12 ANGRY MEN 4K Review: Crackling Legal Thriller, Trapped in a Single Room

Director Sidney Lumet makes 96 minutes fly by in his gripping legal thriller.

12 Angry Men (1957)
The film is now available on a 4K + Blu-ray two-disc edition from The Criterion Collection. It is also available as a single-disc Blu-ray edition.

Having spent six long days watching a murder trial, 11 of the men who assemble in a jury room -- without air-conditioning on the hottest day of the summer -- quickly agree on a guilty verdict. The judge instructed them, though, that the verdict must be unanimous because the accused will face a death sentence if convicted. And the lone holdout wants to discuss the case further.

The lone holdout is played by Henry Fonda, a movie star who became a Broadway star in Mister Roberts (1948). In the early 50s, Fonda began appearing in live television productions, and reportedly saw a kinescope of Twelve Angry Men, written by Reginald Rose and directed by Franklin Schaffner, and first broadcast in 1954. Fonda wanted to play Juror 8, the 'lone holdout,' and produced the film with Reginald Rose, who knew Sidney Lumet from his direction of several of his television episodes.

I've seen the film multiple times, and what always surprises me is how a routine drama steadily becomes a gripping thriller. It's 96 minutes of talking, after all, yet Rose's words truly sing as performed by a formidable cast that includes lesser-known actors at the time, nearly all of whom enjoyed long and successful careers as working actors, either in supporting or starring roles in movies and television shows: Lee J. Cobb, Martin Balsam, Jack Warden, E.G. Marshall, Jack Klugman, Robert Waller, John Fiedler, Edward Binns, Joseph Sweeney, George Voskovec.

Director Sidney Lumet had a special gift for eliciting strong performances. Accustomed to the demands of making live television shows, he rehearsed with his cast and worked out how to make dynamic use of a single (jury) room. In his book Making Movies, first published in 1995, he says: "It never occurred to me that shooting an entire picture in one room was a problem. In fact, I felt I could turn it into an advantage."

He relates that he wanted to capture the sense of "entrapment" that the jurors must have felt by making the room seem smaller and smaller by slowly shifting to wider lenses. He also progressively lowered the camera, first by shooting the first third of the film above eye level, then shooting the second third at eye level, and then the final third below eye level.

Cinematographer John Bailey, however, gives most credit for knowing about lenses to cinematographer Boris Kaufman in a special feature included on the disc. Kaufman, who won an Academy Award for Elia Kazan's On the Waterfront (1954), was a master of light, as amply demonstrated in a nearly 40-minute feature. Bailey talks about Kaufman's filmmaking brothers, his time in France working with Jean Vigo, and his approach to shooting films in New York after World War II, leading up to On the Waterfront, and then his work with Sidney Lumet. (They would go on to collaborate on seven films.

All the special features were produced in 2011 and are on the Blu-ray that is included with the 2-disc package. Two Kinescope recordings of live television productions are included: Twelve Angry Men, in which Robert Cumming plays Juror #8 and Franchot Tone plays Juror #3, the role played by Lee J. Cobb in the film, as well as Tragedy in a Temporary Town, written by Reginald Rose and directed by Sidney Lumet.

Good context for the original TV production of Twelve Angry Men is given in an introduction by museum curator Ron Simon, as well as a feature on writer Reginald Rose (placing him among the likes of Paddy Chayersky and Rod Serling), an interview with writer Walter Bernstein, who worked with Lumet in the live TV days, and other goodies, such as the highly-charged original theatrical trailer.

The printed booklet included with the set features an essay by writer/law professor Thane Rosenbaum, who supplies further social and historical context.

I am not an expert on video formats and varying resolutions. To my untrained eye, the 4K restoration looks very grainy, which I know some people adore and others, er, not so much.

For me, it was initially distracting, but I quickly got caught up with the film's visual scheme and the wonderfully complex and thoughtful dialogue. 12 Angry Men remains a crackling legal thriller that becomes increasingly gripping, bolstered by a collection of nuanced performances.

Perhaps the film's greatest achievement is knowing when to shut up and let the power of individual moments sink in without further commentary needed.