12 Angry Men (1957 film)

In the New York County Courthouse, a judge instructs a jury about to deliberate the case of an 18-year-old youth from a slum on trial for allegedly stabbing his father to death that if there is any reasonable doubt, the jurors are to return a verdict of not guilty. If found guilty, the defendant will receive a death sentence.[10] The jury is further instructed that the verdict must be unanimous.

The evidence seems convincing, with testimony from the neighbor across the street who said she witnessed the defendant stab his father from her window. Further, the elderly neighbor in the apartment below testified that he heard the defendant shout at his father that he would kill him, and then, through his door's peephole, saw him run past his door.

In a preliminary vote, all jurors vote "guilty" except Juror 8, who reasons that there should be some discussion about the case before quickly reaching a "guilty" verdict and also brings up the defendant's rough upbringing. He questions the reliability of the two witnesses and the prosecution's claim that the murder weapon, a switchblade, was "rare" and produces an identical knife. Juror 8 argues that he cannot vote "guilty" because reasonable doubt exists.

Having hung the jury, Juror 8 suggests a secret ballot among the other eleven; if all the remaining jurors still vote "guilty", he will acquiesce. The ballot reveals one "not guilty" vote. Juror 3 accuses Juror 5, who grew up in a slum, of changing his vote out of sympathy, but Juror 9 reveals that he changed his vote, agreeing there should be some more discussion.

Juror 8 argues that the noise of a passing train would have obscured the threat that one witness claimed to have heard the defendant tell his father: "I'm going to kill you". Juror 5 changes his vote, as does Juror 11, who believes the defendant, having returned to the apartment and been met by the police, was not trying to retrieve the murder weapon as it had already been cleaned of fingerprints. Juror 8 points out that people often say "I'm going to kill you" without literally meaning it.

Jurors 5, 6, and 8 question the witness's ability to have made it to his door in time to see the defendant fleeing 15 seconds after hearing the father's body hit the floor. Juror 3 is infuriated, and Juror 8 accuses him of being a sadistic public avenger. Juror 3 tries to attack Juror 8, shouting "I'll kill him!", and Juror 8 calmly replies, "You don't really mean you'll kill me, do you?" proving his previous point. Jurors 2 and 6 then change their votes, tying the verdict 6–6 as a thunderstorm begins.

Juror 4 doubts the defendant's alibi, based on the boy's inability to recall certain details, and Juror 8 tests Juror 4's own memory. He is able to remember events from the previous seven days though with some difficulty. Juror 2 questions the likelihood that the defendant, being seven inches shorter than his father, could have inflicted the downward stab wound. Jurors 3 and 8 act this out which confirms the possibility. However, Juror 5 demonstrates the correct way to hold and use a switchblade, proving that someone skilled with a switchblade, as the boy would have been, would always stab underhand at an upwards angle against a taller opponent.

Impatient to leave due to having tickets to that night's baseball game, Juror 7 changes his vote and earns the ire of other jurors, and is confronted by juror 11; he insists that he thinks the defendant is not guilty but doesn't explain why. Jurors 1 and 12 then change their votes, leaving only Jurors 3, 4, and 10. Juror 10 erupts in racially motivated vitriol against slum people. One by one, the rest of the jurors, except 7 and 4, turn their backs to him and Juror 4 tells him to "sit down and don't open your mouth again". Juror 8 reminds the rest that personal prejudice can cloud judgments. Juror 4 declares that the woman who saw the killing from across the street stands as solid evidence. Juror 12 reverts his vote, making the vote 8–4.

Juror 9, seeing Juror 4 rub his nose, irritated by his glasses, realizes that the witness had impressions on her nose, suggesting that she wears glasses but did not wear them in court. Other jurors confirm the same, and Juror 8 adds that she would not have worn them to bed, and the attack happened so swiftly that she would not have had time to put them on. Jurors 12, 10 and 4 then change their vote to "not guilty", leaving only Juror 3.

Juror 3 gives an increasingly tortured string of arguments, building on earlier remarks about his strained relationship with his own son, the reason he wants the accused to be guilty. He tears up a photograph of him and his son and almost immediately breaks down sobbing and mutters "not guilty", making the vote unanimous. As the rest leave, Juror 8 helps the distraught Juror 3 with his coat in a show of compassion. The defendant is found "not guilty" off-screen and the jurors leave the courthouse. In a brief epilogue on the courthouse steps, Jurors 8 and 9 introduce each other for the first time by their names (Davis and McCardle respectively) before parting.

Uncredited

• Rudy Bond as the Judge
• Tom Gorman as the Stenographer
• James Kelly as the Bailiff
• Billy Nelson as the Court clerk
• John Savoca as the Defendant
• Walter Stocker as Man waiting for elevator

Reginald Rose's screenplay for 12 Angry Men was initially produced for television (starring Robert Cummings as Juror 8), and was broadcast live on the CBS program Studio One in September 1954. A complete kinescope of that performance, which had been missing for years and was feared lost, was discovered in 2003. It was staged at Chelsea Studios in New York City.[11]

The success of the television production resulted in a film adaptation. Sidney Lumet, whose prior directorial credits included dramas for television productions such as The Alcoa Hour and Studio One, was recruited by Henry Fonda and Rose to direct. 12 Angry Men was Lumet's first feature film, and the only producing credit for Fonda and Rose (under the production company, Orion-Nova Productions).[3] Fonda later stated that he would never again produce a film.

The film was shot in New York and completed after a short but rigorous rehearsal schedule, in less than three weeks, on a budget of $337,000 (equivalent to $3,068,000 in 2019). Rose and Fonda took salary deferrals.[3]

At the beginning of the film, the cameras are positioned above eye level and mounted with wide-angle lenses, to give the appearance of greater depth between subjects, but as the film progresses the focal length of the lenses is gradually increased. By the end of the film, nearly everyone is shown in closeup, using telephoto lenses from a lower angle, which decreases or "shortens" depth of field. Lumet stated that his intention in using these techniques with cinematographer Boris Kaufman was to create a nearly palpable claustrophobia.[12]

Speaking at a screening of the film during the 2010 Fordham University Law School Film festival, Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor stated that seeing 12 Angry Men while she was in college influenced her decision to pursue a career in law. She was particularly inspired by immigrant Juror 11's monologue on his reverence for the American justice system. She also told the audience of law students that, as a lower-court judge, she would sometimes instruct juries to not follow the film's example, because most of the jurors' conclusions are based on speculation, not fact.[27] Sotomayor noted that events such as Juror 8 entering a similar knife into the proceeding; performing outside research into the case matter in the first place; and ultimately the jury as a whole making broad, wide-ranging assumptions far beyond the scope of reasonable doubt (such as the inferences regarding the woman wearing glasses) would not be allowed in a real-life jury situation, and would in fact have yielded a mistrial[28] (assuming, of course, that applicable law permitted the content of jury deliberations to be revealed).

There have been a number of adaptations. A 1963 German TV production Die zwölf Geschworenen was directed by Günter Gräwert, while a 1991 homage by Kōki Mitani, Juninin no Yasashii Nihonjin ("12 gentle Japanese"), posits a Japan with a jury system and features a group of Japanese people grappling with their responsibility in the face of Japanese cultural norms. The 1987 Indian film in Hindi language Ek Ruka Hua Faisla ("a pending decision") and also in Kannada as Dashamukha ("ten faces") are the remakes of the film, with an almost identical storyline. Russian director Nikita Mikhalkov also made a 2007 adaptation, 12, featuring a Chechen teen on trial in Moscow. A 2015 Chinese adaptation, 12 Citizens, follows the plot of the original 1957 American movie, while including characters reflecting contemporary Beijing society, including a cab driver, guard, businessman, policeman, a retiree persecuted in a 1950s political movement, and others.[29] The detective drama television show Veronica Mars, which like the film includes the theme of class issues, featured an episode, "One Angry Veronica", in which the title character is selected for jury duty. The episode flips the film's format and depicts one holdout convincing the jury to convict the privileged defendants of assault against a less well-off victim, despite their lawyers initially convincing 11 jury members of a not guilty verdict.

In 1997, a television remake of the film under the same title was directed by William Friedkin and produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. In the newer version, the judge is a woman and four of the jurors are black, but the overall plot remains intact. Modernizations include not smoking in the jury room, changes in references to pop culture figures and income, references to execution by lethal injection as opposed to the electric chair, more race-related dialogue and profanity.

The film has also been subject to parody. In 2015, the Comedy Central TV series Inside Amy Schumer aired a half-hour parody of the film titled "12 Angry Men Inside Amy Schumer".[30][31] BBC Radio comedy Hancock's Half Hour, starring Tony Hancock and Sid James, and written by Ray Galton and Alan Simpson, broadcast a half-hour parody on October 16, 1959, also known as Twelve Angry Men. The Flintstones story "Disorder in the Court" and The Simpsons story "The Boy Who Knew Too Much" similarly feature the respective patriarchs of both families playing holdout jurors. Family Guy paid tribute to the film with its Season 11 episode titled "12 and a Half Angry Men", and King of The Hill acknowledged the film with their parody "Nine Pretty Darn Angry Men" in season 3. Sitcom Happy Days also features a similar story in the season 5 episode "Fonzie for the Defense", when Howard Cunningham and Fonzie are picked for a jury, and Fonzie is the lone hold-out for innocence, swaying the rest of the jury.[32] Saturday Night Live parodied the film in 1984 in a sketch called First Draft Theater. The American TV situation comedy, The Odd Couple, starring Jack Klugman (Juror 5 in the movie), satirizes the film in "The Jury Story". The comedy series Malcolm in the Middle paid homage to the movie in the episode "Jury Duty".

• List of American films of 1957
• 12 Angry Men (1997 film)
• Twelve Angry Men
• List of films with a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, a film review aggregator website

• Lumet, Sidney (1995). Making Movies. ISBN 978-0-679-75660-6
• Ellsworth, Phoebe C. (2003). "One Inspiring Jury [Review of 'Twelve Angry Men']". Michigan Law Review. 101 (6): 1387–1407. doi:10.2307/3595316. JSTOR 3595316. In depth analysis compared with research on actual jury behaviour.
• The New York Times, April 15, 1957, "12 Angry Men", review by A. H. Weiler
• Munyan, Russ (2000). Readings on Twelve Angry Men, Greenhaven Press, ISBN 978-0-7377-0313-9
• Chandler, David (2005). "The Transmission model of communication" Communication as Perspective Theory. Sage publications. Ohio University
• Lanham, Richard (2003). Introduction: The Domain of Style analyzing prose. New York: Continuum

Wikiquote has quotations related to: 12 Angry Men

• 12 Angry Men essay by Joanna E. Rapf on the National Film Registry

• 12 Angry Men on IMDb
• 12 Angry Men at the TCM Movie Database
• 12 Angry Men at AllMovie
• 12 Angry Men at Rotten Tomatoes
• 12 Angry Men: Lumet's Faces an essay by Thane Rosenbaum at the Criterion Collection