LOL, that lurid, sensationalist movie poster for “12 Angry Men”

I’m teaching a technical communication course this summer and using the film 12 Angry Men as “raw material” for students to use in analyzing positive and negative communication behaviors commonly found on project teams. In doing some class prep, I happened across the original poster for this movie . . . and burst out laughing. Literally lol-ing out loud! 🙂

“12 Angry Men” poster – By Illustrator unknown; “Copyright 1957 United Artists Corp.” – Scan via Heritage Auctions. Cropped from the original image., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=85718046

So much of 1950s film and literature relies on this type of B-movie, pulp-fiction, trashy kind of copy. Why was that?

Anyway, in case your day could use a bit of a lift, I thought I’d share 🙂

By the way, the original 12 Angry Men (1957) is a movie that still holds up really well in terms of 21st-century viewing sensibilities. If you haven’t seen it, I highly recommend giving it a try!

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About Katherine Wikoff

I am a college professor (PhD in English, concentration rhetoric) at Milwaukee School of Engineering, where I teach film and media studies, political science, digital society, digital storytelling, writing for digital media, and communication. While fragments of my teaching and scholarship interests may quite naturally meander over to my blog, this space is intended to function as a creative outlet, not as part of my professional practice. Opinions are my own, etc.
This entry was posted in Life, Movies and film, Popular culture, Teaching and tagged , . Bookmark the permalink.

3 Responses to LOL, that lurid, sensationalist movie poster for “12 Angry Men”

  1. Wyrd Smythe's avatar Wyrd Smythe says:

    It is an excellent movie. But nothing like the poster suggests! I suppose theater owners then, as now, were trying to get people in the seats.

    Liked by 1 person

    • It sure makes me wonder about the state of American culture back then!

      Liked by 1 person

      • Wyrd Smythe's avatar Wyrd Smythe says:

        Maybe it’s related to being a drama in black & white. Perhaps the movie posters are colorful to compensate? I think at the time, Hollywood was pretty full of itself. The Acadamy Awards was one of those national events we all watched. Or maybe they just thought twelve guys in a room didn’t seem like that much of an exciting movie and wanted to make it appear more lurid.

        Liked by 1 person

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