Wonderful movie; horrible "no such thing as a bad boy" message.

Rating: 8/10 (10 August 2012)

Acting, casting, dialogue, superb in every way.
I've served on a criminal jury case in Manhattan on Center St, (exactly where backdrop shots are supposed to depict) and these things can get quite heated.
Great performances all the way around; some jurors making more noise than others, just like in a real jury room.
Problem starts with Henry Fonda's "do-gooder" character.
Raises the old "It's not his fault- he had a rough childhood" nonsense. C'mon! Does anyone really believe that garbage, then or now?
Slowly, Fonda tries to give defendant/punk every possible benefit of the doubt at every turn, though why? Evidence clearly shows punk was guilty (same knife, lies about his whereabouts, no one ELSE had a motive, etc.. One by one, jurors unfortunately cave in until he gets his wish of a "not guilty" verdict, turning an obvious patricidal maniac back onto the streets of New York. Hooray!
In this era, people were already starting to make fun of social do-gooders (West Side Story: "Our mothers are all junkies- are fathers all are drunks; goodness, gracious, naturally we're punks!"), and how absurd they were.
I'll bet Fonda would have felt right at home on the O.J. jury.
Though I didn't see this movie till I was in my forties, and Fonda was long gone, I was somehow hoping that punk who the jury freed would find Fonda on the subway platform, try to rob him, pull out his switchblade, and well, you know.
Now THAT would have been some ending, and a just one too!