Review of Meet John Doe (1941) by Philip O — 25 Jul 2008

As a filmmaker, Frank Capra has always straddled the line between overt sentimentality and pitch black, dour pessimism. His problem, though, is that too often his films lack balance. When he goes too far from one extreme to the other, his films can be an utter bore due to their saccharine, preachy nature ("Mr. Deeds Goes to Town," "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington," "Lost Horizon"). But when he gets the balance right, the results are near perfection ("It's a Wonderful Life," "Arsenic and Old Lace"). Arguably one of his best films is the seldom seen "Meet John Doe" from 1941 featuring Gary Cooper and Barbary Stanwyck.

I first saw this film in 1994 during college when our cable system first started carrying Turner Classic Movies. In fact, I think it may be the first film that I saw on TCM. I loved it at the time but, for whatever reason, I hadn't watched it since. The other night I bought a cheap DVD copy and 13 years later I'd have to say that the film is even better than I remember it. What strikes me most about it is how modern the film is, particularly the second half which gets very, very dark, and at times is almost documentary-like in its style. The film's first half is signature Capra--pure cornball--but as the film progresses, the corny humor gradually dissipates and a shockingly good (and shockingly well-shaded) morality play and character study emerges. No one in this film comes across as all good or all bad. Even the film's antagonist, millionaire tycoon D.B. Norton (Edward Arnold in a terrifically understated performance) is presented as a well-rounded figure, more amoral than immoral (the one weakness of "It's a Wonderful Life" in my opinion was that that film's antagonist, Mr. Potter, was played as being so broadly and scene-stealingly evil that he almost became a cartoon compared to James Stewart's nuanced performance as George Bailey). And the protagonists (Cooper and Stanwyck), despite their ultimate good intentions, are, nevertheless, shown to be extremely morally-compromised individuals (take special note of the scene about 2/3 through the film when Gary Cooper comments on Stanwyck's bracelet and how acidic his reading of the line is).

The film itself, a story about a newspaper circulation stunt gone awry, is essentially an anti-fascist warning (it was made just before the U.S. entered WWII and countries across Europe were either turning authoritarian or fighting back the military advances of authoritarian regimes), having been released at a time when fascist tendencies were beginning to bubble to the surface in our own country after the population had been suffering through more than a decade of the Great Depression. The portrait it paints, never preachy and so relevant today more than 60 years later, shows just how easy it is for some people to succumb to the seductive powers and easy answers that fascist and authoritarian leaders offer up to the easily manipulated.

"Meet John Doe" is a terrific film. It's been in the pubic domain for years, so cheap DVD copies are easy to find. But because it is in the public domain, no studio has been taking care of and/or restoring the film, so the copies available are usually pretty shoddy. Still, no matter what the condition, it's a film I highly recommend seeing.

(For anyone who has seen the Coen Brothers' highly underrated 1994 film "The Hudsucker Proxy," you might note that that film was an homage to Frank Capra, particularly his films "Mr. Deeds Goes to Town," "It's a Wonderful Life," and this film, "Meet John Doe." After watching "John Doe," it might be worth your while to watch "Hudsucker" again to see the Capra influences.).