About
Frank Capra followed up his masterpiece Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939) with this story of an embittered newspaper reporter (Barbara Stanwyck) who turns a homeless man (Gary Cooper) into a media sensation by writing, falsely, that he is planning to publicly kill himself on Christmas Eve in protest of society’s callousness. Dramatic, tender, funny, and still eerily relevant, Meet John Doe is on the American Film Institute’s Top 100 films list.
Historical Note
Known for his ability to make politically charged feel-good films, Capra went on to create the Why We Fight documentary series for the U.S. Government during World War II, still considered required viewing for any aspiring propagandist.
