FAVORITE ANGRY MAN #10: Juror 12 (Robert Webber)

Like Juror 7, Juror 12 is much more interested in his life outside of that room than in the case. He’s an adversiting executive and his constant references to his job seem to indicate a safety net that he created for himself, which makes it harder for him to come out of it and focus on something else for once. At first, he’s distracted and indecisive and he seems to be perfectly okay with a ‘hung jury’ verdict but eventually, he drops his shallow and dismissive demeanour and starts focusing. Juror 12’s inabibility and unwillingness to find his voice and use it wisely could have had dire consequences for ‘The Boy’, and his attitude is a lesson on the dangers of staying in your comfort zone, especially if it hurts other people in the process. Caring and speaking up cost nothing and Juror 12 had to learn that throughout the film.

SCREENPLAY BY: Virginia Kellogg

There isn’t a whole lot of information about Virginia Kellogg out there, but the information I got was enough for me to want to include her in the SCREENPLAY BY series. She has 7 credits to her name, 2 Oscar nominations and a crazy story for the sake of research.

Virginia Kellogg was born in Los Angeles in 1907. After graduating from high school, she got a job working as a reporter for the Los Angeles Times. In 1926, she started working as a script girl and secretary for director Clarence Brown, and by the early 1930s, she was a scenarist for Paramount. Her first credit came in 1931 with The Road to Reno (dir. Richard Wallace) and in 1933, she wrote Mary Stevens, M. D. (dir. Lloyd Bacon). Four years later, she wrote Stolen Holiday (1937) for Michael Curtiz, and around this time, she was also writing radio plays and magazine articles. In 1947, she wrote T-Men (dir. Anthony Mann) with John C. Higgins, whom I covered here. In 1949, she received her first Oscar nomination in the now-defuct category Best Story for White Heat (dir. Raoul Walsh), followed by her second nomination in the same category for Caged (1950, dir. John Cromwell). As research for Caged, one of the most iconic films set in a women’s prison, Kellogg was incarcerated with a false conviction of embezzlement with the help of the authorities (!) and she ended up serving time in four prisons. Talk about dedication to your craft!

Her last credit came in 1956 with Screaming Eagles (dir. Charles F. Haas) and in 1981, she passed away at the age of 73.