Cast overview, first billed only: | |||
Gary Cooper | ... | 'Long John' Willoughby | |
Barbara Stanwyck | ... | Ann Mitchell | |
Edward Arnold | ... | D.B. Norton | |
Walter Brennan | ... | The 'Colonel' | |
Spring Byington | ... | Mrs. Mitchell | |
James Gleason | ... | Connell | |
Gene Lockhart | ... | Mayor Lovett | |
Rod La Rocque | ... | Ted Sheldon | |
Irving Bacon | ... | Beany | |
Regis Toomey | ... | Bert | |
J. Farrell MacDonald | ... | 'Sourpuss' | |
Warren Hymer | ... | Angelface | |
Harry Holman | ... | Mayor Hawkins | |
Andrew Tombes | ... | Spencer | |
Pierre Watkin | ... | Hammett |
As a parting shot, fired reporter Ann Mitchell prints a fake letter from unemployed "John Doe," who threatens suicide in protest of social ills. The paper is forced to rehire Ann and hires John Willoughby to impersonate "Doe." Ann and her bosses cynically milk the story for all it's worth, until the made-up "John Doe" philosophy starts a whole political movement. At last everyone, even Ann, takes her creation seriously...but publisher D.B. Norton has a secret plan. Written by Rod Crawford <puffinus@u.washington.edu>
Anyone who thinks Frank Capra was good for nothing but sentimental schmaltz should check out "Meet John Doe" as evidence that he frequently hid a bitter pill at the center of his candied Americana.
The allure of Barbara Stanwyck is what drew me to "Meet John Doe" in the first place, but I was disappointed both by her performance (uncharacteristically frantic) and by the fact that she drops out for large portions of the film. Instead, I was impressed with Gary Cooper, who delivers a tour de force performance as an average Joe who agrees to pose as a representative of the common man as part of a scheme to get back at a newspaper mogul and then finds that he begins to believe the lines he's given to recite when the scheme blows up and becomes something huge involving big business and political candidates. The film feels incredibly prescient at this moment in time, because it's so much about how easily the average working-class American is manipulated by the media and is at the mercy of rich politicians who don't give a damn about their plight but will tell them whatever they want to hear to get elected. The movie was meant as a rallying cry for good decent people to ban together and force the positive change their elected leaders and the media deny them, and ends on a hopeful note that this is actually possible. But again, watching it at this specific moment in time, it's hard to feel anything but melancholy that our country feels further away than ever from realizing the idealism Capra so earnestly believed in.
In addition to Cooper and Stanwyck, the film boasts an impressive performance by Edward Arnold, whose character is representative of every manipulative, greedy politician to ever darken the American landscape, and able support from character actors James Gleason and Walter Brennan. Richard Connell and Robert Presnell were Oscar nominated for writing the film's original story.
Grade: A-