s character votes not guilty on the first ballot, not because he's sure the defendant is innocent, but because he wants to get his fellow jurors to stop and reconsider the merits of the case. The other jurors are aghast that he seems to have forgotten the sure and certain "facts" of the case that prove the defendant's guilt. "Now these are facts," barks an angry juror played by Lee J. Cobb. "You can't refute facts." Everyone brings their differing lifestyles into the jury room. E.G. Marshall plays a prim and proper Wall Street stockbroker. He ticks off the facts in the case as if he were reading closing stock prices from the newspaper. His studious and ever-stern glare cuts down those who disagree with him. And he is the only one who keeps his coat on the entire time-he claims he never sweats, even in the stiflingly hot jury room. His banker's glasses, one of the film's few props, turn out to be key to the case's solution. With superciliousness, he bemoans slum dwellers such as the defendant, only to find out that another juror, played by Jack Klugman, grew up in the slums and resents the broker's remarks. Although most jurors are known by the intensity of their convictions, Robert Webber plays someone who works in advertising and views serving on a jury no more seriously than he would concocting a laundry soap jingle. He tries using advertising lingo such as "run this idea up the flagpole and see if anybody salutes it." After ridicule and scorn by his fellow jurors, Henry Fonda's character suggests a startling compromise. He will abstain from the second ballot, and if they all vote guilty, so will he. But if he has garnered any support for the defendant, then the rest of the jurors have to agree to stay awhile and discuss the case with him. After he wins that round, one by one, the other jurors begin to fall in line behind him, but even if the conclusion is obvious, the way they get there constantly surprises and fascinates. The beauty...
