Meet John Doe

UPC: 714151553260

Studio: Master Tone

MPAA Rating: NR   Contains:[Suitable for Children]

Summary: 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, Rovi

Category: Comedy Drama

Awards: Best Original Story – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Best Original Story – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Best Acting – National Board of Review 10 Best Films – Film Daily

Meet John Doe

Release Date: 01/01/1899

Region: USA & territories, Canada

Bruce Eder

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, Rovi

Cast and Crew: Aldrich Bowker  Actor 
Jack Cheatham  Actor 
Vernon Dent  Actor 
Pat Flaherty  Actor 
The Hall Johnson Choir  Actor 
Eddie Kane  Actor 
Edward McWade  Actor 
Wedgewood Nowell  Actor 
Hal Price  Actor 
Fredrik Vogeding  Actor 
Maris Wrixon  Actor 
James Harrison  Actor 
Evelyn Dockson  Actor 
Frank Fanning  Actor 
Bennie Bartlett  Actor 
Lucia Carroll  Actor 
Billy Curtis  Actor 
Johnny Fern  Actor 
William Gould  Actor 
Max Hoffman, Jr.  Actor 
Frank Jaquet  Actor 
Lafe [Lafayette] McKee  Actor 
Jack Mower  Actor 
Susan Peters  Actor 
Wyndham Standing  Actor 
Don Turner  Actor 
Tom Wilson  Actor 
Ed Williams  Actor 
Howard Chase  Actor 
Sada Simmons  Actor 
Mildred Coles  Actor 
Edward Earle  Actor 
William Forrest  Actor 
John Hamilton  Actor 
Frank Mayo  Actor 
James Millican  Actor 
Paul Panzer  Actor 
Henry Roquemore  Actor 
Cyril Thornton  Actor 
Lillian West  Actor 
Charles McAvoy  Actor 
Eddie Graham  Actor 
Frank Austin  Actor 
Carl Ekberg  Actor 
Jack Gardner  Actor 
Forrester Harvey  Actor 
John Ince  Actor 
Joe McGuinn  Actor 
Clark Morgan  Actor 
George Pembroke  Actor 
Cliff Saum  Actor 
Lotta Williams  Actor 
Stanley Price  Actor 
Bessie Wade  Actor 
Don Roberts  Actor 
Suzanne Carnahan  Actor 
Margaret Crane  Actor 
Paul Everton  Actor 
Edward Hearn  Actor 
Selmar Jackson  Actor 
Tom McGuire  Actor 
Gene Morgan  Actor 
Bob Perry  Actor 
Walter Soderling  Actor 
Charles Trowbridge  Actor 
Bernard Wheeler  Actor 
Earl Bunn  Actor 
Sally Sage  Actor 
Mary Benoit  Actor 
Glen Cavender  Actor 
Harry Davenport  Actor 
Eddie Fetherstone  Actor 
Mack Gray  Actor 
Carlotta Jelm  Actor 
Hank Mann  Actor 
James McNamara  Actor 
Forbes Murray  Actor 
Elsa Peterson  Actor 
Edwin Stanley  Actor 
Guy Usher  Actor 
Jack Wise  Actor 
Al Lloyd  Actor 
Floyd Criswell  Actor 
Emma Tansey  Actor 
Sidney Bracey  Actor 
Edmund Cobb  Actor 
Ann Doran  Actor 
Bess Flowers  Actor 
Alfred Hall  Actor 
Stuart Holmes  Actor 
Edward Keane  Actor 
Alphonse Martell  Actor 
Claire Meade  Actor 
Garry Owen  Actor 
Jack Richardson  Actor 
Tina Thayer  Actor 
Richard Kipling  Actor 
Inez Gay  Actor 
Mrs. Wilfred North  Actor 
Fritzi Brunette  Actor 
Gary Cooper  Actor 
Sarah Edwards  Actor 
Charles French  Actor 
Kenneth Harlan  Actor 
Melvin Lang  Actor 
Larry McGrath  Actor 
Frank Moran  Actor 
Edward Peil Sr.  Actor 
Thomas W. Ross  Actor 
Leo White  Actor 
George Melford  Actor 
Frank Meredith  Actor 
Isabelle La Mal  Actor 
Frank Capra  Director 
Frank Capra  Producer 
Robert R. Presnell, Sr.  Screenwriter 
Robert Riskin  Screenwriter 
Dimitri Tiomkin  Composer (Music Score) 
Richard Connell  Screenwriter 
Gary Cooper  Actor 
Barbara Stanwyck  Actor 
Edward Arnold  Actor 
Walter Brennan  Actor 
Spring Byington  Actor 
James Gleason  Actor 
Gene Lockhart  Actor 
Rod La Rocque  Actor 
Irving Bacon  Actor 
Regis Toomey  Actor 
John Farrell MacDonald  Actor 
Warren Hymer  Actor 
Harry Holman  Actor 
Andrew Tombes  Actor 
Pierre Watkin  Actor 
Stanley Andrews  Actor 
Mitchell Lewis  Actor 
Charles Wilson  Actor 
Vaughan Glaser  Actor 
Sterling Holloway  Actor 
Mike J. Frankovich  Actor 
Knox Manning  Actor 
John B. Hughes  Actor 

Country: USA