"I'm gonna lay you out"
Why didn't Cobb respond, "Go ahead, tough guy" to that?
shareIt think they were going with the bullies tend to back down when confronted concept. He was more bark than his bite.
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But why would he be intimidated by that old fart?
share# 6 is actually younger than him (at least the actor is). Also, #6 is pretty big - according to IMDB - he is also taller. #3 could just be a big bully who is afraid to fight when confronted.
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I don't know, I think I'd put my money on #3 in that fight.
shareI thought the intent of the scene was clear. It's irony. Juror 3 earlier says how disgusted he was when his son ran away from a fight ("I nearly threw up."). Here he is a few minutes later running away when challenged to a fight, just like his son.
shareWell said, excellent.
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The juror played by Edward Binns was a manual worker, doing hard physical work on a daily basis and building up plenty of muscle and strength and also a strong silent type. He would have flattened the juror played by Lee J Cobb who was an office worker running a messenger service.
share...this has brought back a lot of memories for me . While I was in boarding school , in my last year, we did 12 angry men in the school play competition. It was the only time I have ever acted on stage, I was juror number 7 . But I do remember this scene quite clearly, because the young chap who was playing number 6 was considerably smaller ( and 2 years below at school ) than the guy playing juror number 3 , needless to say the delivery wasn't very convincing or believable , all the way through rehearsals, or on the night of the performance where it drew a laugh from the audience. Still to this day , I remember most lines from my dialogue , good memories , and still one of my favourite films , though I only saw it years after performing in the play.
shareYes that might have been the intent. Juror 3 was yelling at the old man and Juror 6 stood up to defend him. As I recall Juror 6 said ''Why are you talking to him like that for? A guy talks like that to an old man really ought to get stepped on, you know? You ought to have more respect mister!'' The look on Juror 3's face when he hears that. I think he understood his excitement got the better of him when he treated the old man disrespectfully. He didn't run away from a fight. There was no point to fight or argue. He understood he was wrong.
shareIt could be the classic "a confronted bully backs down" motivation.
But I think jimbo-dem1992 brings up another possibility. Juror #6 reminds #3 to respect his elders. It might give #3 pause because his big life tragedy is that he feels his son didn't respect him.
It might be that he is getting a taste of his own medicine, and that gets to him.
It still seems a bit out of character to me, since #3 is otherwise presented as someone who never wavers from his intense condemnation of the defendant, until the very end.