12 Angry Men (1957)
(Sidney Lumet, US 1957, 96 min., 35mm)
Courtroom Dramas. Henry Fonda stars in this classic courtroom drama that takes place almost entirely within the sweltering jury room on the hottest day of the year. A young man from the slums of New York is charged with the murder of his father, and his life hangs in the balance as the twelve men on the jury deliberate his fate. A sole dissenter (Fonda) tries to prevent a miscarriage of justice by challenging his colleagues to look beyond personal prejudice and dispassionately examine the evidence with the criterion of reasonable doubt. In the days of lush Technicolor productions, the confined, black-and-white 12 Angry Men was outstanding for its spare reliance on dialogue, performance, and progressively changing lenses and camera angles.