Around the Island

Movies at the Library: ‘Twelve Angry Men’ tonight

Shelter Island’s own Bob Markell will be the guest speaker at 7 p.m. tonight at the Center firehouse as Movies at the Library closes out this season’s screenings with Director Sidney Lumet’s feature film debut, “Twelve Angry Men.” Mr. Markell was the art director on the picture and a major contributor to its status as a classic of courtroom drama. He will talk about the experience of working on the film and answer questions after the screening.

“Twelve Angry Men” got glowing reviews but was a box office disappointment when it was released in 1957. Nonetheless it has aged well and remains remarkably relevant today. Like many of Lumet’s pictures, it addressed a controversial subject — the Constitutional promise that all defendants are entitled to a fair trial and the presumption of innocence. It was a pet project for Henry Fonda, who stars, and for whom it was his only foray into film production. The rest of the cast is equally impressive: Lee J. Cobb, Jack Warden, Jack Klugman, Ed Begley and E.G. Marshall, among others. The script, by Reginald Rose, is model of tight, character-driven dialogue.

But it is the stark simplicity of the production that gives the picture its dramatic impact. Virtually the entire picture takes place in a single room, where the jury must consider the fate of a young Puerto Rican man accused of knifing his father to death. The judge’s bored charge to the jury — one of the few scenes shot outside the jury room — all but declares aloud that the verdict is a foregone conclusion.

Yet during the hours that follow, as the jury room becomes ever hotter and more claustrophobic, the principle of reasonable doubt is tested. And that is where Bob Markell’s work with Lumet is most apparent. There is little physical action. Instead, there’s the stark realism of personalities fueled by emotion and prejudice trying to come to terms with each other and their duties as jurors.

Nothing distracts the eye from the conflict among the jurors. At a time when movies prided themselves on lush production values, Markell had the task of making this production look lean, mean and relentless. He succeeded brilliantly.

Then, to make the room seem smaller, hotter, more confining as the debate heats up and tempers flare, Lumet gradually changed to lenses of longer focal lengths — so that the walls of the jury room seem physically to close in. Toward the end of the picture, even the ceiling is in frame—as if it were bearing down on the jurors.

Most movies depend on action, scenery, color and costumes as much as character and plot. Not so “Twelve Angry Men.” Here we have a stripped down production that lays bare the souls of its characters and it is that very stripped down quality that gives the film such lasting power. The American Film Institute lists it as one of its Top Ten Courtroom Dramas.

It is in black and white and runs only 95 minutes.

Join us tonight at the Center firehouse for this classic movie and the reception and Q & A with Bob Markell to follow.

— JANET ROACH