I'm glad I didn't meet John Doe

Frank Capra’s Meet John Doe (1941) must be one of the most unlikely Hollywood stories. I’m astonished it ever survived the initial review of the script.

To summarise, a young ambitious journalist, Ann Mitchell (Barbara Stanwyck) creates a fictional character, under the pseudonym John Doe, who is going to commit suicide as a protest against social injustices (these social injustices are not specified in detail anywhere in the movie). Her newspaper goes along with the idea and hires a down and out to impersonate John Doe – none other than Gary Cooper. The whole idea flourishes and becomes a political movement. At that point the agenda is hijacked by the newspaper owner, D B Norton, for the purposes of launching his own presidential bid. At the last movement, the John Doe surrogate turns away from suicide and takes over his destiny as the real John Doe, running a populist party.

Where are the holes in this story?

Firstly, the difference between Ann Mitchell and D B Norton are not so clear to me. Both of them are flagrantly prepared to exploit a down-and-out to promote their newspaper (initially), with the idea of social justice distinctly secondary. The journalist wins back her job by a coup – writing the John Doe article without consulting anyone. 

Secondly, perhaps more fundamentally, as David Thompson points out, there are distinctly fascist undertones in the idea of a single leader being able to create and built a political party, of whatever hue. It is clear by the end of the film that the “people” (as identified by this film, a small group from a rural area who in a moving cameo represent neighbourly folk everywhere). No blacks or single women, of course.

There are uncanny echoes of the contemporary political situation in the US. F D Roosevelt (who Wikipedia tells me is often rated as one of the three greatest US presidents) stood for election in 1940 on a peace platform, while having a clear intention to take the US into the War. His 1936 election campaign was unashamedly populist. Campaigning against “economic royalists”, he stated “I welcome their hatred. I should like to have it said of my administration, that in it the forces of selfishness and of lust for power met their match”. This is just the kind of vague populism that we encounter in Meet John Doe. There are never any examples of specific social injustice, and the only positive recommendations seem to be nicer to your neighbours. The above quote is taken from Jackson Lears’ review of a recent biography of FDR.

Unfortunately, Mr Lears then continues the review above by stating: “It [the speech by FDR in 1936] was the rhetorical high point of American populism – the genuine article, as opposed to the contemporary right-wing counterfeit”. Meet John Doe is I think a clear example of how easy it is to manufacture such a counterfeit. John Doe is selected quite blatantly as the most attractive man among all the tramps applying for the post. In other words, Gary Cooper is anything but John Doe: he’s anything but average. Did Capra not think for a moment that having a physical god addressed by a small group of John Doe Club members, all of them looking like losers, slightly jars? That the whole John Doe initiative is not run by D B Norton but by the chilling journalist Barbara Stanwyck who makes every speech up, and successfully manipulates an innocent and not very intelligent (but stunningly beautiful) Gary Cooper.

Incidentally, the film contains what I think is the worst acting I have ever seen from Barbara Stanwyck. In the final scene of the film, she flings herself at Gary Cooper and begs him not to throw himself off the top of the building. He tears and emotionalism are utterly out of keeping with her character; she looks unconvincing; he believes she is in the pay of D B Norton and not to be trusted. After all, if he dies, she loses her job – she has a vested interest in keeping him alive. Not a very edifying moment for the movies.