Meet John Doe

I have to admit that I was surprised to find this lesser known film to be Frank Capra's best, excluding of course, It's a Wonderful Life. Yeah, yeah, he's sentimental. That should be a given. However, unlike the overbearing and prechy Mr. Deeds Goes to Town and the ocassional misfires of Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Capra finds the right balance between his sentiment and his pathos. Gary Cooper, in one of his best performances, once again is the everyman John Doe who, thanks to reporter Barbara Stanwyck (in one of her best performances), gets an outlet for the injustices of depression era society and becomes a spokesman for the common man. Except, he was hired, and everything he says was scripted (by Stanwyck), and the media mogul that he works for may have ulterior motivations for Cooper's national platform. Soon, though, his message turns from anger to hope and inspiration. It's actually fairly complex how it all works together, but I found it to be an unusually moving film. It's "love your neighbor" ethic never comes across as simplistic as it could have (and probably should have), and there's even a "we're the people" speech that tops the more famous example from The Grapes of Wrath. It may be the most Dickensian of all of Capra's films. I don't necessarily think that Capra was a great director, certainly not one of the greatest, but with this and It's a Wonderful Life, he made at least two great films.