Henry Fonda

Eleven men have voted guilty, and Henry Fonda asks for more discussion. In Sidney Lumet's 12 Angry Men (1957), his Juror 8 gives each question enough weight to interrupt that easy agreement. We were unsettled by how readily the others were prepared to finish; Fonda's insistence on talking makes their certainty look careless. He holds our attention by making patience look like work.

That quiet authority had been central to his work with John Ford, as Tom Joad in The Grapes of Wrath (1940) and Wyatt Earp in My Darling Clementine (1946). Those parts helped establish him as the decent man others ought to hear. His underplaying made the decency seem natural, though repeated casting as the honest hero could make his presence too reassuring. In 12 Angry Men, we sometimes know whose judgement to trust a little too soon.

Reginald Rose's screenplay sometimes supplies Fonda with opponents whose mistakes are arranged too helpfully for him to correct. Yet Lumet surrounds him with actors who make resistance convincing. Lee J. Cobb gives the argument a force that makes Fonda's patience look hard-earned, and E.G. Marshall's certainty is formidable. Their pressure keeps the performance from becoming merely a demonstration of good sense.

Sergio Leone puts that familiar composure to a different use in Once Upon a Time in the West (1968), casting Fonda as the villainous gunman Frank. The performance is frightening because Frank seems settled in what he does; Fonda has no need to strain after menace. Leone gives faces and pauses time to matter, and Fonda makes that time uncomfortable. Knowing his earlier decent men sharpens the effect, but the calm would be disturbing without that knowledge. Watch 12 Angry Men first, then try trusting that composure when he works for Leone.