Trivia for
12 Angry Men (1957)

photos

board

trailer

details

• As shooting of the film went on, director Sidney Lumet gradually changed to lenses of longer focal lengths, so that the backgrounds seemed to close in on the characters, creating a greater feeling of claustrophobia.
  
  
• For many years, only the first half of the kinescope of the live 1954 TV version of "12 Angry Men" upon which this movie version is based (shown in the series "Studio One" (1948)) was thought to survive, and had been in the possession of the Museum of Television and Radio since 1976. In 2003 a complete 16mm kinescope was discovered in the collection of Samuel Liebowitz (former defense attorney and judge) and was also acquired by the museum.
  
  
• Because the painstaking rehearsals for the film lasted an exhausting two weeks, filming had to be completed in an unprecedented 21 days.
  
  

• Henry Fonda was asked by United Artists to make this film, so he did it as both actor and producer. He was, however, very frustrated at being producer and decided never to do so again.
  
  
• Most of the hard-working (relatively inexperienced) crew were longshoremen. Because there wasn't enough movie work to feed them all year, they'd have two union cards: their Local 52 cards and their ILA cards.
  
  
• Henry Fonda disliked watching himself on film, so he did not watch the whole film in the projection room. But before he walked out he said quietly to director Sidney Lumet, "Sidney, it's magnificent."
  
  
• In the jury room, the characters are identified by their numbers as they are seated around the table. Only two have their surnames revealed. In an epilogue, Henry Fonda (Juror #8) and Joseph Sweeney (Juror #9) meet briefly on the courthouse steps. Fonda introduces himself as "Davis", Sweeney as "McCardle".
  
  
• All but three minutes of the film was shot inside the bare and confining, sixteen by twenty-four foot "jury room".
  
  
• Only two jurors are ever identified by name: #8 Mr. Davis and #9 Mr. McCardle. And all but two are identified by job or profession: #1 High School Football Coach, #2 Bank Teller, #3 Owns Messenger Service, #4 Stock Broker, #6 Painter, #7 Salesman, #8 Architect, #10 Garage Owner, #11 Watch Maker, and #12 Advertising Exec.
  
  
• With the death of Jack Warden (Juror #7) on July 19, 2006, Jack Klugman (Juror #5) is the only one of the twelve stars of 12 Angry Men (1957) who is still alive.
  
  
• Debut of John Fiedler.
  
  
• After Juror #10's prejudicial rant about the poor and everybody turns their backs on him, Juror #4 tells him to "sit down and don't open [his] mouth again." Juror #10 thus doesn't say anything for the rest of the film (when prompted for his final vote he shakes his head "not guilty," and doesn't verbalize anything).
  
  
• The melody juror #7 whistles before juror #8's reenactment of the handicapped man walking to the door is "Dance of the cuckoos", which is also the theme song for the "Laurel & Hardy" series.
  
  
• [June 2008] Ranked #2 on the American Film Institute's list of the 10 greatest films in the genre "Courtroom Drama".
  
  
• Lee J. Cobb's character insults Juror #12 by calling him "The Boy in the Gray Flannel Suit." One year before the release of "12 Angry Men," Cobb starred in The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit (1956).
  
  
• After a short but rigorous rehearsal schedule, the film was shot in less than three weeks for a budget of just $350,000.
  
  
• At the beginning of the film, the cameras are all positioned above eye level and mounted with wide-angle lenses to give the appearance of greater distance between the subjects. As the film progresses the cameras slip down to eye level. By the end of the film, nearly all of it is shot below eye level, in close-up and with telephoto lenses to increase the encroaching sense of claustrophobia.
  
  
• Despite numerous critical accolades, the film was not a box office success on first release.
  
  
• Nominated for 3 Oscars, the film lost out in all its categories to The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957).
  
  
• Upon its release, the film generated enough buzz to warrant a spread in Life magazine.
  
  
• Reginald Rose's TV play script was left virtually intact in its move to feature film.
  
  
• Sidney Lumet had the actors all stay in the same room for hours on end and do their lines over and over without taping them. This was to give them a real taste of what it would be like to be cooped up in a room with the same people.
  
  
• Henry Fonda, who symbolically wears white throughout the film, personally asked Sidney Lumet to direct the movie adaptation, having been impressed with his work on the TV version.
  
  
• Because of the demands of the film's low budget, if the lighting was set up for a shot that took place from one particular angle, all the shots from that same angle had to be filmed then and there. This meant that different sides of the same conversation were sometimes shot several weeks apart.
  
  
• Shot in a total of 365 separate takes.
  
  
• As the film failed to make a profit, Henry Fonda never received his deferred salary. Despite this setback, Fonda always regarded "12 Angry Men" as one of the three best films he ever made, the other two being The Grapes of Wrath (1940) and The Ox-Bow Incident (1943).
  
  
• The film received a personal recommendation from Eleanor Roosevelt.
  
  
• When first broadcast as a teleplay on TV's "Studio One" on 20 September 1954, the jurors were Norman Fell, John Beal, Franchot Tone, Walter Abel, Lee Philips, Bart Burns, Paul Hartman, Robert Cummings, Joseph Sweeney, Edward Arnold, George Voskovec, Will West. Joseph Sweeney and George Voskovec were the only two actors to reprise their roles for the film.
  
  

Related Links