Themes: Ladder to the Top, Righting the Wronged, Members of the Press
Main Cast: Gary Cooper, Barbara Stanwyck, Edward Arnold, Walter Brennan, Spring Byington
Release Year: 1941
Country: US
Run Time: 123 minutes
MPAA Rating: NR
Plot
The first of director Frank Capra's independent productions (in partnership with Robert Riskin), Meet John Doe begins with the end of reporter Ann Mitchell's (Barbara Stanwyck) job. Fired as part of a downsizing move, she ends her last column with an imaginary letter written by "John Doe." Angered at the ill treatment of America's little people, the fabricated Doe announces that he's going to jump off City Hall on Christmas Eve. When the phony letter goes to press, it causes a public sensation. Seeking to secure her job, Mitchell talks her managing editor (James Gleason) into playing up the John Doe letter for all it's worth; but to ward off accusations from rival papers that the letter was bogus, they decide to hire someone to pose as John Doe: a ballplayer-turned-hobo (Gary Cooper), who'll do anything for three squares and a place to sleep. "John Doe" and his traveling companion The Colonel (Walter Brennan) are ensconced in a luxury hotel while Mitchell continues churning out chunks of John Doe philosophy. When newspaper publisher D.B. Norton (Edward Arnold), a fascistic type with presidential aspirations, decides to use Doe as his ticket to the White House, he puts Doe on the radio to deliver inspirational speeches to the masses -- ghost-written by Mitchell, who, it is implied, has become the publisher's mistress. The central message of the Doe speeches is "Love Thy Neighbor," though, conceived in cynicism, the speeches strike so responsive a chord with the public that John Doe clubs pop up all over the country. Believing he is working for the good of America, Cooper agrees to front the National John Doe Movement -- until he discovers that Norton plans to exploit Doe in order to create a third political party and impose a virtual dictatorship on the country. The last of Capra's "social statement" films, Meet John Doe posted a profit, although Capra and Riskin were forced to dissolve their corporation due to excessive taxes. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Review
Meet John Doe is the Frank Capra movie that spoke most directly to the mood of the United States at the time that it was made. It's a fundamentally pessimistic film, without a positive resolution, and also an astonishingly mature movie -- virtually groundbreaking as a "message" movie aimed at a mainstream audience. Appearing in 1940, it closed out a decade that had been dominated by despair, disillusionment, dislocation (economic and personal), and desperation, a period characterized by a reliance on often inept government officials or duplicitous would-be leaders. All of these elements are present in Meet John Doe from its opening scene (a mass layoff at a newspaper), and they get addressed over and over again as the plot unfolds. The movie also had the courage to put some very attractive stars -- Gary Cooper and Barbara Stanwyck -- in some very unattractive roles, as two people putting over a huge fraud on a public that trusts them. It wasn't considered a very successful film in its own time, being a little too dark and mature amid the ominous reality of the European war being waged at the time, but it is probably the best of Capra's "message" pictures and his best slice-of-life drama other than It Happened One Night. One scene, in which Cooper's Long John Willoughby tries to address the crowd and is cut off, was mimicked (some would say perverted) in real life during the 1980 presidential campaign, when Ronald Reagan defiantly resisted being cut off during the New Hampshire debates. It was life imitating art, and Reagan played it even better than Cooper did in the movie. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide
Stephen Goosson - Art Director, Natalie Visart - Costume Designer, Arthur S. Black, Jr. - First Assistant Director, Frank Capra - Director, Dan Mandell - Editor, Dimitri Tiomkin - Composer (Music Score), Leo F. Forbstein - Musical Direction/Supervision, George Barnes - Cinematographer, Frank Capra - Producer, Jack Cosgrove - Special Effects, C.A. Riggs - Sound/Sound Designer, Robert R. Presnell, Sr. - Screen Story, Richard Connell - Screen Story, Robert R. Presnell, Sr. - Screenwriter, Robert Riskin - Screenwriter, Richard Connell - Screenwriter
The film was screenwriter Robert Riskin's last collaboration with Capra. The screenplay was derived from a 1939 film treatment, titled "The Life and Death of John Doe," written by Richard Connell and Robert Presnell who would go on to be the recipients of the film's sole Academy Awards nomination for Best Original Story. The treatment was based upon Connell's 1922 Century Magazine story titled "A Reputation."[1]
Gary Cooper was always Frank Capra's first choice to play John Doe. Cooper had agreed to the part without reading a script for two reasons: he had enjoyed working with Capra on their earlier collaboration, Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936) and he wanted to work with Barbara Stanwyck. The role of the hardbitten news reporter, however, was initially offered to Ann Sheridan, but the first choice for the role had been turned down by Warner Bros. due to a contract dispute, and Olivia de Havilland was simalrily contacted, albeit unsuccessfully.[2]
Plot
Infuriated at being laid off from her job as a newspaper columnist from The New Bulletin, Ann Mitchell (Barbara Stanwyck) prints a fake letter from the unemployed "John Doe," threatening suicide in protest of society's ills. When the note causes a sensation, the newspaper is forced to rehire Mitchell. After reviewing a number of derelicts who have shown up at the paper claiming to have penned the original suicide letter, Ann and Henry Connell (James Gleason) decide to hire John Willoughby (Gary Cooper), a former baseball player and tramp who is in need of money to repair his injured arm, to play John Doe.
The Doe philosophy spreads across the country, developing into a political movement, with financial support from the newspaper's publisher, D.B. Norton (Edward Arnold), who plans to channel the support for Doe into support for his own political ambitions.
When Willoughby, who has come to believe in the Doe philosophy himself, realizes that he is being used, he tries to expose the plot, but is stymied in his attempts to talk to a nationwide radio audience at a rally, and then exposed as a fake by Norton (who claims to have been deceived, like everyone else, by the staff of the newspaper). Frustrated by his failure, Willoughby intends to commit suicide by jumping from the roof of the City Hall on Christmas Eve, as in the original John Doe letter. Only the intervention of Mitchell and followers of the John Doe clubs persuades him to renege on his threat to kill himself. At this point in the movie, a reference to Jesus Christ is made, that a historical "John Doe" has already died for the sake of humanity. The film ends with Connell turning to Norton and saying, "There you are, Norton! The people! Try and lick that!"
Meet John Doe was dramatized as a radio play on the September 28, 1941 broadcast of The Screen Guild Theater, starring Gary Cooper, Barbara Stanwyck and Edward Arnold in their original roles.
A musical stage version of the film, written and composed by Andrew Gerle, was produced by Ford's Theatre in Washington, DC, from 16 March to 20 May2007 featuring Heidi Blickenstaff as Ann Mitchell and James Moye as John Willoughby/John Doe. Donna Lynne Champlin had previously appeared as Ann Mitchell in workshop versions of the show.
Bollywood made a remake of the same movie as Main Azaad Hoon
