12 Angry Men

...except by the lawful judgment of his peers

Directed by Sidney Lumet

USA, 1957

A courtroom drama that never actually takes place in a courtroom. In fact, we only see the court in the brief prologue before the opening credits, where we glimpse the defendant sitting there, scared and silent. 12 Angry Men marked the feature debut of Sidney Lumet, the director whose fifty-year career included Dog Day Afternoon, Network, and Murder on the Orient Express. This film tells the story of a jury once it has left the courtroom, a story that started life as a play for television, written by Reginald Rose. Perhaps that’s why it stays in just one room – a choice that reflects the constraints of the early 1950s, when most television programming was broadcast live.

Like its setting, the story is a simple one: we are in New York City and a young Hispanic man is on trial for murder, accused of stabbing his father. The prosecution has an eyewitness and a wealth of circumstantial evidence, so the outcome seems straightforward. However, the judge instructs the jury that the verdict must be unanimous – first-degree murder carries the death penalty, the electric chair. As they move to the deliberation room a swift conviction seems assured.

That is, until they call a vote and the result shows that they are not unanimous: it is 11-1 in favour of guilty. What unfolds over the next ninety minutes is a taut and compelling drama that tracks their discussion, shifting allegiances, and simmering tensions that at times threaten to boil over into violence.

Some of the jury are keen to get away, there’s a baseball game on tonight, but the lone voice that puts a spoke in the wheel belongs to Juror 8, played of course by Henry Fonda. He refuses to convict without at least re-examining the case. It is his task to convince the rest that there is at least a reasonable doubt about the defendant’s guilt – that it is not the open-and-shut case that they had complacently assumed.

The score in 12 Angry Men is sparse. This is a film about men – men talking. And what makes the drama so effective is the way that over the course of its runtime, each juror’s character is deftly delineated. This is postwar America, so rather than butcher, baker and candlestick-maker, we have an adman, a stockbroker, and an architect. The jury are made up of a gallery of established character actors including Martin Balsam, Ed Begley, Jack Klugman, and Lee J. Cobb, and much of the dynamism of the film comes from their interplay and (mostly) nuanced performances.

It's a tense and absorbing watch, in part due to the claustrophobia of the single set. As the narrative progresses in what feels like real time, Lumet and his cinematographer Boris Kaufman use longer lenses so that the jury room appears increasingly cramped. In addition, they film the actors from way above eye-level at the start, and the camera drops lower and lower so that by the time the film nears its conclusion the men are shot from stark, low angles in tight close-up. Set on one of the hottest days of the year, sweat pours off them and later an impending thunderstorm finally breaks. As the temperature rises, key pieces of evidence are revisited, and prejudices are laid bare:

Juror 8: It's always difficult to keep personal prejudice out of a thing like this. And wherever you run into it, prejudice always obscures the truth.

Juror 10: Listen to me. This kid on trial here... his type, well, don't you know about them? There's not a one of 'em who is any good! They’re wild.

This was of course a United States before the Civil Rights era of the 1960s.

That title though, 12 Angry Men. There are some outbursts of anger but much of what we witness is frustration, anxiety, and boredom. The character who really does get angry is Juror 3, who projects his fury with his own estranged son onto the defendant. Lee J Cobb’s melodramatic performance is so overwrought as the last hold-out that as he breaks down at the film’s climax you begin to wonder if the actor has gone too far with his method. This feels like a misstep in the script.

Of course, calm, deliberative, and always impartial, Henry Fonda never gets angry. Serene and positively saintly, there is something about the white suit he wears throughout that really irks. 12 Angry Men can be just too black and white. And surely, any prosecutor worth his salt would have spotted Fonda on the jury and dismissed him? I would always take Henry Fonda as the fiendish Frank, with his icy blue eyes, from Once Upon a Time in the West over his Young Mr Lincoln. In fact, I wonder what kind of film this would have been if Sidney Lumet had made Fonda and Cobb switch roles?

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Reids’ Results (out of 100)

C - 73

T - 75

N - 75

S - 72

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Coming next… Fitzcarraldo(1982)