12 (Angry?) Men (and Women)

     12 Angry Men is one of the best films of the 20th century.
     Every one of the actors went on to achieve stardom fame.
     What makes the film superb is its replication of the average American jury, character by character, based on personality types.
     I had the rare opportunity to catalogue, mostly by guessing, the personality types of a typical jury, because I watched my own jury over a five-week trial which ended on Monday May 2, 2016.
     Five weeks is a long time to study the faces of one's jurors, to hope they call upon their better selves, to hear their laughter, to see them grimace and twitch before re-fabricating their poker faces, and to watch them move in and out of consciousness, sometimes dozing under the blue-hued fluorescent lights of our stark, retro-Gainesville icebox of a federal courthouse.
     What matters most to people, the film emphasizes, is their own lives, what they do for work or fun.  Persuading them to abandon their personal passions long enough to come to a thoughtful verdict is a mighty task.
     It takes a Henry Fonda to make us think beyond the pablum we assimilate day after day via media hype, inherited opinions, and free-floating prejudices.
     Henry Fonda was Juror #8, a thoughtful architect who wasn't sure if the defendant was guilty or not, but simply wanted to talk about it.  His fellow jurors, if they were thinking about it at all, wanted to convict the "killer" (they were sure he was guilty) and get the heck out of there.
     Most juries don't have a Henry Fonda in their group.  It takes a ton of courage to stand up to eleven other people.  It takes guts to dig in one's heels, to force people around you to contemplate a thing, and to hang onto dignity and aplomb in the process.
     I think my jury was absent a Henry Fonda:  his character type is too rare.
     But what I found fascinating was how otherwise my own jurors correlated to the ones in this film version of Reginald Rose's television play.  Down to the last juror, I matched their countenances to the characters in 12 Angry Men.  Sidney Lumet's casting choices were right on.   Here were my jurors, one through twelve, right off the screen.
     #1 was the German watchmaker, played by George Voskovic, an immigrant who might have pushed for what's great about America's courts, that we're (supposedly) innocent until proven guilty, but went with the flow:  easier.
     #2 was the high school football coach, John Fiedler.   The moral compass, honest and credible, he fell prey to the jury's affection and coddled it, instead of serving, Aeneas-like, as the guide.
     #3 An an elderly man named McCardle, played by Joseph Sweeney.  He was open to persuasion, which is good when the persuasion has its basis in rectitude.
     #4 A garage owner, Ed Begley, who might as well have slept through the proceedings.
     #5 A businessman and the twisted father of an estranged son, played by Lee Cobb.  A force to contend with, he would have sent a kid (his son's age) to the electric chair to keep from feeling the pain of his own son's rejection.
     #6 A smiley, indifferent salesman, Jack Warden, with fewer regrets than a pickpocket.
     #7 The meek, balding, unpretentious bank clerk, John Fiedler, wide-eyed, sincere, but stomped on so many times in his adolescence he habitually traded his conciliation for a spot of kindness.
     #8 The stockbroker, E.G. Marshall, whose business acumen might have pointed out the special interests at work below the surface, and saved the kid.  Again, no fight in him, at least not for the other guy.
     #9 An advertising executive, indecisive, played by Robert Webber;  the imitation of authority, without the oomph.
    #10 A house painter, who might have taken the lead because he was tough, but didn't because he was tired, Edward Binns.
    #11 A man who rose up from the slums and called people out on their baser instincts, early to join the rebel (Fonda) team, but not the first.  Fighting Stockholm Syndrome ("I will not believe my oppressors!") is hard inner work.  Played by Jack Klugman.
    #12 This should have been Henry Fonda, right?  It should have been the self-employed guy who stood up to the soup-pot of humanity, stirring up suspicions, bringing to the surface those tiny wedges of onion and cayenne that are the other jurors' submerged intellects.  It's the person who could have reminded them of the most important instruction the judge gives:  to look for reasonable doubt.
     No such luck in my case.  I love this country anyway, because it keeps the idea of a perfect world alive, but the perfect juror comes out of Hollywood.  Thanks anyway, Henry, for telling us how it should have gone.