It is one powerful courtroom drama, except 93 of the 96 minutes takes place, not in a courtroom, but in a jury room.

Now you know who the 12 angry men are, the jurors who must decide the outcome of a murder case.

A lot of firsts here.

- Reginald Rose wrote the film script, his second. He adapted for the big screen his television play, Twelve Angry Men, that aired on CBS's Studio One in 1954. Rose won an Emmy for that script, his first Emmy. He also co-produced the movie, the first time he had taken on that job.

- Henry Fonda, the star of the movie as Juror Number Eight, so liked the television script that he bought the film rights, then talked Rose into both writing the screenplay and co-producing the movie. 12 Angry Men was the first and only movie on which Fonda ever served as a producer.

- Fonda and Rose hired Sidney Lumet to direct the film, Lumet's first job in Hollywood. Up to that time, he had been a television director and a very good one.

The movie received three Oscar nominations . . . for Lumet (best director), for Rose (best writing of an adapted screenplay), and for the movie itself (best picture of the year).

Now you're wondering, did any or all win?

They didn't.

The Bridge on the River Kwai won all three categories that year plus four additional Oscars.

Where do writers' ideas come from

As a writer, I always wonder where a fellow writer got the idea for his or her book or script or poem.

For Rose and 12 Angry Men, the idea came from his service on a jury.

"It was such an impressive, solemn setting in a great big wood-paneled courtroom, with a silver-haired judge," Rose said in a 1997 interview with The [New York] Daily News. "It knocked me out. I was overwhelmed. I was on a jury for a manslaughter case, and we got into this terrific, furious, eight-hour argument in the jury room. I was writing one-hour dramas for Studio One then [This was 1954.] and I thought, wow, what a setting for a drama."

The script he wrote had nothing to do with that trial nor with what took place in that jury room.

In Twelve Angry Men, one man sways a jury debating the fate of a young man charged with killing his father.

Said Rose, the script had the most intricate plot of anything he had ever written.

A final note

After Twelve Angry Men aired on television, Rose wrote a two-parter, also for Studio One, titled The Defenders, about a father-and-son defense team and a trial in which they were defending the accused.

Several years later, Rose went to CBS and said The Defenders should be a series. The network bought the idea, and Rose wrote many of the scripts for the show. It ran from 1961 to 1965.

The premise Rose proposed was that The Defenders not be a who-done-it like Perry Mason that was also running at the time. Instead, he maintained, the show should deal with serious social and political issues in which the outcome of each program would be in doubt. The Defenders - lawyers Lawrence and Kenneth Preston - would sometimes lose.

Topics in the series included abortion, capital punishment, "no-knock" searches, custody rights of adoptive parents, the insanity defense, the "poisoned fruit doctrine", immigration quotas, the Hollywood blacklist, jury nullification, and Cold War restrictions on visas.

Sponsors occasionally raised hell, believing this issue or that was too hot for them, so controversial that they didn't want to be associated with it.

In a 1962 episode titled "The Benefactor", the Prestons were to defend an abortionist. Sponsors Brown & Williamson, Lever Brothers, and Kimberly-Clark wanted nothing to do with the abortion issue and pulled out.

A new sponsor stepped up at the last minute and saved the episode.

The cable network series Mad Men used this incident for an episode also titled "The Benefactor" in 2008.

Rose won two Emmys for his work on The Defenders.

The star of the series, as the father in the father-son team of defense lawyers, E.G. Marshall, also won two Emmys.

Now I'll take you back in time for a moment. Marshall had been in Rose's movie, 12 Angry Men.

He was Juror Number Four.

I cannot help but believe that, because of Marshall's performance there, Rose recommended him for the starring role in The Defenders.

Marshall won two Emmys for his work in the series.