February 28, 2012 (XXIV:7) , 12 ANGRY MEN (1957, 96 min.)

National Film Registry 2007

Directed by Sidney Lumet Story and screenplay by Produced by and Reginald Rose Original Music by Kenyon Hopkins Cinematography by Film Editing by Carl Lerner Art Direction by Bob Markel

Martin Balsam… Juror #1 … Juror #2 Lee J. Cobb… Juror #3 E.G. Marshall… Juror #4 … Juror #5 … Juror #6 … Juror #7 Henry Fonda… Juror #8 Joseph Sweeney… Juror #9 … Juror #10 George Voskovec… Juror #11 Robert Webber… Juror #12

Rudy Bond… Judge (uncredited) James Kelly… Guard (uncredited) Billy Nelson… Court Clerk (uncredited) John Savoca… The Accused (uncredited) Journey Into Night, 1960 “”, 1960 “Sunday Showcase”, 1959 Kind, 1959 , SIDNEY LUMET (June 25, 1924, , – 1957 12 Angry Men, 1956 “Goodyear Playhouse”, 1955 “The April 9, 2011, , City, New York) has 72 Steel Hour”, 1953-1955 “You Are There” (10 director credits, some of which are 2007 Before the Devil Knows episodes), 1952 “CBS Television Workshop”, and 1951 “Crime You're Dead, 2006 , 2001-2002 “100 Centre Photographer.” Street” (9 episodes), 1999 Gloria, 1996 , 1989 Family Business, 1988 Running on Empty, REGINALD ROSE (December 10, 1920, , New 1986 The Morning After, 1984 , 1983 Daniel, 1982 York – April 19, 2002, Norwalk, ) has 66 writing , 1982 Deathtrap, 1981 , 1980 Just credits, among them 1998 “The Defenders: Taking the First”, Tell Me What You Want, 1978 The Wiz, 1977 Equus, 1976 1997 “12 Angry Men”, 1987 “ from Sobibor”, 1985 Wild Network, 1975 , 1974 Murder on the Orient Geese II, 1982 The Final Option, 1981 Whose Life Is It Anyway?, Express, 1973 , 1972 , 1971 The Anderson 1979 “Studs Lonigan”, 1978 “The Wild Geese”, 1977 “Sacco e Tapes, 1970 King: A Filmed Record... Montgomery to Memphis, Vanzetti”, 1961-1965 “The Defenders” (132 episodes), 1963 1969 , 1968 , 1968 Bye Bye “Twilight Zone”, 1959-1960 “Sunday Showcase”, 1958 Man of Braverman, 1966 , 1966 The Group, 1965 The the West, 1958 “Armchair Theatre”, 1957 12 Angry Men, 1956 Hill, 1964 Fail-Safe, 1964 The Pawnbroker, 1962 Long Day's Lumet—12 ANGRY MEN—2

Crime in the Streets, 1953 “The Revlon Mirror Theater”, and 1967 Hombre, 1966 After the Fox, 1962-1966 “Dr. Kildare” (7 1951 “Out There.” episodes), 1965 A Thousand Clowns, 1965 The Bedford Incident, 1961-1964 “The Defenders”, 1964 The Carpetbaggers, 1964 KENYON HOPKINS (January 15, 1912, Coffeyville, Kansas – “Wagon Train”, 1964 Seven Days in May, 1963 Who's Been April 7, 1983, Princeton, New Jersey) has 27 composer credits, Sleeping in My Bed?, 1959-1963 “Twilight Zone”, 1962 Cape among them 1979 “ABC Afterschool Specials”, 1974 “Lincoln: Fear, 1959-1962 “Naked City”, 1961 Breakfast at Tiffany's, Trial by Fire”, 1972 “The New Healers”, 1970 “The Odd 1961 Ada, 1960 Everybody Go Home, 1958-1960 “Have Gun - Couple”, 1970 “The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau”, 1969 Will Travel”, 1960 Psycho, 1958-1959 “”, 1959 Al Downhill Racer, 1969 The First Time, 1969 The Tree, 1968 A Capone, 1958 Marjorie Morningstar, 1957-1958 “Studio One in Lovely Way to Die, 1966 This Property Is Condemned, 1966 Hollywood”, 1957 12 Angry Men, 1954 On the Waterfront, and , 1964 “The Reporter” (13 episodes), 1964 1949 “.” Lilith, 1961 The Hustler, 1961 Wild in the Country, 1960 Wild River, 1959 The , 1957 The Strange One, 1957 12 JOHN FIEDLER… Juror #2 (b. John Donald Fiedler, February 3, Angry Men, and 1956 . 1925, Platteville, Wisconsin – June 25, 2005, Englewood, New Jersey) has 181 acting credits, among them 2001-2002 “House BORIS KAUFMAN (August 24, 1906, Bialystok, Poland, Russian of Mouse”, 2002 Winnie the Pooh: , Empire [now Bialystok, Podlaskie, Poland] – June 24, 1980, 1993 “L.A. Law”, 1988-1991 “The New Adventures of Winnie New York City, New York) won a best cinematography (B&W) the Pooh” (46 episodes), 1989 “”, 1986 Seize Oscar for On the Waterfront (1954). He was the younger the Day, 1983-1984 “Buffalo Bill” (26 episodes), 1983 Winnie brother of Russian filmmakers Dziga Vertov (Dziga Kaufman) the Pooh and a Day for Eeyore, 1982 Hart to Hart”, 1978-1979 and Mikhail Kaufman. He has 58 cinematographer credits, some “Quincy M.E.”, 1978 “Fantasy Island”, 1978 Harper Valley of which are 1970 Tell Me That You Love Me, Junie Moon, 1968 P.T.A., 1972-1978 “The Show” (18 episodes), The Brotherhood, 1968 , 1966 The Group, 1977 The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, 1975 The 1964 The Pawnbroker, 1964 The World of Henry Orient, 1963 Fortune, 1974 “Police Story”, 1973 “McMillan & Wife”, 1964- All the Way Home, 1962 Long Day's Journey Into Night, 1961 1973 “”, 1972 “”, 1971 “Cannon”, 1967- Splendor in the Grass, 1959 , 1959 That Kind 1971 “” (6 episodes), 1971 Honky, 1971 Making It, of Woman, 1957 12 Angry Men, 1956 Baby Doll, 1956 Patterns, 1970 Suppose They Gave a War and Nobody Came?, 1969 True 1954 On the Waterfront, 1947 Journey Into Medicine, 1940 Grit, 1968 , 1967 “”, 1966 A Fine Sérénade, 1938 Êtes-vous jalouse?, 1937 Cinderella, 1937 Madness, 1964 Kiss Me, Stupid, 1964 “The Munsters”, 1961- L'homme sans Coeur, 1934 Zouzou, 1934 L'Atalante, 1933 Zero 1964 “Dr. Kildare”, 1963 “”, 1960-1962 “Twilight de Conduite, 1931 Taris, 1930 À propos de Nice, 1927 The Zone”, 1961-1962 “ Presents”, 1961 “Dennis March of the Machines, and 1927 Les Halles centrales. the Menace”, 1961 , 1961 “Have Gun - Will Travel”, 1958 Stage Struck, 1957 , 1957 CARL LERNER (June 17, 1912, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania – August 26, 1973, New York, New York) has 21 editing credits, among them 1973 The First Circle, 1971 Klute, 1970 The Boys in the Band, 1968 The Swimmer, 1966 A Man Called Adam, 1964 The Confession, 1962 Requiem for a Heavyweight, 1961 Something Wild, 1959 The Fugitive Kind, 1959 , 1958 The Goddess, 1957 12 Angry Men, 1957 On the Bowery, 1956 Patterns, 1950 So Young So Bad, and 1950 Cry Murder.

MARTIN BALSAM… Juror #1 (b. Martin Henry Balsam, November 4, 1919, The Bronx, New York City, New York – February 13, 1996, Rome, Lazio, Italy) won a best supporting actor Oscar for A Thousand Clowns (1965). He has 171 acting credits, among them 1997 Legend of the Spirit Dog, 1994 The Silence of the Hams, 1991 Cape Fear, 1990 The Last Match, 1988 The Brother from Space, 1987 Brothers in Blood, 1986- 1987 “”, 1987 “Hotel”, 1986 “Murder, She Wrote”, 1986 The Delta Force, 1985 , 1985 St. 12 Angry Men, and1951-1954 “Tom Corbett, Space Cadet.” Elmo's Fire, 1979-1983 “Archie Bunker's Place” (39 episodes), 1982 “Little Gloria... Happy at Last”, 1981 “The People vs. Jean LEE J. COBB… Juror #3 (b. Leo Jacoby, December 8, 1911, Harris”, 1981 The Salamander, 1979 Cuba, 1977 The Sentinel, New York City, New York – February 11, 1976, Woodland 1976 “Raid on Entebbe”, 1976 Two-Minute Warning, 1976 All Hills, Los Angeles, California) has 103 acting credits, some of the President's Men, 1974 Murder on the Orient Express, 1974 which are 1976 “Origins of the Mafia”, 1976 Nick the Sting, The Taking of Pelham One Two Three, 1973 The Stone Killer, 1976 La legge violenta della squadra anticrimine, 1975 Mark 1973 “The Six Million Dollar Man”, 1971 , Shoots First, 1975 That Lucky Touch, 1974 “Gunsmoke”, 1973 1970 Little Big Man, 1970 Tora! Tora! Tora!, 1970 Catch-22, The Exorcist, 1973 The Man Who Loved Cat Dancing, 1970- Lumet—12 ANGRY MEN—3

1971 “The Young Lawyers” (24 episodes), 1971 Lawman, 1970 JACK KLUGMAN… Juror #5 (b. Jacob Joachim Klugman, April Macho Callahan, 1969 Mackenna's Gold, 1968 Coogan's Bluff, 27, 1922, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) has 96 acting credits, some 1968 Mafia, 1967 , 1966 “”, of which are 2010/I Camera Obscura, 2005 When Do We Eat?, 1962-1966 “The Virginian” (120 episodes), 1966 Our Man Flint, 2000 “The Outer Limits”, 1997-1999 “Diagnosis Murder”, 1996 1963 Come Blow Your Horn, 1962 How the West Was Won, The Twilight of the Golds, 1993 “The Odd Couple: Together 1962 The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, 1960 Exodus, 1959 Again”, 1989 “Around the World in 80 Days”, 1986-1987 “You But Not for Me, 1959 Green Mansions, 1958 The Brothers Again?” (26 episodes), 1985 “The Love Boat”, 1976-1983 Karamazov, 1957 The Three Faces of Eve, 1957 The Garment “Quincy M.E.” (148 episodes), 1976 Two-Minute Warning, Jungle, 1957 12 Angry Men, 1956 Miami Expose, 1956 The Man 1970-1975 “The Odd Couple” (114 episodes), 1971-1972 “Love, in the Gray Flannel Suit, 1955 The Left Hand of God, 1955 American Style”, 1971 Who Says I Can't Ride a Rainbow!, 1965- “Medic”, 1955 The Racers, 1954 Day of Triumph, 1954 On the 1970 “The F.B.I.”, 1969 Goodbye, Columbus, 1968 Where Were Waterfront, 1953 The Tall Texan, 1952 The Fighter, 1951 The You When the Lights Went Out?, 1968 The Detective, 1965 Hail, Family Secret, 1951 Sirocco, 1951 “Somerset Maugham TV Mafia, 1963-1965 “The Fugitive”, 1964-1965 “Harris Against Theatre”, 1949 Thieves' Highway, 1948 Call Northside 777, the World” (13 episodes), 1961-1964 “The Defenders”, 1964 1947 , 1947 Boomerang!, 1947 Johnny “The Virginian”, 1964 “Jackie Gleason: American Scene O'Clock, 1946 Anna and the King of Siam, 1943 The Song of Magazine”, 1963 Act One, 1960-1963 “Twilight Zone”, 1963 Bernadette, 1943 The Moon Is Down, 1941 Paris Calling, 1939 The Yellow Canary, 1959-1963 “Naked City” (6 episodes), 1963 Golden Boy, 1937 Rustlers' Valley, and 1937 North of the Rio I Could Go on Singing, 1962 Days of Wine and Roses, 1961 Grande. “Follow the Sun”, 1961 “The Million Dollar Incident”, 1955- 1958 “Kraft E.G. MARSHALL… Juror #4 Theatre”, 1958 “G.E. (b. Everett Eugene Grunz, June True Theater”, 1958 18, 1914, Owatonna, Minnesota Cry Terror!, 1958 – August 24, 1998, Bedford, “Gunsmoke”, 1957 New York) has 149 acting 12 Angry Men, 1954- credits, some of which are 1998 1956 “The United “The Defenders: Choice of States Steel Hour”, Evils”, 1997 Absolute Power, 1954-1956 “Justice”, 1995 Nixon, 1994-1995 1956 Time Table, “Chicago Hope” (13 episodes), 1955 “Producers' 1994 “Oldest Living Showcase”, 1954 Confederate Widow Tells All”, “Inner Sanctum”, 1992 Russian Holiday, 1988- 1954 “Rocky King, 1989 “War and Remembrance” Detective”, 1950 (9 episodes), 1989 “Murder, “Actor's Studio.” She Wrote”, 1988 “Tanner '88”, 1986 “Tales from the EDWARD BINNS… Darkside”, 1983 “Kennedy”, Juror #6 (September 1982 Creepshow, 1980 12, 1916, Superman II, 1978 Interiors, 1977 Billy Jack Goes to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania – December 4, 1990, Brewster, New Washington, 1969-1973 “: The New Doctors” (45 York) has 170 acting credits, among them 1988 After School, episodes), 1972 “Ironside”, 1971 The Pursuit of Happiness, 1986 “The Equalizer”, 1986 Whatever It Takes, 1986 “Spenser: 1970-1971 “The Virginian”, 1970 Tora! Tora! Tora!, 1969 The For Hire”, 1982 The Verdict, 1980 The Pilot, 1978 Oliver's Story, Bridge at Remagen, 1966 Is Paris Burning?, 1966 The Chase, 1975-1976 “Police Story”, 1975 Night Moves, 1974 “Cannon”, 1961-1965 “The Defenders” (132 episodes), 1961 Town Without 1974 “McCloud”, 1973 “Hawaii Five-O”, 1964-1970 “The Pity, 1961 “Rawhide”, 1960 Cash McCall, 1959 Compulsion, Virginian”, 1969-1970 “It Takes a Thief “(10 episodes), 1970 1958 The Buccaneer, 1958 “Shirley Temple Theatre”, 1949-1958 Patton, 1970 “Bonanza” (TV series), 1966 The Plainsman, 1963- “Studio One in Hollywood” (8 episodes), 1957 “The Alcoa 1965 “The Fugitive”, 1964 “12 O'Clock High” (TV series), 1964 Hour”, 1957 Man on Fire, 1957 12 Angry Men, 1957 The The Americanization of Emily, 1964 Fail-Safe, 1959-1964 Bachelor Party, 1950-1957 “Kraft Theatre” (19 episodes), 1956 “Brenner” (19 episodes), 1961-1964 “Wagon Train”, 1961-1964 “The Little Foxes”, 1956 The Mountain, 1953-1956 “Goodyear “The Defenders”, 1960-1964 “Twilight Zone”, 1963 “The Playhouse” (6 episodes), 1955 The Left Hand of God, 1953-1955 Untouchables”, 1961 , 1961 “Perry “You Are There” (11 episodes), 1950-1955 “The Philco- Mason”, 1960 “The Detectives”, 1960 “Outlaws”, 1960 Heller in Goodyear Television Playhouse” (13 episodes), 1954 The Pink Tights, 1959 , 1959 Compulsion, 1958 Bamboo Prison, 1954 The Silver Chalice, 1950-1954 “The Rifleman”, 1958 “The Loretta Young Show”, 1957-1958 “Suspense”, 1954 Pushover, 1954 , 1954 The “Suspicion”, 1957 Young and Dangerous, 1957 “Alfred Caine Mutiny, 1950-1952 “”, 1952 “Police Story”, Hitchcock Presents”, 1957 “Gunsmoke”, 1957 Portland Exposé, 1950 “The Trap”, 1949-1950 “Actor's Studio”, 1948 Call 1957 12 Angry Men, 1957 “Conflict”, 1956-1957 “The Alcoa Northside 777, 1947 Untamed Fury, 1947 13 Rue Madeleine, and Hour”, 1956 Beyond a Reasonable Doubt, 1956 Patterns, 1955 1945 The House on 92nd Street. “Schlitz Playhouse”, 1955 “Climax!”, 1955 “You Are There”, Lumet—12 ANGRY MEN—4

1954 “Inner Sanctum”, 1954 “Suspense”, 1953 “Goodyear Oldest Living Graduate”, 1979 Meteor, 1979 City on Fire, 1979 Playhouse”, 1951 Teresa, and 1948 “Actor's Studio.” “Roots: The Next Generations”, 1978 The Swarm, 1976 “Captains and the Kings”, 1976 Midway, 1974 “Clarence JACK WARDEN… Juror #7 (b. John H. Lebzelter, September 18, Darrow”, 1973 My Name is Nobody, 1973 Ash Wednesday, 1973 1920, Newark, New Jersey – July 19, 2006, New York City, New “The Red Pony”, 1971-1972 “The Smith Family” (39 episodes), York) has 160 acting credts, including 2000 The Replacements, 1970 Sometimes a Great Notion, 1970 There Was a Crooked 1999 A Dog of Flanders, 1999 “Norm”, 1998 Bulworth, 1997 Man..., 1970 The Cheyenne Social Club, 1970 Too Late the The Volunteers, 1996 Ed, 1995 Mighty Aphrodite, 1995 Things to Hero, 1968 Once Upon a Time in the West, 1968 The Boston Do in Denver When You're Dead, 1995 While You Were Strangler, 1968 Yours, Mine and Ours, 1968 Madigan, 1968 Sleeping, 1994 , 1992 Toys, 1992 Night Firecreek, 1967 Welcome to Hard Times, 1966 A Big Hand for and the City, 1990 Everybody Wins, 1989 “Knight & Daye” (7 the Little Lady, 1965 Battle of the Bulge, 1965 In Harm's Way, episodes), 1988 The Presidio, 1984-1986 “Crazy Like a Fox” (20 1964 Sex and the Single Girl, 1964 Fail-Safe, 1964 The Best episodes), 1985 The Aviator, 1982 The Verdict, 1981 The Great Man, 1963 Spencer's Mountain, 1962 How the West Was Won, Muppet Caper, 1979-1980 “The Bad News Bears” (26 episodes), 1962 The Longest Day, 1962 Advise & Consent, 1962 The Good 1979 , 1979 ...And Justice for All., 1979 Beyond the Years, 1959-1961 “The Deputy” (76 episodes), 1959 The Man Poseidon Adventure, 1979 The Champ, 1978 Death on the Nile, Who Understood Women, 1959 Warlock, 1957 The Tin Star, 1978 Heaven Can Wait, 1977 The White Buffalo, 1976 “Raid on 1957 12 Angry Men, 1956 The Wrong Man, 1956 War and Entebbe”, 1976 “Jigsaw John” (15 episodes), 1976 All the Peace, 1955 Mister Roberts, 1948 Fort Apache, 1947 Daisy President's Men, 1975 Shampoo, 1974 The Apprenticeship of Kenyon, 1947 The Fugitive, 1946 My Darling Clementine, 1943 Duddy Kravitz, 1973 The Man Who Loved Cat Dancing, 1971 The Ox-Bow Incident, 1942 Rings on Her Fingers, 1941 You “Brian's Song”, 1971 Who Is Harry Kellerman and Why Is He Belong to Me, 1941 The Lady Eve, 1940 , 1940 The Saying Those Terrible Things About Me?, 1971 The Sporting Return of Frank James, 1940 Lillian Russell, 1940 The Grapes of Club, 1967-1969 “N.Y.P.D.” (49 episodes), 1968 Bye Bye Wrath, 1939 Drums Along the Mohawk, 1939 Young Mr. Braverman, 1965-1966 “The Wackiest Ship in the Army” (29 Lincoln, 1939 The Story of Alexander Graham Bell, 1939 Jesse episodes), 1965 Blindfold, 1964 “Bewitched”, 1964 The Thin James, 1938 Jezebel, 1937 You Only Live Once, 1936 The Trail Red Line, 1963 Donovan's Reef, 1962 “Naked City”, 1961 The of the Lonesome Pine, 1935 Way Down East, and 1935 The Lawbreakers, 1961 “”, 1959-1960 “Twilight Farmer Takes a Wife. Zone”, 1960 Wake Me When It's Over, 1959 “Bonanza”, 1959 That Kind of Woman, 1958-1959 “Playhouse 90”, 1959 The JOSEPH SWEENEY… Juror #9 (July 26, 1882, Philadelphia, Sound and the Fury, 1958 Run Silent Run Deep, 1957 Pennsylvania – November 25, 1963, New York City, New York) “Suspicion”, 1956-1957 “The United States Steel Hour”, 1957 12 has 39 acting credits, some of which are 1963 “The Eleventh Angry Men, 1957 , 1957 Edge of the City, Hour”, 1961-1963 “The Defenders”, 1963 “Dr. Kildare”, 1963 1950-1955 “The Philco-Goodyear Television Playhouse”, 1951- “Car 54, Where Are You?”, 1963 “Ben Casey”, 1961 “Naked 1955 “Danger”, 1954 “Inner Sanctum”, 1953 From Here to City”, 1961 “Route 66”, 1957 “Father Knows Best”, 1951-1957 Eternity, 1951 The Frogmen, 1951 You're in the Navy Now, and “Kraft Theatre”, 1957 12 Angry Men, 1956 The Fastest Gun 1950 The Asphalt Jungle. Alive, 1956 The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit, 1955 “Lux Video Theatre”, 1952-1955 “Studio One in Hollywood”, 1955 “Robert Montgomery Presents”, 1953 “Omnibus”, 1953 “The Philco- Goodyear Television Playhouse”, 1951 “Lights Out”, 1940 The Philadelphia Story, and 1918 Sylvia on a Spree.

ED BEGLEY… Juror #10 (b. Edward James Begley, March 25, 1901, Hartford, Connecticut – April 28, 1970, Hollywood, California) won a best supporting actor Oscar for (1962). He has 102 other acting credits, some of which are 1970 Road to Salina, 1968-1970 “The Name of the Game”, 1970 The Dunwich Horror, 1969 “The Ghost & Mrs. Muir”, 1968 “The High Chaparral”, 1968 Hang 'Em High, 1968 Wild in the Streets, 1965-1968 “Gunsmoke”, 1968 Firecreek, 1966 “The Wild Wild West”, 1966 “The Lucy Show”, 1965-1966 “Bonanza”, 1966 The Oscar, 1964-1966 “The Virginian”, 1966 “The F.B.I.”, 1964-1965 “The Fugitive”, 1962-1965 “Dr. Kildare”, 1964 “The Alfred Hitchcock Hour”, 1964 The Unsinkable Molly Brown, 1963 “Route 66”, 1962 “Naked City”, 1959 Odds Against Tomorrow, 1954-1958 Kraft Theatre (7 HENRY FONDA…Juror #8 (b. Henry Jaynes Fonda, May 16, episodes), 1957 12 Angry Men, 1955-1956 “”, 1905, Grand Island, Nebraska –August 12, 1982, Los Angeles, 1956 Patterns, 1953-1955 “Goodyear Playhouse”, 1954-1955 California)) won a best actor Oscar for On Golden Pond (1981). “Ponds Theater”, 1950-1955 “” (8 He has 114 acting credits, including 1981 “Summer Solstice”, episodes), 1954 “The Philip Morris Playhouse”, 1952 The 1981 On Golden Pond, 1980 “Gideon's Trumpet”, 1980 “The Turning Point, 1952 Deadline - U.S.A., 1952 Lone Star, 1951 Lumet—12 ANGRY MEN—5

You're in the Navy Now, 1950 Dark City, 1949 The Great Untouchables”, 1960 BUtterfield 8, 1958-1959 “Naked City”, Gatsby, 1949 Tulsa, 1948 Sorry, Wrong Number, 1948 Deep 1959 Middle of the Night, 1958 “Kraft Theatre”, 1958 Run Silent Waters, 1948 The Street with No Name, 1948 Sitting Pretty, and Run Deep, 1957 The Brothers Rico, 1957 12 Angry Men, 1956- 1947 Boomerang! 1957 “Studio One in Hollywood”, 1957 Nightfall, 1956 “The United States Steel Hour”, 1954 On the Waterfront, 1953 Miss GEORGE VOSKOVEC... Juror #11 (b. JiÅi Wachsmann, June 19, Sadie Thompson, 1952 “Lux Video Theatre”, 1951 A Streetcar 1905, Sázava, Bohemia, Austria-Hungary [now ] Named Desire, and 1950 With These Hands. – July 1, 1981, Pearblossom, California) has 81 acting credits, among them 1982 Barbarosa, 1981 “” (14 episodes), 1980 Somewhere in Time, 1973-1974 “Hawaii Five-O”, 1974 Man on a Swing, 1973 The Iceman Cometh, 1972 “Mission: Impossible”, 1968 The Boston Strangler, 1966 “An Enemy of the People”, 1966 Mister Buddwing, 1965 The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, 1965 “12 O'Clock High”, 1964 “The Fugitive”, 1962 “Dr. Kildare”, 1961-1962 “Naked City”, 1960 BUtterfield 8, 1959 “The Third Man”, 1958 , 1957 Uncle Vanya, 1957 “ITV Play of the Week”, 1957 12 Angry Men, 1954-1956 “Studio One in Hollywood”, 1955 “Armstrong Circle Theatre”, 1954-1955 “Robert Montgomery Presents”, 1955 “You Are There”, 1954 “The United States Steel Hour”, 1952 The Iron Mistress, 1952 Affair in Trinidad, 1952/I Anything Can Happen, 1937 The World Is Ours, 1932 Powder and Petrol, 1932 Your Money or Your Life, and 1926 Pohádka máje.

ROBERT WEBBER... Juror #12 (October 14, 1924 in Santa Ana, California – May 19, 1989, Malibu, California) has 137 acting credits, some of which are 1988 “Something Is Out There”, 1986-1988 “Moonlighting” (6 episodes), 1987 Nuts, 1985 “In Like Flynn”, 1985 Wild Geese II, 1983 “Starflight: The Plane That Couldn't Land”, 1982 The Final Option, 1981 S.O.B., 1980 Private Benjamin, 1979 10, 1975-1979 “”, SIDNEY LUMET From World Film Directors, Vol. II. Editor 1978 “Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color”, 1977 The John Wakeman. The H. W. Wilson Co., NY, 1988. Choirboys, 1977 “Quincy M.E.”, 1976 Midway, 1975 “S.W.A.T.”, 1971-1975 “McCloud”, 1974 “The Streets of San American director and producer, born in Philadelphia, one of the Francisco”, 1971-1974 “Cannon”, 1974 Bring Me the Head of two children of Polish-born parents, Baruch Lumet and the Alfredo Garcia, 1973-1974 “Ironside”, 1973 “”, 1972 former Eugenia Wermus. Both parents were actors who had “Love, American Style”, 1972 “Mission: Impossible”, 1971 begun their career in Poland, gone to England, and then “Mannix”, 1971 “The Young Lawyers”, 1970 “The Virginian”, emigrated to the United States. In 1926 Baruch Lumet joined 1970 The Great White Hope, 1969 The Big Bounce, 1967 Don't Maurice Schwartz’s Make Waves, 1967 The Dirty Dozen, 1966 Dead Heat on a Company at the Yiddish Art Theatre in New York City, Merry-Go-Round, 1966 Harper, 1965 The Sandpiper, 1964-1965 subsequently appearing at other theatres on and off Broadway, “Kraft Suspense Theatre”, 1964 “The Fugitive”, 1962-1963 “The until in 1939 he devised his own one-man show, ”Monotheatre Defenders”, 1963 The Stripper, 1963 “Naked City”, 1961-1962 Varieties.” For seven years he toured with this throughout North “The Dick Powell Theatre”, 1959-1962 “Alfred Hitchcock America, and he has also appeared on television and in films, Presents”, 1962 “The Paradine Case”, 1962 The Nun and the including several of his son’s. Baruch Lumet was director of the Sergeant, 1959 “The Rifleman”, 1955-1957 “Kraft Theatre”, Dallas Institute of Performing Arts in 1953-1960, and in 1975 1957 12 Angry Men, 1956 “The Show”, 1954-1956 wrote and starred in a play called Autumn Fever. “Robert Montgomery Presents” (7 episodes), 1953 “Three Steps The family moved from Philadelphia to New York to Heaven”, 1951-1952 “Studio One in Hollywood”, 1952 “Tales when Baruch Lumet joined the Yiddish Art Theatre, and Sidney of Tomorrow”, 1950 “Starlight Theatre”, and 1950 “The Philco- Lumet grew up on the of Manhattan and in Goodyear Television Playhouse.” Brooklyn. He hade his own acting debut at the Yiddish Art Theatre at the age of five, and other roles followed there and in RUDY BOND… Judge (October 1, 1912, Philadelphia, radio shows. For two years during the Depression (1931-1932) Pennsylvania – March 29, 1982, Denver, Colorado) has 57 acting he appeared in a Yiddish radio serial called The Rabbi From credits, among them 1981 “Stand by Your Man”, 1979 The Rose, Brownsville. “My father wrote and directed the show and acted 1978 “Baretta”, 1976-1978 “Kojak”, 1977 “Quincy M.E.”, 1974 the leading man and the grandfather,” Lumet says. “My mother “McMillan & Wife”, 1974 The Taking of Pelham One Two was the leading lady, and I played the son. All together, our Three, 1974 “Petrocelli”, 1972 The Godfather, 1971 Who Is weekly salary came to $35.” Harry Kellerman and Why Is He Saying Those Terrible Things Sidney Lumet first appeared on Broadway at the age of About Me?, 1963 “Armstrong Circle Theatre”, 1963 “The eleven, in Dead End (1935), by Sidney Kingsley, a family friend. Lumet—12 ANGRY MEN—6

He was too young and too small to play one of the Dead End time out to direct for the theatre, staging productions of Shaw’s Kids, and Kingsley wrote a part especially for him. Dead End The Doctor’s Dilemma (1955) and ’s science-fiction was a notable example of 1930s theatrical realism—a style drama Night of the Auk (1956). which, as Lumet acknowledges, permanently influenced his own By this time, the tremendous success of the motion work as a director. picture (1955), originally written for television by Paddy A year or so later, Lumet had his first important role as Chayefsky, and made by the television director , the young Jesus Christ in Max Reinhardt’s production of The had convinced Hollywood that there was a future in films of this Eternal Road (1937). His performance attracted attention and a sort—small scale (and low-budget) works of social realism, string of Broadway parts, including one in a play called One modeled on the television play., A good deal of talent was Third of a Nation (1939), an indictment of slum landlords that seduced away from television to the big screen in the second half was filmed the same year. Lumet appeared in a second of the , and had a powerful influence—for good and bad— experiment in “canned theatre” the following year, giving on the development of the cinema. another impersonation of Jesus Christ as a boy in a filmed record Lumet’s own first feature was of Maxwell Anderson’s stage play Journey to Jerusalem. “I (1957), based on a play by Reginald Rose that had already been loved being a child actor,” Lumet says. “I had ten rather filmed for television by Franklin Schaffner. The movie studies a marvelous years and it kept me off the streets.” Screen acting jury of twelve men who have to decide on the guilt or innocence was a different matter, however: “That glass has a psychic and of a youth accused of murdering his father. At the outset, all the spiritual thing about it. The third jurors but one believe that eye. It’s going to see something you the boy is guilty, but in the don’t want seen. I knew then that I course of a long hot day of could never be a really good [film] discussion and argument this actor.” stubborn individual (Henry Like many New York Fonda) brings the others juvenile actors, Lumet was around, one by one, to an educated at Professional Children’s acknowledgement of School. In 1942 he began a “reasonable doubt.” In the Columbia University extension process, we come to know course on dramatic literature, but very well the qualities and dropped out after a term to enlist in prejudices of the twelve. the Army Signal Corps. The United An exceptionally States had just entered World War talented cast was assembled II and Lumet “felt very passionately to play the jurors, among about the war, very committed.” He them Jack Warden, Lee J. saw service as a radio repairman in India and Burma. Cobb, E.G. Marshall, Ed Begley, Martin Balsam, Jack Klugman, After the war Lumet returned to the New York stage. In and Robert Webber. Lumet made no attempt to “open up” the 1947, irritated by the pretensions of the newly formed Actors television play and shot almost the entire film in the jury room, Studio, he founded an off-Broadway acting group of his own. where he made 385 set-ups. He saw in this claustrophobic setting The company had no director and Lumet drifted into this role, an added source of tension, and he has explained how he and staging an assortment of noncommercial plays that were Boris Kaufman (the cinematographer of all his early films) set generally presented free except for contributions. At the same out to “restrict it more and more from a visual point of view. As time Lumet scratched a living as a teacher of acting at the High the film went on I used longer and longer lenses so that the school for Performing Arts and by taking occasional paid roles ceiling became closer to the heads, the walls became closer to the (including a well-received one in Arthur Goodman’s chairs…. This was all achieved between the choices of the lenses experimental play Seeds in the Wind). and the lighting.” Made in nineteen days at a cost of $343,000 In 1950 Lumet’s friend Yul Brynner, then a staff Lumet’s first movie brought him an Oscar nomination and the director with CBS-TV, invited him to join the network as an Directors Guild award and took the Golden Bear (the main prize) assistant director. He signed up the same day as . at Berlin. In his article on Lumet in Film Quarterly (Winter A year later, promoted to staff director, Lumet went to work on 1967-1968), Graham Petrie writes that “the ‘message’ of the the Danger series, directing about 150 episodes between 1951 play, which survives into the film, now seems to many people and 1953 and contributing to the I Remember Mama and You Are dated and obvious, though it is worth remembering that the film There series as well. He claims that “the split concentration it offers no assumptions either way as to the guilt of the boy on took was not as brutal as it sounds. It was a great training trial….The structure of the film is made up of a series of small ground….It would take twenty films to learn what I learned from encounters, between individuals and groups, where the clash of on-the-spot television.” personalities builds up to a climax, then relapses into lethargy or Beginning in 1953, Lumet also began to direct original muted triumph. The rhythm of these encounters is carefully plays for Playhouse 90, , and Studio correlated with out increasing awareness of the spatial One. In all, apart from the series work he continued to do, he restrictions of the jury room, from which there is no escape until filmed about two hundred teleplays during the “golden age” of agreement is reached, and the reminders of the outside world American television, establishing himself as one of the most during the pauses of slackened tension. The camera continually productive and respected directors in the business. He also took underlines the moral tensions of the situation, moving in to close- Lumet—12 ANGRY MEN—7 up as an individual is forced to come to terms with his own naturalistic aspects of the story, playing down Miller’s allusions beliefs and prejudices, isolating the various conflicting groups in to classical tragedy. Again, the film failed to recover its costs, medium shot, slipping back to long-shot as the men relax in though it had a generally respectful critical reception. Isabel exhaustion after each encounter. It is through a brilliant Quigley wrote that “Sidney Lumet, who was one of the white manipulation of this kind of cinematic rhythm that Lumet obtains hopes of American outburst of realism in the cinema a few years his effects, creating an unforgettable atmosphere of tension, ago…has done an interesting job….It could, of course, have hatred, fear, prejudice, and exhaustion.” turned into a very different sort of film, but Lumet, above all an Discussing his transition from television to the feature honest and unfrilly director, has the temperament to dampen film, Lumet has said that for him the adjustment was primarily an rather than fan hysteria and frightfulness, to give a feeling of aesthetic one: “Technically I was totally prepared by the time I enclosure and concentration to make tragedy domestic.” hit my first movie….The biggest adjustment I had to make—and Lumet repeats the trick in his screen version of Eugene it took me many years to learn this—was the adjustment of O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey Into Night (1962), shot almost scale—the size of the picture. Moving from a seventeen-inch entirely in the living room of the Tyrones’ house in Connecticut. piece of glass to a thirty-five foot screen meant that a story had to Ralph Richardson plays the fading actor James Tyrone, be told in an entirely different way….The lenses remained the Katherine Hepburn, his drug-addicted wife Mary, same, but the frame is so much more dynamic, accomplishes so Jr. his alcoholic son Edmund. This notable cast worked on a much more for you so much more quickly.” Not that Lumet had percentage basis, and the film was made for less than $500,000. sundered his links with television. In 1958 he directed three All four principals shared acting honors at Cannes. And notable and much-praised productions for Kraft Television Lumet received another Directors Guild award. Few of his films Theatre—a trilogy of short plays by , an have been so hotly debated by the critics. Many of them thought adaptation of Hemingway’s “Fifty Grand,” and one of Robert it no more than “canned theatre,” and John Simon called it a Penn Warren’s All the King’s Men. work of “monumental but pedestrian veneration,” saying that Lumet’s next feature film (produced, like his first, by “when, at the very end, Lumet permits himself some fancy, Henry Fonda) was Stage Struck (1958), an updating of the 1933 though old-fashioned camera movements, his endlessly receding Katharine Hepburn hit Morning Glory about a New England girl camera…merely draws attention to unresolved incompatibilities pursuing glory on Broadway, herself pursued by Fonda and between two art forms.” Lumet himself, on the other hand, . Most critics found Susan Strasburg an regards this as the best of all his films, and he has defended it inadequate substitute for Hepburn and the movie was a flop, as vigorously, saying of his critics that “all their eyes were capable was That Kind of Woman (1958), a romance in which Sophia of seeing was scenery’ they didn’t know cinema technique from Loren has to choose between handsome Tab Hunter and rich a hole in the wall. There was more sheer physical technique in George Sanders. that movie, in its editing and camerawork than anything you are That Kind of Woman was scored and edited in likely to see for twenty years.” Hollywood but, like most of Lumet’s films, shot in New York. Graham Petrie shares Lumet’s view of the film,. And Indeed, Lumet accepted a number of unpromising assignments in has explained why in some detail in his Film Quarterly article, his early days as a director simply because they could be filmed saying that the director had “found the exact cinematic in locations outside Hollywood, which he has frequently equivalent for the dramatic world created by O’Neill….The excoriated as “a company town…not fit for human habitation” camera moves freely when required, but he is not afraid to film and totally divorced from real life, where a director faces both many of the speeches from a purely static set-up, with the result studio interference and inflated production costs. He and Elia that the camera is never a distraction from…the Kazan have both gone to considerable lengths to promote New language….Instead Lumet uses the camera to underline the York as an alternative filmmaking center. emotional tone of the dialogue, isolating the characters from one Even The Fugitive Kind (1960) was shot in a Bronx another through close-ups, joining them together for brief studio and on location in upstate New York, though it is moments of harmony and understanding, distancing them and ostensibly set in a small town in Mississippi. This adaptation of studying them dispassionately during the pauses of drained and Tennessee Williams’ play stars Marlon exhausted vitality…even without dialogue. One could follow the Brando as Val Xavier, the nightclub guitarist who drifts into Two emotional progress of the film, and catch the emotional tone, Rivers and an ultimately disastrous affair with Lady (Anna simply from the way in which the camera moves among the Magnani), wife of the local storekeeper. … characters….It is this restrained and intelligent use of cinematic The director returned for a while to the theatre and resources which makes Long Day’s Journey Into Night Lumet’s television—a spectacular Broadway production of Albert Camus’ best film, and one of the greatest films of the …decade.” play Caligula; a docu-drama for NBC-TV about Sacco and In the early , however, Lumet’s reputation was Vanzetti; and his famous Emmy-winning four-hour television still far from secure, and his next film, Fail Safe (1964), about version of Eugene O’Neill’s The Iceman Cometh, with Jason the threat of accidental nuclear war, was overwhelmed by the Robards Jr. in the lead. Jack Gould called it “A moment of success of Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove (perhaps enrichment and excitement unparalleled in the medium’s thirteen unfairly—some thought Fail Safe, in its documentary sobriety, a years.” more telling warning than the audaciously witty Strangelove), After four more productions for NBC’s Play of the Then Lumet’s long run of misfortune and semi-failure ended (to Week, Lumet made another feature adapted from a stage play, his own astonishment) with his adaptation of a somber novel by Arthur Miller’s , scripted by Norman Edward Lewis Wallant, The Pawnbroker, which Lumet took over Rosten….As with The Fugitive Kind , Lumet stressed the only two weeks before shooting began. Lumet—12 ANGRY MEN—8

The pawnbroker of the title is Sol Nazerman (Rod Serpico was based on Peter Maas’ best-selling biography of an Steiger), a Jewish immigrant who is morally numbed by idealistic young New York policeman who found himself a suffering and the guilt he feels as the only member of his family pariah in the NYPD because he refused to take bribes, blew the to escape death in the Nazi camps. His pawnshop in Spanish whistle on corrupt colleagues and superiors, and set in motion the Harlem is a front for the illegal activities of a black exploiter of processes that led to the Knapp Commission and a major shake- the poor, but Nazerman, isolated in his own misery, is beyond up of the entire Department. Along the way Serpico sacrificed compassion for the “scum rejects” around him. Then gradually, his career, his girl, and almost his life, ending up as an almost long-stifled memories of the past begin to stir in him, and with saint-like loner. He is played in the film by , and Lumet them a recognition that the suffering of this “scum” is not so had the benefit of an excellent script by Waldo Salt and Norman different from the suffering of his own wife and children in Wexler…. Auschwitz. The film ends with Nazerman returning painfully to But Serpico, as Kael said, was “a big, big hit” and, after life. the unsuccessful Lovin’ Molly (1974), Lumet had another one in There were critics who greatly disliked The Murder on the Orient Express (1974), his star-studded adaptation Pawnbroker, seeing it as a collection of liberal platitudes of Agatha Christie’s 1930s thriller, with as rendered dishonest by the flashiness of the film’s style. Many Hercules Poirot. This immensely enjoyable movie, the most admired it, however, and it ambitious British production in enjoyed great commercial years, was nominated for six success. Rod Steiger received Oscars, collected one (Ingrid acting awards in both Britain Bergman as best supporting and Germany, and Lumet the actress) and made a lot of money. British Film Academy’s award The vast majority of as best director of the year…. Lumet’s films have been literary The Hill (1965) was or theatrical adaptations but he shot partly in Spain, partly at had an original script (by Frank MGM Studios in England, Pierson) for Dog Day Afternoon with an almost entirely British (1975)…. cast…. A number of critics An at least preferred Dog Day Afternoon superficially different world is even to Serpico, finding it richer explored in The Group (1966), based on Mary McCarthy’s novel both in its characterization and in its social implications. Vincent about eight Vassar graduates, set in New York during the Canby thought it “not only the most accurate, most flamboyant Depression. The movie did better commercially than it did of Sidney Lumet’s New York movies….it is the best film he has critically…. ever made, with the exception of A Long Day’s Journey Into Lumet went back to England for the filming of The Night…full of thoughts, feelings, and questions about the quality Deadly Affair (1967), the first picture he produced as well as of a certain kind of urban civilization.”… directed. For this adaptation of John Le Carré’s somberly The Lumet juggernaut rolled on with Network (1976), realistic spy-thriller Call for the Dead Lumet would have liked to his greatest commercial success. Scripted by , it shoot in black and white but bowed to the industry’s insistence centers on Howard Beale (Peter Finch), a fading TV anchorman that color was de rigeur for a major movie. Instead, he and his who leaps to fame when he threatens public suicide and goes on cinematographer Freddie Young worked out a technique called to become a national institution—“a latter-day denouncing the “pre-flashing”—muting the colors be pre-exposing the negative. hypocrisies of our time.” So long as his ratings remain high, he is The film was generally admired for this and for the performances treasured by the power-hungry network executives (Faye of a fine cast that included James Mason, Simone Signoret , Dunaway, , Ned Beatty), but as he becomes Maximilian Schell, Harriet Anderson, and Harry Andrews….. increasingly deranged and his public ravings take an unpopular Four of the stars of The Deadly Affair were reunited in turn, he forfeits his value as a pawn in their power plays, and is The Sea Gull—Mason, Signoret, , and Harry thrown (almost literally) to the lions. Andrews—but in spite of this impressive cast, most critics found Network won Oscars for Faye Dunaway and Finch, for it a lumbering interpretation of Chekov’s play. And again Lumet as best supporting actress, and for Chayefsky, seemed to be caught in such a rigid pattern of failure that critics as well as nominations as best film and for Lumet, William began to prophesy the end of his intermittently brilliant career. Holden (who plays Howard Beale’s decent friend and colleague), The Appointment (1969), a “flimsy love story” with Omar Sharif Ned Beatty, Owen Roizman (the film’s cinematographer), and and Anouk Aimée, was received with derision at Cannes, and Alan Heim (its editor). In spite of these triumphs, however, and Last of the Mobile Hot-Shots (adapted by Gore Vidal from a plat its blockbusting success at the box-office, it encountered a good by Tennessee Williams, was another commercial and critical deal of hostility from critics who found Paddy Chayefsky’s script flop. “crazily preposterous” and the film’s vulgarity “more The Anderson Tapes (1971) starring … pronounced than the television vulgarity it was supposed to be [was] a brief recovery….Lumet’s reputation slumped again with satirizing.” Child’s Play (1972) and The Offense (1973), both adaptations of A screen version of Peter Shaffer’s play Equus stage plays. And then came Serpico (1974), in which the director followed….And almost no one had a good word to say for The again demonstrated his extraordinary capacity for self-renewal. Wiz (1978), Lumet[s first musical…. Lumet—12 ANGRY MEN—9

Lumet’s…film, Prince of the City (1981), was Sidney Lumet Interviews. Edited by Joanna E. Rapf. considered one of the high points of his career. An ambitious University of Mississippi Press, Jackson, 2006. film, two years in the making and running to nearly three hours, it was adapted for the screen by from Robert “A Conversation with Sidney Lumet” Michel Ciment, 1982 Daly’s 1978 book about police corruption in New York MC: The theme of informing against someone—the problem of City….Reviews were extraodinarily favorable. David Denby knowing if one can or cannot “talk” and in what context, was called it a tremendous movie, the culminating work of Sidney this influenced by your own experience, since you were a witness Lumet’s career,” and Andrew Sarris described it as a prodigious and a contemporary of the McCarthy hearings working in the achievement.” “Lumet has never made a film as good,” he American entertainment industry? commented, “and it is possible that Prince of the SL: Emotionally this City represents the high became the hardest point of cinematic realism element for me because I in the New York School didn’t know myself what I of filmmaking.” Richard thought of the issue. I had Schickel noted that no definite opinion abut Prince of the City is a Bob Leusi (Daniel Ciello very long film—close to in the film [Prince of the three hours—but not a City]) and what he had frame could be dispensed done before seeing the with.” first cut. I slowly realized “The movie torments that I had lived through precisely because it so this type of situation painfully details its myself, and it became protagonist’s slow, painful for me. In fact, at unaware descent into a the beginning of the nightmare of moral 1950s, when I was ambiguity that is indistinguishable from madness.”… working in television, it was by sheer luck that I escaped being Lumet’s Daniel (1983), adapted by E. L. Doctorow blacklisted. While I was working at the editing table, observing from his novel The Book of Daniel, was controversial and drew a the main character, slowly I arrived at some conclusions. First of number of hostile reviews. The film is loosely based on the lives all, there is a difference between informing against someone in a of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, who were executed in 1953 for criminal case versus a political one. For me, having been raised conspiring to pass atomic secrets to Russia…. in a working-class environment, my family was poor, my attitude By contrast, Lumet’s next film, The Verdict (1983), toward a stool pigeon was automatic, going beyond any logical with a script by David Mamet, was widely praised….”it is distinction between the criminal and the political. An informer difficult to remember a courtroom drama of such efficiency as was an informer; it was that simple. I needed to make this film in The Verdict,” Derek Malcolm noted, “nor better performances order for my attitude to change, however. But squealing on from Newman, woozily defending Right, or James Mason, someone for political reasons is a betrayal of democracy. On the contemplating the compensating vices of Might. It is a good other hand, I do think that drugs are responsible for the personal strong melodrama which elicits good, strong performances.” destruction of a whole generation of creative artists in this Garbo Talks (1984) was a slighter film, a teary comedy country, not to mention a large segment of the black population about a Jewish mother () dying of cancer whose and of young people…. greatest wish is to meet her idol …. Sidney Lumet is a small, good-humored man of awe- MC: This was the golden age of American television. inspiring vitality. He has been married three times-to the actress SL: Yes, those were marvelous years, when you think about Rita Gam, to Gloria Vanderbilt, and, since 1963, to Gail Jones, how many screenwriters, directors, and actors emerged then. It daughter of Lena Horne. The filmmakers Lumet most admires proves one thing: that we were not all that exceptional but their include the Italian neorealists, Jean Vigo, René Clair, William talent was always there. You just need to give them the means to Wyler, Fred Zinnemann, and , above all, Carl Dreyer. Famous express it. The work pace was incredible. I directed two half- for bringing his films in on schedule or ahead of it, Lumet has hour dramas every week during three years! I needed to have often been accused of working too quickly and too carelessly. eight shows in my head all the time. While I rehearsed the two His response, given in 1970, is that “if you’re a director, then dramas of the week, I also had to take care of the casting for the you’ve got to direct….I don’t believe that you should sit back following week, and of the sets and the costumes for two weeks and wait until circumstances are perfect before you and it’s all after that…. gorgeous and marvellous ….I never did a picture because I was In my experience television was irreplaceable, because hungry; I could always earn a mine in television. Every picture I the law of optics is constant, and it gave me a very fine visual did was an active, believable, passionate wish. Every picture I training, not to mention everything I learned about editing, did I wanted to do….I’m having a good time. I lead a nice life.” rhythm and acting. And also psychologically I learned a very precious lesson. The production you’re working on right now is not everything. There is another waiting for you the following Lumet—12 ANGRY MEN—10 week. It's only a movie. The ephemeral nature of television law and justice. As every lawyer knows, sometimes they don’t go taught me that in a positive way, because I have seen so many of together. Lawyers find themselves using literal legalities to, in a my colleagues become pretentious. In their conversations I hear sense, evade the justice of the situation, It's that kind of the words “grandeur” and “masterpiece.” For me, that is the complexity, where there is a separation between the law and beginning of the end. Each time you get started on another film, what justice actually is that fascinates me so. you cannot think in terms of a masterpiece, because at the very least, chance plays a role in every production. I don’t want to DIGGS: In your films there is sometimes a separation between sound falsely modest, and it is true that chance, luck I mean, finding truth and finding justice. A survey of your films suggests exists for some and not for others. But basically all one can do is that our present legal system works many times to crush truth, set the stage and hope for the best. When this happens, the film and if truth is revealed, it’s at a really terrible kind of price, as in takes on a life all its own that one could never have predicted. Prince of the City or Serpico. If we do find the truth, it’s a kind of …The “old school” did not have this pretense of making only miracle as in The Verdict—which was the answer to a prayer. Is masterpieces, to make a movie every four years. You remember that an accurate statement of your films? thirty films by , but he made over a hundred! I love fifteen films by Cukor, but he just finished his sixty-fifth one!... LUMET: I think it’s completely accurate, and all of this within the framework of, as far as I know, one of the best legal MC: When you went from television to cinema, what was the systems in the world. I’ve served on a jury three times. It was a greatest change for you? great experience, by the way. What I found was that it was a SL: The size of the image. And one of the more depressing miracle that it worked as well as it did. things for me is the disappearance of the big screen movie theaters. In the multiplexes, the audience is looking at movie DIGGS: How did these jury experiences fit on a time continuum screens that are almost as small as TV screens. It took me a while between 12 Angry Men and The Verdict? to get used to the bigger image, which explains why my early films had such a closed sense of staging. My dramatic style had LUMET: It was all after 12 Angry Men and all before developed on a twelve-inch screen, and suddenly I was hitting The Verdict. Interestingly enough, I got summoned for jury duty the emotions too hard on a thirty-foot screen. Also in the theater I after The Verdict, and I was turned down, because it was had been trained to exaggerate the feelings in order to touch the something that involved drugs and I said that I would have a very audience seated in the second balcony. It took me years before I tough time dealing with anybody accused of pushing drugs. Just understood that I didn’t have to do so much. Everything becomes out of my own moral basis, I would presume guilt. clearer faster on a big screen. Also time flows differently on film At that point in the voir dire where the judge says, if than on television. any of you have any internal reservations, would you stand up and articulate those now, I raised my hand and stood up and said I would find it very difficult in my own heart and mind to start with a presumption of innocence simply out of my own reaction to what drugs mean in the world.

DIGGS: One of the things that’s overwhelming in terms of watching 12 Angry Men is that jurors in that film were not as forthcoming with their biases as you were in your voir dire experience. Were you so forthcoming about what your role should be because of the extent about which you’d thought about the subject for 12 Angry Men ?

LUMET: I don’t know. I just knew it was an immediate, instinctive reaction and, needless to say, I was excused right on the spot.

DIGGS: One of the key points of 12 Angry Men seems to be that the jury doesn’t really exist for the purpose of exposing the truth, what the jury system exists to do is interrogate—and to set up a “The Law According to Lumet” Terry Diggs / 1995 scheme by which interrogation takes place—so that the biases we have in society don’t block the truth. Does that seem an accurate DIGGS: It seems as if you always come back to the subject of statement of what 12 Angry Men is about? law, whether you’re dealing with an outlaw, a lawyer, or a police officer. Why do you find the metaphor of law to be such an LUMET: Yes, it does. expressive one? DIGGS: There is a movement now in California to allow juries LUMET: Let's start with a very simple statement: if the in criminal cases to convict on less-than-unanimous verdicts. law doesn’t work, nothing can work in a democracy. It’s the Given the goals that you set out in terms of 12 Angry Men, what basis of everything. Then you come to that separation between do you think are the ramifications of legislation like that? Lumet—12 ANGRY MEN—11

DIGGS: You seem to have a fear of the spectacle and of our love LUMET: I think it’s very dangerous, and especially in of spectacle. What does the camera do in the courtroom? criminal cases where you’re talking about changing a person’s life forever. I’m still for the unanimous verdict. It may spring LUMET: It makes everybody show off. As simple as people. I think the chances are very good that O. J. Simpson is that. There’s a third presence there. There’s not just prosecutor or going to get a hung jury, but my own feeling is that it’s one of defense and witness; there’s prosecutor or defense and witness those safeguards like our other constitutional safeguards of and camera. And I think it’s finally going to be a very corrupt search and seizure and warrants and so on; Fourth, Fifth influence, an influence that will reduce the pain, the significance, Amendment. the importance of what is going on, because it’s going to become It may be a help to the criminal element. Undoubtedly ordinary, because it’s interrupted by commercials, because it is people have gotten away with something because of those laws. part of your sitcom, and it’s going to trivialize it. But it’s still better than innocent people being convicted because of the absence of those laws. DIGGS: In the celebrity trials that we have had in the last couple of years, do you see any of them as containing a kind of DIGGS: Your work seems to be so explicit about some very very great narrative that would actually let us learn something about troubling things, about the extent to which we really mask our ourselves or our culture if we kind of paid attention to it? own psychoses and neuroses, about the extent to which we tolerate racism, about our desire for expediency. You’re so LUMET: I think that is happening, but in my view it's all conscious of all those things and how they impact criminal happening on the negative side. We’re debasing our processes. justice. Where does that sensibility come from? It’s all becoming more strident and therefore more insignificant.

LUMET: There’s your instinct and then there’s your life DIGGS: What do you feel about our capacity as a legal system experience. I grew up very poor in the roughest sections in New to progress? York, and you simply become very interested in justice because you see an awful lot of injustice around. I just know it’s there and LUMET: I feel it’s retrogressing because of the has been there from the beginning….. introduction of television into it, making it part and parcel of trivialization. But I wouldn’t presume to know anything about DIGGS: I can’t talk to the director of Network and those fine where the future of it might lie. films exploring the legal process without asking you about O. J. . Simpson. You have really dealt with all of the components of this Thane Rosenbaum: 12 Angry Men: Lumet’s Faces (Criterion dog-and-pony show in one form or another: the reactionary Notes): frenzy that the media is capable of creating, the fallibility of the 12 Angry Men (1957), the first feature film directed by the system when the media works on it in that particular kind of way. legendary Sidney Lumet, is a Hollywood classic that, ironically, What’s your take on the trial of the century? helped to define an era of filmmaking grounded in the gritty realism and frenetic energy of urban New York. A simple story LUMET: The night of the white Bronco, that ride of the of a jury’s deliberations in a murder case, where tensions boil white Bronco, that night filled me with such horror. I don’t know over during a hot summer day in the city, it launched Lumet’s if you’ve ever read a novel of Nathaniel West’s called The Day career as a filmmaker with a special gift for capturing ordinary of the Locust, but it was The Day of the Locust come true. lives tossed into difficult situations of moral choice. 12 Angry Because what everybody was waiting for was for him to blow his Men has become a cultural touchstone, a time capsule of brains out. That’s what the attraction of the night was. American justice before the civil rights era and the expansion of So I have not followed the trial. I don’t read about it in civil liberties in the 1960s. Its influence has been vast, and it the papers. I see what I see on the 6:30 news. I’m horrified at established Lumet’s reputation as an artist at the forefront of everything about it because I also, by the way, have come to the social change. firm conclusion that television should not be allowed in Without anyone’s necessarily realizing it at the time, 12 courtrooms. I think half of the madness that we are looking at has Angry Men was among the first films to signal a shift away from to do with the fact of cameras being there. the influence and sensibility of the Hollywood studio system. I don’t think cameras have left anyone’s consciousness The movie was shot in New York and, with the exception of its for one second. This includes Judge Ito. This includes the star, Henry Fonda, was cast with actors, the eleven other jurors— defense. This includes the prosecution and the witnesses. an all-star roster of character actors, including E. G. Marshall, Ed From the most superficial knowledge of it, it seems to Begley, Lee J. Cobb, Jack Klugman, and Jack Warden—known, me (Simpson) probably did it. It seems to me that since the if at all, for their New York stage and television work. This was defense’s job is so much simpler than the prosecution’s, the typical of the so-called New York School of filmmaking—with prosecution has to prove everything beyond a reasonable doubt. its focus on social issues, urban settings, and moral decay— The defense has to just set up a reasonable doubt in the mind of which came to define an era of social consciousness and realism one person. So my instinct tells me that he’s going to get off. in cinema, stretching from On the Waterfront (1954) to Midnight And I know why people are so attracted to it. My God, it’s got Cowboy (1969) and into the . everything: race, sex, dope, a national hero. The movie also foreshadowed America’s cultural obsession with the law as both moral object lesson and entertainment. If not for the enduring legacy of 12 Angry Men, Lumet—12 ANGRY MEN—12 there may never have been an audience for television’s Law & Court Sonia Sotomayor, appearing at the Forum on Law, Culture Order or The Practice, or even the novels of John Grisham and & Society at Fordham Law School, told the audience that 12 Scott Turow. Interestingly, the small screen’s first iconic lawyer, Angry Men, which she first saw in college, influenced her Perry Mason, began pacing courtrooms and breaking down decision to pursue a career in law. witnesses in 1957 as well, three years after Twelve Angry Men, All the impassioned turmoil in the film somehow gave it the teleplay, made its debut during American television’s golden a long life. While the jury’s anger dissipates, the deep emotion era. kept on humming. A day’s worth of deliberations is illuminated Lumet, who died in 2011 at the age of eighty-six, by a pacing that is deceptively quick and, improbably, would, of course, go on to direct many other classics in a career completely riveting. Nothing much seems to be happening— that spanned six decades, around two hundred teleplays, and more sweat dripping, more heads swelling with doubt—and yet more than forty feature films. He was nominated for five Oscars everything is happening. The tone of the deliberations changes, before receiving one for lifetime achievement in 2005. And yet the group dynamics realign as the men ready themselves for yet in the minds of many, 12 Angry Men is the film that defined his another round of thwarted consensus building. career, one that so memorably, if not obsessively, focused on Initially, Fonda’s juror 8 is the lone holdout against a social justice and moral inquiry. It is not surprising that Lumet, reflexive vote for guilt. He marshals the facts in support of whose lifetime coincided with so many of the injustices of the reasonable doubt, pushing back against the fury of the mob. A twentieth century—from the Holocaust to the Hollywood mild-mannered architect, he proves himself to be a better lawyer blacklist—would choose as the subject of his first feature a story than the court-appointed defense counsel. He recognizes the painted in the gray brushstrokes of prejudice. moral duty to deliberate, and slowly shatters the credibility of the The arc of Lumet’s early career, while colorful, did not prosecution’s witnesses, one by one. The jury is transformed as initially light up the sky. As a television director for CBS, he opinions shift, factions emerge, and prejudices are revealed. worked on such shows as Danger and You Are There, and Meanwhile, the weather outside changes: the sky directed original teleplays for Playhouse 90 and Studio One, on darkens, and a thunderous summer shower cools off the city, which Twelve Angry Men first aired. His celebrated film career along with some of the hotheads on the jury. Despite the cagelike had a long rehearsal on television throughout this period in the confinement, the movements of these middle-aged men are oddly 1950s, with many of his signature themes and stylistic effects balletic as they reenact events surrounding the crime, break off already on full display. And indeed, in his films, Lumet would into private conversations, retire to the restroom, drink from the often show a preference for the cramped spaces and tight shots of watercooler, stand on a chair to fix the fan, make paper airplanes, kitchen-sink dramas, as opposed to the larger landscapes cinema and even play tic-tac-toe. All the while, they are in one another’s makes possible. Nowhere was this claustrophobic point of view faces, as if haplessly trying to get to know one another. They are put to better use than in 12 Angry Men, where the transition from strangers, after all; even their names are withheld. Once the television screen to the big screen was quite seamless. verdict is delivered, they are unlikely to see one another again. The ease of adaptation didn’t spell commercial success, Equally nameless, and far more distant, is the teenager however. 12 Angry Men was no blockbuster, despite the fact that with his appointment with the electric chair. Does he realize that it featured Fonda. The film was made on a very modest budget of his life is in the hands of a jury composed of men so easily given about $350,000. Arguably, without Fonda starring and to prejudgment? Forget reasonable doubt—they won’t even give producing, it might never have seen life beyond the small screen. him the benefit of the doubt. Without fancy stagecraft, 12 Angry One can only imagine the pitch to a Hollywood executive: Men portrays the American jury system as tragic opera. “Twelve angry, sweaty, impatient men stand in judgment of a The film captured the American legal system in a way teenage boy accused of killing his father. It’s summer, and the that had never been done before. There are no preening, cagey men are holed up in a jury room without even a fan. The entire lawyers or craggy, wise judges. The jury is where justice choreography involves the jurors sitting at, or moving around, a resides—with common men who apply common sense and long rectangular table, arguing. No gun goes off, and no one gets ultimately do what’s right, in spite of extreme prejudice. The killed—the murder has already happened. And the movie is shot hero, juror 8, doesn’t know if the teenager is innocent or guilty; completely in black and white.” he simply wants to believe that the system is capable of Movie audiences in 1957 expected to see gunfights in delivering justice, and he doesn’t want to be complicit in the moun­tainous Wild West or leading men and women falling compounding an injustice. The jury becomes the repository of in love in exotic places—widescreen and in Technicolor. What’s America’s faith that the law can get it right. But, at the same cinematic about twelve ordinary men, beleaguered by prejudice time, the film provides a civics lesson on the frightening and moral conflict, nearly suffocating in a drab jury room for the implications of the legal system’s getting it all wrong. entire length of a movie? Is it possible to watch 12 Angry Men and not wonder These 12 Angry Men were in no way The Dirty Dozen. whether the blindfold on Lady Justice is on securely enough? Though well received critically—with three Academy The presumption that jurors are impartial is dashed within the Award nominations, for best picture, best director, and best first ten minutes of the film. Citizens arrive for jury duty not as adapted screenplay, for Reginald Rose, from his own teleplay blank slates but as a bundle of preconceived notions and (The Bridge on the River Kwai won in all three categories)—it preformed opinions. took years for 12 Angry Men to find its audience and emerge as a There is no true jury of one’s peers. classic, one of the treasured films in Hollywood history. In 2007, Despite its Hollywood happy ending, 12 Angry Men is the Library of Congress selected it for preservation in the thus an ambivalent feel-good movie. The virtues of the legal National Film Registry. In 2010, associate justice of the Supreme system are presented through the prism of its dark side. A jury is Lumet—12 ANGRY MEN—13 empowered to remedy the mistakes made by the defense (a crime control converted into a pack of cigarettes. He was also laughable notion in practice), but will the jurors be able to sensitive about the moral conflict between loyalty and doing overcome the imperfections of their own humanity—which is what’s right; tough neighborhoods demand strict loyalties. His itself, paradoxically, on trial in the jury room? As a tutorial on films dealing with police corruption, such as Serpico (1973), human nature, 12 Angry Men sends a warning to be careful in Prince of the City (1981), and Q&A (1990), address many of courtrooms. The custodians of the system make mistakes, and the these themes. He himself had been mistakenly named during the corrective possibilities may be no better than a crapshoot. 1950s blacklist, which banished some of the leading talents in As filmmakers for screen and television, Lumet and New York’s nascent television industry, and after his name was Rose never lost interest in the legal system as a setting for big cleared, for reasons of both loyalty and craft, he worked ideas and high drama. In 1955, they collaborated on Crime in the clandestinely with some of the banned writers. Streets, a teleplay For for The Elgin Hour Lumet, the that dealt with common man juvenile is all too easily delinquency and crushed— starred John made to Cassavetes, and in disappear 1956, their Tragedy without in a Temporary anyone’s Town, yet another taking notice. story of mob- The individual inflamed prejudice is left with few and injustice (with choices, Jack Warden), overwhelmed aired on NBC’s and The Alcoa Hour. outmatched by Rose, in fact, was the powerful inspired to write 12 few, who know Angry Men by his no limits and own experience as show no a juror in a criminal case. And in 1961, he created one of mercy. Lumet always did his best work when his film was television’s most original and culturally relevant legal dramas, focused on a human face. In fact, he made a point of casting The Defenders, which, coincidentally, starred 12 Angry Men’s actors whose faces reflected a wide range of emotions. Not all of juror 4, E. G. Marshall. them were pretty to look at, but they were all recognizably Lumet went on to direct several other films about the human and real. The face best captured in a Sidney Lumet film is legal system, including The Verdict (1982), Daniel (1983), Night anguished, defeated, and fragile—a starkly rendered still life of Falls on Manhattan (1996), and Find Me Guilty (2006). He also human vulnerability. Just think of the pained expressions of created the TV drama (2001–02). And his Howard Beale in Network (1976) and Sonny Wortzik in Dog Day early television work included directing an episode of You Are Afternoon (1975), and the silent scream of Sol Nazerman in The There involving the Salem witch trials, which aired the same Pawnbroker (1964). week that Edward R. Murrow exposed Senator Joseph McCarthy Lumet was unfairly criticized for not being visual as a hatemongering red-baiter. enough, for preferring the grimy streets of New York to virtually Why this creative obsession with the law? any other location. But he didn’t need a cinematic background— Courtrooms are places of human conflict where disputes all Lumet needed was a downcast face, and he knew exactly how are settled without resorting to shootouts or vendettas. And with to film it. It is no accident that Boris Kaufman, an Oscar-winning any luck, the law’s resolution provides a moral lesson. This cinema­tographer who shared an aesthetic sensibility with natural source of dramatic tension played to the backgrounds of Lumet, was the director of photography on seven Lumet movies, Lumet and Rose quite well. They were children of the Great including 12 Angry Men and The Pawnbroker. Depression. As Jews from the city slums, they were also not 12 Angry Men, in particular, illuminates the richness of unfamiliar with prejudice, needing no reminder that “the what can happen when the interior lives of human beings are other”—the outsider—is always viewed as strange and projected onto a screen. Shooting in black and white, in a tiny presumptively guilty. At the same time, they believed in America room overrun with emotional complexity, Lumet worked movie and knew that the rule of law provided not only sanctuary but magic simply by changing the focal length of his lenses, from also a chance at a level playing field. wide-angle to telephoto, manipulating the depth of the frame and, Lumet was especially keen on fairness, which derived in in so doing, providing the viewer with a greater depth of feeling part, he said, from his experiences watching cops patrol the as the camera zooms in on the faces of these twelve once angry, Lower East Side of his youth, chasing away kids who were but finally subdued, and forever immortalized, men. pitching pennies and then picking them up for themselves—

SPRING 2012 BUFFALO FILM SEMINARS XXIV Mar 6 Satiyajit Ray, The Music Room 1958 Mar 13 spring break Mar 20 Clint Eastwood, The Outlaw Josey Wales 1975 Mar 27 John Woo, The Killer 1989 Apr 3 Krzysztof Kieslowki, Kieslowski, Red 1994 Apr 10 Terrence Malick, Thin Red Line 1998 Apr 17 Fernando Meirelles, City of God, 2003 Apr 24 Christopher Nolan, The Dark Knight 2008

PLEASE TURN OFF CELLPHONES DURING SCREENINGS.

CONTACTS: ...email Diane Christian: [email protected]…email Bruce Jackson [email protected] ….for the series schedule, annotations, links, handouts (in color) and updates: http://buffalofilmseminars.com ...to subscribe to the weekly email informational notes, send either of us an email with add to BFS list in the subject line.

The Buffalo Film Seminars are presented by the Market Arcade Film & Arts Center and State University of New York at Buffalo With support from the Robert and Patricia Colby Foundation and the Buffalo News

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MIDNIGHT BEACON: A FILM SERIES FOR THE SENSES Friday Midnights February 10th—April 13th Market Arcade Film and Arts Centre (639 Main St.) Gen. $9/ Students $7/ Seniors $6.50 Contact: Jake Mikler (716)668-6095 [email protected]

March 2- Panic in Needle Park (Jerry Schatzberg, 1971) March 9- Valerie and Her Week of Wonders (Jaromil Jires, 1970) March 16- Possession (Andrej Zulawski, 1981) March 23- Two Lane Blacktop (Monte Hellman, 1971) March 30- Radio on (Chris Petit, 1980) April 6 Seconds- (John Frankenheimer, 1966) April 13- The Face of Another (Hiroshi Teshigahara, 1966)