Films of the 50's Part 5: 12 Angry Men & Compulsion

12 Angry Men (1957, Sidney Lumet)

Few directors have had as long and storied a career as Sidney Lumet. In fact, out of all of the directors of the 50’s films I have seen while researching this project, (40 of them so far), only Lumet is still active. Fewer still have had as strong a debut as 12 Angry Men. It existed as a teleplay before Lumet’s version, and it’s been remade many times since (even given homage in a Veronica Mars episode), but Lumet’s is the quintessential one.

Henry Fonda, as strong and steadfast an everyman hero as there’s ever been (along with Jimmy Stewart), stars as juror #8 (only given the name “Davis” at the end of the film). He is a member of a jury of other unnamed men, faced with giving a young man the death penalty. Even one dissenter amongst the twelve will cause a hung jury, and the room is full of people who just want to get on with their lives.

Number 8 has other aims, namely to do what is right. That’s the center of 12 Angry Men, a riveting tale that mainly takes place in only one room. The tension, and there’s plenty of it, is all delivered in dialogue and acting, a trait that would be nearly unheard of in modern film. The rest of the cast is a ‘who’s who’ of, it not stars, then at least notable actors for one reason or another. Martin Balsam and E.G. Marshall are both solid actors, often under-appreciated, though prolific. As far as character actors go, it doesn’t get much better than the two Jacks, Warden and Klugman. Most will recognize the voice, if not the face, of juror #2, who is probably best known as Piglet in the Disney versions of the Winnie the Pooh stories. And then there’s Lee J. Cobb.

Cobb plays juror #3, aside from #8, the lead, probably the most complex character of the bunch, and maybe the richest and hardest to play. Cobb pulls it off beautifully, portraying a troubled father who has to deal with his own innermost feelings, and tendencies toward violence, before making a decision on the life of another. Cobb himself was a bit of a controversial figure, one of a select few who named names in the Red Scare hearings. But, it’s tough to stay mad at the guy who originated the role of Willy Loman.

What 12 Angry Men has become is a primer on the justice system, a lesson on the concept of ‘reasonable doubt.’ I believe that every young person should see this film before they become old enough to get summoned for jury duty. What Henry Fonda’s character has shown in this film is to stand up for one’s convictions, even in the face of a large amount of opposition. The death penalty is not something to be taken lightly, whether you believe in it or not, and the decision to employ it should not be so hasty. Which brings us to another film…



Compulsion (1959, Richard Fleischer)

It had been about 35 years since the famous Leopold and Loeb murder and subsequent trial, yet Hollywood wasn’t nearly done with telling that story again and again. The story, about a pair of students who thought they could pull off the ‘perfect murder’ has since become a timeless one, and some versions ended up better than others. Case in point, Rope. Compulsion is another good one, albeit somewhat scattered.

The film starts with the two prospective murderers, played to the hilt by Bradford Dillman and a young Dean Stockwell. Both astound, Dillman as the preening and cocksure Artie, essentially the dominant one, and Stockwell as Judd Steiner, the easily influenced follower, who finds himself the intellectual better of everyone he meets, even his professors.

The opening depicts the two driving along a dark rural road, when they come across a hitchhiker. Artie pushes Judd into trying to run him down before the credits roll, in a very distinctive b-movie fashion. This is when Artie delivers the tagline that would appear on all the posters, “You know why we did it? Because we damn well felt like doing it!”

But, what evolves is much more serious than b-movie material. We go through an introduction to the arrogance and lifestyle (shot at UCLA, which looked remarkably the same in the 50-year-old film as it did when I attended), and then the murder victim is discovered, the act committed off screen. Stockwell pretty much confesses while assaulting the one girl in his life, Ruth Evans (Diane Varsi). From there, the film changes gears and goes into a courtroom drama, with the inimitable Orson Welles playing the Clarence Darrow-like lawyer.

Nearly every aspect of the actual Leopold and Loeb case is reproduced, down to the damning evidence, a pair of glasses with a set of hinges only sold to three people. But, the grace of Compulsion is not in its reproduction of the facts, as Hitchcock’s Rope does a far more compelling job of storytelling by altering them. Instead, Compulsion’s mastery is in its message, conveyed through the dialogue of characters Ruth Evans and lawyer, Jonathan Wilk. Both end up to be the only characters to show compassion for the two killers, despite the horrible nature of their crime, its evil no one would dispute. Welles’ closing arguments speech is one of the longest monologues in film history, and one of the most powerful. His anti-death penalty stance might be viewed by some as a lawyer's ploy, especially due to his series of hilarious one-liners before the trial, but then again, I didn’t need any convincing.