the [[British Film Institute]] (BFI)’s ''Monthly Film Bulletin''. Lambert referred to the film's remarkable ‘characterisation and the handling of the drama’ – ‘at times reaching a complexity rare in films of this type.’ (Lambert, with [[Lindsay Anderson]], had founded the influential post-war British film magazine ''Sequence''.) 

Endfield himself wrote a short article in the Film Society magazine ''Film'' (1958), in which he discussed his approach to directing.<sup>[i]</sup>

In 1964 Pierre Rissient, a French critic, cinėaste and sometime producer, drew more attention to the director’s work by organizing a partial retrospective of six of Endfield’s films at the Cinémathèque française. This included the first French release of ''The Sound of Fury.'' While in Paris for this event, Endfield  commented about his approach to directing, noting that ‘you don’t necessarily have to go to art theatres to find art.’ He revealed his admiration for storyteller directors – he mentioned [[Fritz Lang]] and [[Raoul Walsh]] - who were able to make some degree of personal comment on the world while still being appreciated by a popular audience.<sup>[ii]</sup>

Late in his life Endfield referred to the upheavals in his life, and notably the lost opportunities attendant on his unplanned move to the UK. But he had also received critical recognition there: Raymond Durgnat, a highly respected writer on British cinema, wrote positively of Endfield’s work in his ''A Mirror for England'' (1970). 

He noted that:
"… even if Cy Endfield’s ''Hell Drivers'' (1957) and ''Sea Fury'' (1958) lack the social analysis of his Hollywood ''The Sound of Fury'', their harsh energy is exhilarating and disturbing."

In addition, Thom Andersen, in 1985, first drew attention to a group of post-war film noirs that were particularly sensitive to social and political issues. He listed thirteen examples, released between 1947 and 1951, including films directed by Robert Rossen, [[Abraham Polonsky]], [[Jules Dassin]], [[John Huston]], [[Joseph Losey]] and Cy Endfield. Andersen described ''The Sound of Fury'' as a ‘remarkable tour de force of action filmmaking’.<sup>[iii]</sup>

Late in life Endfield gave a long interview to American writer Jonathan Rosenbaum, a film critic who was an early champion of the director’s work. Rosenbaum referred to Endfield’s ‘remarkable noir efforts,’ and wrote of ‘a poetry of thwarted ambitions, dark, social insights, and awesomely orchestrated struggle.’<sup>[iv]</sup> 

Despite ill-health, Endfield accepted an invitation to attend the Telluride Film Festival in Colorado in 1992, where he was awarded the festival’s Silver Medallion and was interviewed by National Public Radio’s Howie Movshowitz about ''The Sound of Fury'', ''Zulu'' and the effect of the blacklist. In 1989 and 1992 Endfield also gave interviews to Brian Neve, talking at length, in particular about his American work and the blacklist.

Since Endfield’s death in Shipston-on Stour, in the UK, on April 16, 1995 (aged 80), a number of writers have continued to explore political and other aspects of film noir, and to credit his contribution. [[James Naremore]], in his survey of film noir and its contexts, highlights ''The Sound of Fury'':

"… the film’s lynch-mob sequences are profoundly unsettling, and the story as a whole is such a thoroughgoing indictment of capitalism and liberal complacency that it transcends the ameliorative limits of the social problem picture."<sup>[v]</sup>

Glen Erickson and others have referred to the prescience of ''The Sound of Fury'', with its frightening depiction of populist anger.<sup>[vi]</sup> A book-length treatment of Endfield’s life and work was published in 2015.<!-- Need title and author --> Since then there have been several retrospectives of the director’s work, notably at Anthology Film Archives in New York City, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and the UCLA film & television archive. His later work also received further discussion. [[Sheldon Hall]] wrote a major examination of ''Zulu'', a film that was given a 50th anniversary showing in London in 2014. 

Critic [[Nick Pinkerton]] celebrated the range of Endfield’s cinematic achievement in a 2015 piece that concluded:

"He had done a great deal in cinema, but late in life he rued the fact that he hadn’t done more – as should we, for there is much evidence here that Cy Endfield still had a few tricks up his sleeve."<sup>[vii]</sup>