12 Angry Men - 1957

12 Angry Men Masterprint
11 in. x 17 in.

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Framed   Mounted


Sidney Lumet's debut directorial film, a taut courtroom drama based on Reginald Rose's television play. In a hot summer courtroom in NYC, a teenaged Latino (Savoca) is on trial for murdering his father with a switchblade knife, and faces the electric chair if convicted. The twelve jurors assemble together to decide the fate of the minority defendant after being given instructions from the judge about 'innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.' In a seemingly open-and-shut case, the jurors rapidly vote for conviction, but one lone liberal dissenter, Juror # 8 (Fonda) holds out for innocence. In the sweaty, claustrophobic room, the tempers, prejudices and personalities of the cranky, smoking men are displayed as they examine the evidence and deliberate their verdict.

Jezebel - 1938

Jezebel Framed Art Print
16 in. x 22 in.

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Set in the mid-1800s New Orleans, a stylish, classic romantic melodrama about a headstrong, flamboyant Southern belle. To arouse the jealousy of her beau Preston Dillard (Fonda), willful, spiteful, tempestuous Julie Marsden (Davis) thoughtlessly and selfishly insists on wearing a scarlet red gown (rather than a virginal white one customarily worn by unmarried women) to the Olympus Ball - a major social function, defying social customs. She disgraces herself and is jilted by her embarrassed fiancee, who returns to Julie's plantation a year later. Without knowing that her estranged man has brought his new Yankee wife Amy (Lindsay), she surrenders to him. In further scheming, she rebounds and marries Southern gentleman Buck Cantrell (Brent), who dies in a duel unintentionally caused by her. Later, when Pres contracts deadly 'yellow jack' (yellow fever), she heroically redeems and atones for her transgressions by pleading with Amy to nurse his illness during the epidemic. In the final scene, she rides off with him in a wagon to certain death.

My Darling Clementine - 1946

My Darling Clementine Framed Art Print
16 in. x 22 in.
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My Darling Clementine (1946) is one of the greatest classic Westerns of all time, directed by one of Hollywood's most honored directors, John Ford. This film foreshadowed other great, more complex westerns that Ford would later direct - The Searchers (1956) and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962). It was filmed in his favorite locale - Monument Valley in northern Arizona, in only forty-five days. The film's title was not chosen in honor of any of the central characters or the shoot-out, but after the name of Earp's civilizing, female acquaintance in the town of Tombstone.
The film's screenplay, by Samuel G. Engel, Sam Hellman and Winston Miller, was taken in part from the 1931 novel Wyatt Earp, Frontier Marshal by Stuart N. Lake.

Although the book claims to be an accurate account of Earp (an historical, heroic Western character) and of the legendary O.K. Corral incident from the US past - it imaginatively includes a number of fabrications. Ford's film similarly retells the violent episode of the gunfight-shootout at the O.K. Corral (an actual historical event that occurred on the afternoon of October 26, 1881), the story of the duel between two families - the good one represented by the Earps and the notorious one represented by the Clanton family.

The Grapes of Wrath - 1940

The Grapes of Wrath Framed Art Print
14.75 in. x 12 in.
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The Grapes of Wrath (1940) is director John Ford's most famous epic drama in black and white - the classic adaptation of John Steinbeck's 1940 Pulitzer Prize winner, widely read 1939 novel. [The sentimental film is much more closely linked to social protest plays of Ford, the indicator (1935) and How Green Was My Valley (1941) as his masterly westerns.] This film was the most popular film Left Socialists on the subject before the World War II Hollywood.

The film's title is taken from the Battle Hymn of the Republic by Julia Ward Howe ("My eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord, He is trampling on vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored, it loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword, His truth is on "). On the screen, the film honestly and realistically recreates the socioeconomic impact of the Great Depression and drought of the mid-30s on a family representative - the Joad. The epic theme of moving to a new house oppressed parallels the biblical story of Exodus. Their name, Joad, also evokes the biblical character of Job.

Nunnally Johnson script is remarkably faithful to its source material Steinbeck. Not present in the novel or screenplay is a ledge it ends in the movie sentimentally optimistic and affirms the strength and dignity of the individual mind. Many other times, Hollywood has capitalized on other Steinbeck works and adapted for the screen: Of Mice and Men (1939), Tortilla Flat (1942), The moon is down (1943), Pearl (1948 ), the Red Pony (1949), East of Eden (1955), and Cannery Row (1982).