The 1954 CBS broadcast of Twelve Angry Men

Whether as a teleplay, film, or stage play, Twelve Angry Men has fascinated audiences for about a half century.

by Marc Miller

Twelve Angry Men probably never would have happened had Reginald Rose (1920-2002) not been called to jury duty in Manhattan. Serving on a manslaughter case, he recalled being "impressed with the almost frightening stillness of the courtroom, the impassive, mask-like face of the judge, the brisk, purposeful scurrying of the various officials in the room, and the absolute finality of the decision I and my fellow jurors would have to make." A television writer during the booming days of live TV drama, Rose fashioned a one-set teleplay about the responsibility of serving and the effects of jurors’ personal lives on the outcome of a trial. Even cut back drastically to fit Studio One’s hour-long format, Twelve Angry Men, which premiered on September 20, 1954, with Robert Cummings as Juror No. 8 and Franchot Tone as Juror No. 3, was a thought-provoking and controversial drama–especially with Juror No. 3’s steamroller tactics seen by many as an indictment of Joseph McCarthy and the then-current HUAC hearings.

It was Henry Fonda who saw the possibility of expanding the teleplay into a full-length, but similarly taut, claustrophobic feature film. Rose restored cuts and slightly expanded his original script. With Sidney Lumet making his directorial film debut, Twelve Angry Men, starring Fonda, Lee J. Cobb, Martin Balsam, and E.G. Marshall, was produced for a mere $340,000 and released by United Artists in 1957. The studio’s decision to release "wide," rather than in a few art houses a la the recent hit Marty, spelled financial disaster–Fonda recalled that most cinemas played to empty houses and withdrew the film after a week. But Twelve Angry Men was reviewed rhapsodically in the press and emerged with three Oscar nominations, including Best Picture. There was also a well-received TV-movie remake in 1997, directed by William Friedkin, with Jack Lemmon, George C. Scott, James Gandolfini, and Hume Cronyn. But it’s the 1957 movie that’s most remembered: Fonda considered it his best work, alongside that in The Grapes of Wrath and The Ox-Bow Incident; and on one internet movie site, the film is currently No. 21 on the list of the 250 all-time top movies.

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