In 1954, Reginald Rose wrote a script that was intriguing to say the least: 12 jurors gathered in a deliberation room engage in a bitter battle of words, with a man's life hanging in the balance. The script was adapted for a television drama written and directed by Schaffner that same year.

The work went almost unnoticed and received no critical reviews, but it made a positive impression on Sidney Lumet, an emerging television director who had long wanted to make the leap to the big screen. He liked Rose's story so much that he decided to make a film out of it at any cost, his first film. Lumet's main problem was finding the budget to get the project off the ground. The search for a producer lasted three years, and when all seemed lost, the man who would later become the star of the film came to his rescue: Henry Fonda. At the time, Fonda was 52 years old and already a highly acclaimed actor with a distinguished pedigree, having worked with directors of the caliber of John Ford, William Wyler, Edmund Goulding, and Fritz Lang. After reading Rose's script, Fonda was enthusiastic about the project and threw himself into it, financing it and lending his acting talent. The project came together in no time and was completed in just under a month.

The title chosen was “12 Angry Men,” a highly evocative title, which, as often happens, was debased by the Italian distribution company, which trivially transformed it into “La parola ai giurati” (The Word to the Jurors). The work remained faithful, as its first essential hermeneutic parameter, to the theatrical concept that underpinned the textual framework. To do this, it was vital that the three Aristotelian unities be respected: unity of action, place, and time. It was a risky and, in some ways, new operation for cinema. But Lumet sensed that it was precisely in theatrical semantics that the charm and salvation of this project lay. And so it was.

The action unfolds in a straight line without interruptions or time jumps, and the camera faithfully follows the post-trial debate that develops between the 12 protagonists. The location is claustrophobically fixed and unchanging: a cramped courtroom with a table in the center and 12 chairs on either side. Time is marked faithfully by the evolution of the debate and the events that follow: the dialectical confrontation, the votes, the reconstructions of the evidence, and the explanatory monologues. The plot is simple and linear, but at the same time ingenious in its gradual emergence from the proceedings. Twelve men, members of a jury, have just finished a trial and find themselves in the deliberation room to reach a decision. They are called upon to judge an 18-year-old Latin American accused of killing his adoptive father with a switchblade knife. When the men sit down at the table, the outcome of the debate seems obvious. But one juror, number 8, asserts that there is reasonable doubt that the boy is innocent. Thus begins the debate on the key points of the trial: the murder weapon, the alibi, and the two witnesses. The murder weapon was found on the man's body and was purchased by the boy in a neighborhood store, although the accused claims to have lost it. The alibi appears very weak, as the boy claims to have been at the movies at the time of the murder, but at the time of questioning, he cannot remember the title or the actors. In addition, two witnesses nail the young man: an elderly neighbor and a woman who claims to have seen the boy walking away from the man's body. The two witnesses are then demolished in two separate monologues by juror No. 8, through eloquent speech and compelling logic. Gradually, the jurors come round to the idea of innocence, abandoning their prejudices and preconceived notions. But one remains who appears unyielding and who will try until the very last moment to bend the weakest members of the opposing side to his will.

A film of primordial beauty, a brilliant synaesthesia of cinematic theatricality and civic engagement.