12 Angry Men (Criterion Collection) (1957) on Blu-ray

Actor:           Ed Begley, Henry Fonda, Jack Warden, Jack Klugman, E.G. Marshall 
Director:      Sidney Lumet
Genre:          Drama 
Year:            1957
Studio:         Criterion Collection
Length:        96
Released:   November 22, 2011
Rating:         Not Rated (MPAA Rating
Format:        Blu-ray, Black & White, NTSC
Misc:            Color 
Language:  English
Subtitles  :  English

DESCRIPTION:

12 Angry Men, by Sidney Lumet, may be the most radical big-screen courtroom drama in cinema history. A behind-closed-doors look at the American legal system as riveting as it is spare, the iconic adaptation of Reginald Rose’s teleplay stars Henry Fonda as the initially dissenting member of a jury of white men ready to pass judgment on a Puerto Rican teenager charged with murdering his father. What results is a saga of epic proportions that plays out in real time over ninety minutes in one sweltering room. Lumet’s electrifying snapshot of 1950s America on the verge of change is one of the great feature-film debuts.

SPECIAL FEATURES:

New high-definition digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the blu-ray edition

Frank Schaffner’s 1955 television version, with an introduction by Ron Simon, director of the Paley Center for Media Studies

“12 Angry Men”: From Television to the Big Screen, a video essay by film scholar Vance Kapley comparing the Sidney Lumet and Schaffner versions

Archival interviews with Lumet

New interview about the director with writer Walter Bernstein

New interview with Simon about television writer Reginald Rose

New interview with cinematographer John Bailey in which he discusses cinematographer Boris Kaufman

Tragedy in a Temporary Town (1956), a teleplay directed by Lumet and written by Rose

Original theatrical trailer

PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by writer and law professor Thane Rosenbaum