5. 12 Angry Men

sallysmith
Aug 9, 2020
3 min read

12 Angry Men (1957) is a great legal drama in which a juror holds out on his judgment of a defendant in defence of the principles of justice. He persuades his fellow jury men to critically evaluate the evidence held against the defendant. 12 Angry Men stars Henry Fonda, who also produced it (The only film which Fonda produced), Lee J Cobb and Martin Balsam. The story was written by Reginald Rose who also did the screenplay. As stated by the New York Times, the film had been inspired by Rose’s real jury duty experience in Foley Square courthouse in New York in 1954 and there had first been a television version, written in televisions first golden age (late 1940s- late 1950s), before it had been developed into film.

Even though this film had been ranked 5th on IMDb’s list with a score of 8.9/10 it had received a mediocre response from the audience of the time. United Artists, a US digital production company founded in 1919, who were as thrilled with the quality of the film as I was, were unfortunately over enthusiastic about the popularity of the film. The 4,000 seat Capitol Theatre they booked only filled the first few rows. This led to the film being pulled prematurely. The year after 12 Angry men grossed $1m ($16m in terms of 2015 ticket prices). This meant the costs had been recovered for the production budget, which was just below $400,000, and advertising. Due to the cyclical nature of life, ironically, the film didn’t gain popularity until it began to be aired on television where it had begun initially!

I scored this film 65.5 with 12/20 for script and 8/10 for story. This film scored highly because there was a lot of technical creativity that went into shooting. This was required because the whole film is set in a single room, which has the possibility of getting boring and jury rooms are not very exciting. Producers had to factor in that sitting around a table would be where most of the action would be taking place. To juxtapose this the camera moved a lot to generate tone for the film. Camera shots were divided into thirds for this film. At first the film was shot just above eye level, then at eye level, then just below eye level. Near the close of the film the claustrophobic feel of the room increased the tension effectively as the walls appeared to close in and the ceiling appeared in scenes.

The film is really good because it reliably abides by the conventions of the genre of legal dramas. The narrative is concentrated on the justice system. The genre differs from crime dramas in which the attention is on solving crimes. In the case of 12 Angry men we see the film is committed to showing the deliberations of a jury. The American Bar Association Journal attributes the popularity of legal dramas to being because "stories about the legal system are laced with human vulnerability."