Meet John Doe
Posted By Travis LeBlanc On In North American New Right | Comments Disabled
[1]3,190 words
Along with Mr. Deeds Goes to Town and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Meet John Doe is the third installment in Frank Capra’s trilogy of “everyman versus the establishment” films. Starring Gary Cooper and Barbara Stanwyck, Meet John Doe is far from Frank Capra’s most celebrated work, but it is widely considered his most underrated. It’s now in the public domain [2].
Part of the reason why Meet John Doe is not as celebrated as Capra’s other films is the downer ending, which is at odds with the inspirational feelgood quality that people generally expect from a Frank Capra film. Meet John Doe is what Mr. Smith Goes to Washington would be if the bad guys had won in the end. There is also a degree more moral ambiguity to be found in Meet John Doe. Whereas Jefferson Smith was morally incorruptible and as innocent as a newborn baby, in Meet John Doe the protagonists are initially less than pure in their motives.
As much as Frank Capra is known for his saccharine-sweet feelgood stories such as It’s a Wonderful Life, in the early 1930s he went through an edgy phase where he dealt with some rather dark subject matter. Barbara Stanwyck was his main leading lady during this period. In 1930’s Ladies of Leisure [3], Stanwyck plays a “party girl” — old-timey slang for an escort — who falls for the son of a wealthy railroad tycoon, and domestic chaos ensues. In 1931’s The Miracle Woman [4], Stanwyck plays a fictionalized version of Aimee Semple McPherson [5], a massively popular radio evangelist who was reportedly a huge slut behind the scenes and whose career went into decline after she allegedly faked her own kidnapping in order to spend time with her lover.
[6]You can buy Trevor Lynch’s Classics of Right-Wing Cinema here [7].
Bleakest of all is the 1932 film Forbidden [8]. Based on a novel by Fannie Hurst — who also wrote Imitation of Life, which I reviewed at [9] Counter-Currents — Forbidden is about a woman who pulls a Katharine Hepburn: She forgoes marriage in favor of devoting her entire life to a married man before dying alone. Even Capra’s 1931 adventure film Dirigible [10] about explorers taking a zeppelin to the South Pole had an adultery subplot.
The edgy era of Capra’s career ended for good with It Happened One Night starring Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert, which was one of the most popular films of the decade and spawned the screwball comedy genre. Meet John Doe mixes Mr. Smith Goes to Washington’s inspirational elements with some of his earlier work’s darker aspects. The presence of Barbara Stanwyck, her first film with Capra in nine years, hints at this.
Meet John Doe opens with images of the American working man: factory workers strolling in for their shift, farmers sowing the fields, miners in their tunnels. Then we go to the offices of The Bulletin and meet Barbara Stanwyck’s character, Ann Mitchell. Mitchell is what was called a “sob sister,” a slang term for a female journalist. The term originated in the fact that while male journalists wrote about hard politics, female journalists tended to specialize in tearjerking human-interest stories. Alas, The Bulletin has just been purchased by oil millionaire D. B. Norton, who lays off several journalists — most of whom appear to be women.
Ann pleads with her boss, Henry Connell, to spare her job, and even offers to take a pay cut, but Henry tells her that
[i]t isn’t the money. We’re after circulation. What we need is fireworks. People who can hit with sledgehammers — start arguments.
Ann is obligated to write one more column before she leaves, so she invents a story that she hopes will create a degree of controversy. The column reads:
Below is a letter which reached my desk this morning. It’s a commentary on what we laughingly call the civilized world. “Dear Miss Mitchell: Four years ago I was fired out of my job. Since then I haven’t been able to get another one. At first, I was sore at the state administration because it’s on account of the slimy politics here we have all this unemployment. But in looking around, it seems the whole world’s going to pot, so in protest I’m going to commit suicide by jumping off the City Hall roof!” Signed, A disgusted American citizen, John Doe.” Editor’s note: If you ask this column, the wrong people are jumping off roofs.
The column sparks massive public interest. The Bulletin is flooded with letters and calls from readers wanting to know who this mysterious John Doe is. Many would like to give him a job, others want to give him free room and board, and a few women offer themselves up for marriage. At the same time, rival newspaper The Chronicle believes the letter is fake and suspects that it is an attack on the Governor by the Bulletin’s new politically ambitious owner, D.B. Norton.
Henry Connell has to call Ann back into the office and asks her to produce the John Doe letter, but she informs them that no such letter exists. The Bulletin is now in a bind; they published fake news. Henry’s initial plan is to claim that Joe Doe
came in here and I made him change his mind. “Bulletin editor saves John Doe’s life.” Why, it’s perfect. I’ll have Ned write it up.
Ann has a different idea:
ANN: Listen, you great big, wonderful genius of a newspaperman! You came down here to shoot some life into this dying paper, didn’t you? Well, the whole town’s curious about John Doe, and boom, just like that, you’re going to bury him. There’s enough circulation in that man to start a shortage in the ink market!
CONNELL: In what man?
ANN: John Doe.
CONNELL: What John Doe?
ANN: Our John Doe! The one I made up! Look, genius — Now, look. Suppose there was a John Doe, and he walked into this office. What would you do? Find him a job and forget about the whole business, I suppose! Not me! I’d have made a deal with him!
CONNELL: Deal?
ANN: Sure! When you get hold of a stunt that sells papers, you don’t drop it like a hot potato. Why, this is good for at least a couple of months. You know what I’d do? Between now and, let’s say, Christmas, when he’s gonna jump, I’d run a daily yarn starting with his boyhood, his schooling, his first job! A wide-eyed youngster facing a chaotic world. The problem of the average man, of all the John Does in the world. Now, then comes the drama. He meets discouragement. He finds the world has feet of clay. His ideals crumble. So what does he do? He decides to commit suicide in protest against the state of civilization. He thinks of the river! But no, no, he has a better idea. The City Hall. Why? Because he wants to attract attention. He wants to get a few things off his chest, and that’s the only way he can get himself heard.
CONNELLL: So?
ANN: So! So he writes me a letter and I dig him up. He pours out his soul to me, and from now on we quote: “I protest, by John Doe.” He protests against all the evils in the world: the greed, the lust, the hate, the fear, all of man’s inhumanity to man. Arguments will start. Should he commit suicide or should he not! People will write in pleading with him. But no! No, sir! John Doe will remain adamant! On Christmas Eve, hot or cold, he goes! See?
In the end, the Bulletin has no choice but to rehire Ann and go along with her scheme of manufacturing John Doe after rival paper the Chronicle accuses the letter of being fake and offers Ann $1,000 to say so. Fortunately for the Bulletin, a collection of hobos has assembled outside the office, all claiming to be John Doe. After interviewing several bums, in walks Long John Willoughby, played by Gary Cooper. Willoughby is a former Minor League Baseball player who has been unemployed since injuring his arm. Unlike the other, opportunistic hobos, Willoughby has not heard of the John Doe letter and only came because he heard that there was a job opening. Ann and Henry decide that Willoughby is the ideal John Doe. They give him $50 and put him up in a nice hotel while Ann writes a series of “I Protest, by John Doe” columns.
Then we meet Willoughby’s hobo friend The Colonel, played by Walter Brennan, who acts as the comic relief. The Colonel’s shtick is that he is a hobo supremacist: He believes the hobo lifestyle is superior to the bourgeois. In one of the most memorable scenes, he gives a speech on “helots”:
Beany: What’s a helot?
The Colonel: You’ve ever been broke, sonny?
Beany: Sure, mostly often.
The Colonel: All right. You’re walking along, not a nickel in your jeans, you’re free as the wind, nobody bothers ya. Hundreds of people pass you by in every line of business: shoes, hats, automobiles, radios, furniture, everything, and they’re all nice, lovable people, and they lets you alone, is that right? Then you get ahold of some dough, and what happens? All those nice, sweet, lovable people become helots, a lotta heels. They begin to creep up on ya, trying to sell ya something. They get long claws and they get a stranglehold on ya, and you squirm and you duck and you holler and you try to push them away, but you haven’t got the chance. They gots ya. First thing ya know, you own things, a car for instance. Now your whole life is messed up with a lot more stuff. You get license fees and number plates and gas and oil and taxes and insurance and identification cards and letters and bills and flat tires and dents and traffic tickets and motorcycle cops and tickets and courtrooms and lawyers and fines and . . . a million and one other things. What happens? You’re not the free and happy guy you used to be. You need to have money to pay for all those things, so you go after what the other fellas got. There you are, you’re a helot yourself.
With increasing public interest in John Doe, there are demands that he present himself, and so a radio broadcast is scheduled. Ann writes a scathing denunciation of system for John Doe to read, but after showing it to her mother, she tells Ann that there are already too many such speakers around and that she should have John Doe deliver a more positive message.
Using some of her father’s writings as her inspiration, Ann sets about writing new speech. At the same time, Willoughby is offered $5,000 to admit that the whole thing is a fake on the radio broadcast. He initially accepts, but by that point, he is already falling for Ann, and instead reads the script that was prepared for him:
I’m gonna talk about us: the average guys, the John Does. If anybody should ask you what the average John Doe is like, you couldn’t tell him, because he’s a million and one things. He’s Mr. Big and Mr. Small, he’s simple and he’s wise. He’s inherently honest, but he’s got a streak of larceny in his heart. He seldom walks up to a public telephone without shovin’ his finger into the slot to see if somebody left a nickel there. He’s the man the ads are written for. He’s the fella everybody sells things to. He’s Joe Doakes, the world’s greatest stooge and the world’s greatest strength. Yes, sir, yes, sir, we’re a great family, the John Does. We are the meek who are supposed to inherit the Earth. You’ll find us everywhere. We raise the crops, we dig the mines, work the factories, keep the books, fly the planes, and drive the buses, and when the cop yells, “Stand back there, you,” he means us: the John Does. We’ve existed since time began. We built the pyramids. We saw Christ crucified, pulled the oars for Roman emperors, sailed the boats for Columbus, retreated from Moscow with Napoleon, and froze with Washington at Valley Forge. Yes, sir, we’ve been in there dodging left hooks since before history began to walk. In our struggle for freedom, we’ve hit the canvas many a time, but we always bounced back because we’re the people — and we’re tough.
The message of the speech is that the John Does of the world need to stick together. Talk to your neighbors, help them out if they need it, find them a job if they don’t have one, foster a sense of community, and so on. The speech is well-received.
Willoughby is now conflicted. He could initially have been forgiven for going along with the fraud out of desperation: either be John Doe or starve. But then he turned down $5,000 to tell the truth — more than enough to stave off hunger and seek medical treatment for his pitching arm. Willoughby is no longer innocent, but a willing participant in the scam. He wants out of the whole business.
But what happens instead is that he meets people who were inspired by his speech and hears their testimonials. Neighbors are talking to each other, becoming friends, and helping each other out. What started as a publicity stunt turns into a grassroots movement. John Doe clubs start springing up across the country to put his ideas into action and foster a sense of local community. Here’s where the moral complexity of the whole John Doe business comes in: It’s fraud, but a force for good nonetheless. It’s fake and yet real at the same time. This also has significance within the context of the Great Depression, where everyone was waiting for the state to do something to lift up the people. John Doe’s message is for the John Does of the world to lift themselves up through community and cooperation.
[11]You can buy Trevor Lynch’s Part Four of the Trilogy here. [12]
Seeing the good that the John Doe project is doing resolves the moral quandary in Willoughby’s mind, and he throws himself into the role completely. John Doe goes on a speaking tour, and the Bulletin’s own D. B. Norton starts pouring money into the establishment of John Doe clubs — ostensibly because it is a noble cause, although we find out later that he has more cynical motives.
A massive John Doe convention is planned, and 15,000 John Doe Club members are expected to attend. D. B. Norton summons Ann to his house and lavishes her with expensive gifts before laying out his plan. Ann is to write a speech for John Doe in which he will announce the creation of a third party, the John Doe Party:
Devoted entirely to the interests of all the John Does all over the country. Which practically means, 90% of the voters. He will also announce the third party’s candidate for the presidency, a man whom he, personally, recommends. A great humanitarian; the best friend the John Does have.
Norton is, of course, referring to himself. We learn later that he is a fascist and no friend of the John Does at all, as he tells his rich friends:
These are daring times, Mr. Barrington. We’re coming to a new order of things. There’s been too much talk going on in this country. Too many concessions have been made! What the American people need is an iron hand!
On the night that Willoughby is to deliver the speech, Henry Connell tips Willoughby off to what is in its text and about how Norton is a bad egg. Willoughby is outraged, as the John Doe movement is supposed to be explicitly non-political; in fact, politicians are not allowed to join John Doe clubs. Willoughby goes to Norton’s residence and tells him off, saying that he will blow the lid off his schemes. This turns out to be a fatal mistake, as Norton has already made preparations for such an eventuality. As John Doe is about to give his big speech, the venue is stormed by newsboys handing out a special edition of the Bulletin exposing John Doe as a hoax. The audience then turns against Willoughby.
Willoughby concludes that the only way to rehabilitate the John Doe movement is for him to prove his sincerity by carrying through with the character’s original threat to jump off City Hall on Christmas Eve. Once on the rooftop, he is met by several people who attempt to dissuade him. D. B. Norton is there and says that his newspaper will cover up his death and have him buried in Potter’s Field, a place where they bury corpses whose identity are unknown. Willoughby has prepared for this by mailing a letter to Henry Connell. Ann shows up and tries to talk him off the ledge, also to no avail. It is only when a gaggle of John Doe Club members shows up and tells Willoughby that they still believe in him that he relents.
The movie ends with the hero walking off into an uncertain future. Will he be able to revive the movement? You don’t know.
Capra filmed four endings to Meet John Doe, but the first three tested poorly with audiences. The other three endings were [13]:
- John Doe jumps off the roof. The movie ends with the Colonel cradling the dead Doe in his arms.
- D. B. Norton apologizes for destroying the John Doe movement and offers to publish Doe’s suicide note in his newspaper. Norton’s last remark is “Merry Christmas.”
- After Doe is exposed, the film ends with Henry’s newspaper editor at the police station mumbling, “Well, boys, chalk up another one to the Pontius Pilates.”
- The canonical ending came from a suggestion from a test audience member to have the John Does talk him off the ledge.
The film has some relevance for the dissident Right today in that it shows that the establishment is willing to destroy any emergent movement that it can no co-opt. In this case, the John Doe movement wasn’t even a threat to the establishment. It was simply about people helping each other. It also asks deeper questions about whether a lie can be a force for good. In that sense, it recalls QAnon. QAnon is nonsense from beginning to end, but it did bring a lot of people together who made friends and formed communities. The establishment tried to crush that as well, even though its political impotence was fairly obvious.
Meet John Doe was Capra’s best “everyman movie,” as it wasn’t just about one everyman but the very concept of the everyman. Alas, multiculturalism has destroyed the concept of an everyman, which only made sense in a white-supermajority country. Even in a mostly-white population, people like to believe that they are unique, and would be offended if you suggested that are an avatar for everyone.