Jolt Country

I first saw 12 Angry Men (the 1957 movie, not a mob of angry people) in college, and it made a strong impression on me.

Based on the play of the same name, the film opens as a jury of 12 men, having just sat through a trial, retire to the jury room to find a young Hispanic man guilty or not guilty of murder. After a preliminary vote is taken, we find that 11 of the jurors think the boy is guilty, and one lone juror (Juror 8, played by Henry Fonda), votes that the boy is innocent.

For 90 minutes we (the viewers) witness a series of mind games, mental battles, and challenges of stereotypes. The first "oh, SHIT!" moment of the film occurs after one juror says that the boy MUST be guilty because he owned a somewhat unique switchblade knife, identical to the one used in the murder. After juror 8 asks repeatedly "isn't it POSSIBLE?" that it wasn't the same knife, he pulls an identical knife out of his pocket and drives it into the table in front of them. As the 11 jurors try their hardest to convince the 12th that he is wrong, he systematically finds out why each one thinks the boy is guilty, and convinces them otherwise.

Like Citizen Kane, there are a slew of camera tricks used in 12 Angry Men. Early in the film the cameras are positioned higher and zoomed out; it's subliminal, but as the film moves on the cameras are slowly lowered and zoomed in, creating a feeling of claustrophobia. Also, except for a couple of short scenes, the entire film takes place in a single room, again giving viewers the feeling that the walls are closing in on them.

This film would never work without strong actors. Lee J. Cobb, E.G. Marshall, Jack Klugman, Jack Warden, Ed Begley and of course Henry Fonda sell the film.

I recently made my 10 year old son watch this film. He's a little to young to pick up on some of the racial overtones and innuendos, but I ... I wanted him to see that standing up for what you believe in regardless of what the people around you think isn't a bad thing. I remember my dad showing my a bell curve of IQs and telling me that 95% of the world's population fall between 70 and 130, so if you have a belief that no one agrees with, it's not necessarily a bad thing.

If you've not seen it, do yourself a favor and watch the original 1957 release of 12 Angry Men. The film was remade in the 90s as a made for TV movie using the same script, only slightly updated, and starring Tony Danza. It's a horrible remake in my opinion (maybe not horrible as much as pointless). If you think the new Karate Kid is better than the original, maybe you'll love it.

I think the remake doesn't work as well, because back in 1957, they could make certain murders automatically subject to the death penalty. In this case, the law required this kid be subject to the death penalty, thus the issue is more than just someone going to prison, basically if he was convicted he would be executed.

Henry Fonda points this out quite well by admitting that their decision is the highest possible one a human being can make, whether someone will live, or die.

The issue is not as serious since the movie was made.

In 1972, the U.S. Supreme Court decided Furman v. Georgia, and declared that the use of mandatory death sentences is unconstitutional. (Some states had this for certain other crimes, e.g. in some states, cop killing carried a mandatory death sentence.) It would be four years later before a death sentence was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court, Gregg v. Georgia, which is the standard practice we have now in death-penalty states, there is first a "Guilt phase" whether it's determined if the accused is guilty, then a "penalty phase" if convicted, to determine if the defendant, who has been convicted, has committed a crime so bad as to be punishable by death, or by life imprisonment.

New York basically didn't have death as an option for a long time because the governor refused to sign a death penalty bill. Eventually, with a new governor New York reinstated the death penalty with lethal injection and that was around for a while.

Now you'd have to settle for the possibility of Life; the courts of New York found the death penalty unconstitutional, so anyone who did get a death judgement had their sentence reverted to life imprisonment. And for the moment no death sentence is possible in New York.