Reginald Rose 12 Angry Men (1957)

Reginald Rose (1920–2002) wrote the screenplay for 12 Angry Men (1957) and the original 1954 Studio One teleplay it was based on. He also produced the picture in partnership with Henry Fonda (in 12 Angry Men) through Orion-Nova Productions, the one-shot company they formed for the film.

Rose came out of the Golden Age of live television

Rose was born in Manhattan in 1920, served in the Army Air Forces during World War II, and worked in advertising in Hartford after the war before turning to writing. He sold his first teleplay, The Bus to Nowhere, to Studio One in 1951 and became one of the regular contributors to the live-television drama anthology shows of the 1950s — Studio One, Philco Television Playhouse, The Alcoa Hour, The United States Steel Hour. The 1950s anthology shows were the prestige writing market of their era, and Rose's contemporaries — Paddy Chayefsky, Rod Serling, Gore Vidal, Horton Foote — became the screenwriting generation that defined the early New Hollywood.

"The live-TV writers of the early 1950s were the first American playwrights with a national audience. Reginald Rose, Chayefsky, Serling — they had millions of viewers a week. They were doing serious work, on a deadline, in front of God and everybody." — Erik Barnouw, Tube of Plenty: The Evolution of American Television (1990 edition) (book; archive.org scan)

The 1954 teleplay was based on Rose's own jury service

Rose served on a Manhattan jury in 1954 on a manslaughter case. He later said the experience was the most absorbing of his life and that he had begun mentally drafting a teleplay during the deliberation itself.

"I was overwhelmed by the staggering responsibility of jury service. The atmosphere in the room was tense. It was a hot summer day, no air conditioning... I knew at that very moment I had to write about this." — Reginald Rose, Television Academy Foundation Interview (1996)

The resulting teleplay aired live on CBS's Studio One on September 20, 1954, directed by Franklin J. Schaffner, with Robert Cummings as Juror 8. It won three Emmys (Best Original Teleplay, Best Director, Best Actor). See The Live-TV Origin and Reginald Rose's Studio One Teleplay.

The film expansion was Fonda's idea

Henry Fonda saw the broadcast and approached Rose immediately afterward. The screenplay expansion is approximately twenty minutes longer than the teleplay. Most of the additional material is in the early scenes — the courthouse exterior, the judge's instructions, the jurors filing into the room, the small talk about the heat — and in the gradual build to the secret ballot. Rose did not significantly alter the deliberation itself; the structural rivets are nearly identical between the two versions.

"What I added for the film was air. The teleplay was sixty minutes, the film is ninety-six. Most of the difference is the establishment — getting the jury into the room, settling them, building the heat. The deliberation itself is what it always was." — Reginald Rose, Television Academy Foundation Interview (1996)

The 1955 stage adaptation

Rose adapted the teleplay for the stage in 1955, with Sherman Sergel doing the actual playscript work. The play has had a long subsequent life — a 1964 London production with Leo Genn as Juror 8, a 1996 Roundabout Theatre Off-Broadway revival with George Wendt, a 2004 West End production with Tom Conti and Paul Brennen, a 2018 Old Vic production with Roger Allam — and is performed annually in American high schools and law schools. The Penguin Classics edition of the 1955 play remains in print.

Rose's later career stayed in television

Rose did not become a major film screenwriter after 12 Angry Men. He returned to television, where he created and produced The Defenders (CBS, 1961-1965), a legal drama starring E.G. Marshall (in 12 Angry Men) and Robert Reed as a father-son legal team taking on civil-rights cases, abortion, blacklisting, and capital punishment in mid-1960s America. The Defenders won three Best Drama Emmys and is one of the most adventurous American legal dramas of the network era. Rose continued working steadily in television through the 1970s, and adapted 12 Angry Men once more for the 1997 Showtime cable remake (directed by William Friedkin, starring Jack Lemmon as Juror 8).

"Rose returned to television after the picture, where he could continue to work on the kind of social-issue drama that he had been doing since the early 50s. The Defenders is the missing link between the Studio One anthology era and the prestige cable drama of fifty years later." — Mark Lawson, The Guardian (2013)

Selected works

Year	Title	Notes
1954	Twelve Angry Men (teleplay)	Studio One; Emmy for Best Original Teleplay
1955	Twelve Angry Men (play)	Stage adaptation with Sherman Sergel
1957	12 Angry Men (screenplay)	Oscar nomination, Best Adapted Screenplay
1961-65	The Defenders (TV series)	Creator/producer
1962	The Man in the Net	Screenplay
1968	The Wild Geese	Screenplay
1997	12 Angry Men (Showtime remake)	Teleplay