Two historic programs thought lost are found

A landmark television drama thought lost for 49 years and the only radio coverage known to exist of the 1935 trial of the man convicted of kidnapping and murdering Charles Lindbergh’s baby son were both recently discovered and will be added to the collection of the Museum of Television & Radio, museum officials announced Tuesday.

Both programs were found by the same enterprising documentarian, Joseph Consentino, during his research for a History Channel project. The programs’ recovery is a twist worthy of a museum exhibit in itself.

Reginald Rose’s Emmy Award-winning original drama, “Twelve Angry Men,” which aired live in 1954 on “Studio One,” has been one of the most sought-after programs by the museum since it opened in 1976. That year, CBS donated the first half of the program to the museum. Considered the only known copy available, the kinescope featured the full opening with commercials.

“It has always been identified as one of the most outstanding early television dramas, specifically written by one of the great writers of television,” said Robert M. Batscha, president of the Museum of Television & Radio. “The joke was we have six angry men and we are looking for six more!”

The taut drama about 12 male jurors deciding the fate of a young man accused of murder starred Edward Arnold, John Beal, Walter Abel, Bart Burns, Robert Cummings, Norman Feld, Paul Hartman, Lee Philips, Joseph Sweeney, Franchot Tone, George Voskovec and Will West. The production won Emmys for script, direction (Franklin Schaffner) and single performance (Cummings).

Museum curator Ron Simon said that he’s been trying to find the second part of the show since he began working at the museum in the early ‘80s. “I contacted every person connected with the TV production,” he says. He even talked with Henry Fonda, who starred in and produced the 1957 film version, as well as its director Sidney Lumet, hoping that they had a kinescope. “We had leads, but most people mistook the film version for the TV versions,” Simon said.

The radio broadcasts of the “Trial of the Century” of Bruno Hauptmann feature the daily accounts of New York defense attorney Samuel Leibowitz, who was known for his defense in the Scottsboro Boys trial. None of the sensational trial’s radio broadcasts were known to exist until now. WHN Radio had hired Leibowitz to comment on the trial, and during the course of the five hours’ worth of recordings he concentrates on the evidence, the jury’s behavior, the use of cameras in the courtroom and women as jurors.

Leibowitz’s adult children, Robert and Marjorie, were the source for both the “Twelve Angry Men” TV broadcast and the Hauptmann trial radio recording, both of which were brought to the attention of the museum by Consentino. He had found the material while doing research for an upcoming History Channel documentary he was making on the attorney and judge.

“He was at the son’s in New York and going through his archives looking for photographs. He was trying to get as much visual and audio information as possible and he found in the son’s possession the trial commentary,” Simon said.

The copy of “Twelve Angry Men” was found in Marjorie Leibowitz’s house in California while Consentino was searching through her archives for footage of her father. “He wasn’t quite sure what it was,” Simon said. “But he contacted us and we validated it.”

It seems that Leibowitz had requested a copy of the show from CBS in 1954. Though the kinescope features the complete hourlong drama, it doesn’t contain any commercials. So the museum is busy reconstructing “Twelve Angry Men,” using elements from both prints.

Both “Twelve Angry Men” and the “Trial of the Century” radio broadcasts will be featured at the museum’s Beverly Hills and New York locations from May 23 to July 6 and will become part of the institution’s permanent collection.