Fantastic.

Rating: 9/10 (13 August 1999)

I am not big on watching old movies, for many reasons. Black and white does not bother me, but the poor film quality and the cheesy special effects (like using iguanas with stuff taped to them for dinosaurs), when there are any, are very distracting. However, my biggest problems, and really the only ones that prevents me from watching a lot of them, are the overacting and the hokey dialogue. This movie is one of the few of its day that I have seen that does not suffer from these problems (the others being mainly Hitchcock films- there was never any hokeyness in those). Instead, it is a great character study. The dialogue is believable. Really the only thing that makes this movie unrealistic if it were to be set in the present day is the absence of non-white jurors (of which the remake took care of) and of women (which the remake did not address). Other than that, this movie could easily have been made in 1999 instead of 1957.
So for those who shy away from old movies, don't avoid this one, because it is easily one of the best films ever made (hence its ranking in the Top 250 on this site). Yeah, so it's in black and white- so was Schindler's List, and parts of the Blair Witch Project. There are no phony special effects to make fun of, no stilted dialogue, and no bad acting. All in all, I give it a 9 (the only movie I've given a 10 to is Schindler's List). That's saying something from a person who tends to abhor old films.
Do not watch the remake: watch the original.