...with the exception of Walter Brennan as a radio repairman who is almost bottom billed.
Twelve people are summoned to a large estate at the same time on the same stormy night - all promised either a job or a sale of some sort. When they all arrive they realize that they were on the same jury during a murder trial several months before, and that they are in the murdered man's house! At first they think that a friend of the man that they convicted has brought them there for some kind of revenge, but then the lights go out and a shot rings out. When the lights come on a man - not a member of the jury - is dead on the floor. The gun is on the floor too. The person who summoned them all there, attorney J.E.Burton, says that the gun has no prints on it and must have been fired by somebody who wore gloves. Since Helen Mason, one of the jurors, was the only one wearing gloves, Burton asks the former jurors if they believe that she did it, and they all say yes. He then reveals that the entire thing was an act to show them that his friend awaiting the gallows was convicted by them on circumstantial evidence and is also innocent. He has summoned them all there to sign a petition to delay his friend's execution so he can have time to find the real killers. The jurors seem agreeable to this idea, but then it is discovered that the man on the floor really is dead! This is the beginning of a very interesting mystery. We have one set of cops arrive to investigate the murder, then another pair, but one of the pair are not cops! There are secret passage ways, gangsters, a body that has been dug up and put in the garage that for some reason nobody seems to find strange, and what seems like endless chases around the estate. And then there is the caretaker who inherited the estate when the man was murdered, but was cleared of any suspicion. The thing is, the caretaker has not really changed his lifestyle. He still just does all of the chores himself and acts like he is still laboring for his long dead master.
Almost none of this involves the original twelve jurors who just stand around, unable to leave because officially they are all suspects in at least one murder. You see, there is another murder later on. There are several humorous scenes interspersed with the drama such as a man knocking on the door in the middle of all of this saying his car has broken down. The person who answers the door says "You don't want to come in here we have an epidemic of murders going on". The man agrees that he'd rather fix his own car and goes back out into the storm.
So why aren't I giving this 7 or 8 stars? Because the cast is so completely anonymous and physically nondescript that it is very hard to tell one cast member from another, especially in the second half when everybody involved in the action is a tall man of medium build between 35-45. I had to rewind several times to figure out who was who! You could practically cast John Darrow as John Darrow, because it's not like we're dealing with Cary Grant here! I'd recommend this, but not when you are tired and cannot give it all of your attention.
