The meek can only inherit the earth when the John Doe's start loving their neighbours.
After crafting Mr. Deeds Goes to Town and Mr. Smith Goes To Washington for Columbia, Capra quit and made this third film about an average Joe who is thrust into a powerful world where exploitation is high on the agenda. Thus, in true Capra style the story unfolds to a customary flip flop triumph.
Ann Mitchell (Barbara Stanwyck) is a struggling journalist who gets fired from her newspaper job by new editor Henry Connell (James Gleason). By way of venting her frustrations she writes in her stinging last article about a man called John Doe who is tired of being pushed around and held back by the big bosses. She finishes the piece by claiming that Doe will commit suicide on Christmas Eve by leaping off of the roof of city hall. The public react to the letter with tremendous heart and Doe becomes a champion of the people. Enter a certain unemployed minor league pitcher named Long John Willoughby (Gary Cooper), who down on his luck is prepared to be the mythical John Doe.
In true Capra form there's a jovial glee pumping through the pic for the first half, luring us in with characterisations that charm us personified. A make believe baseball game is delightful (the actors superb), the attraction between Doe and Mitchell believable and understandable, but all the time there's a cynicism hovering like a conglomerate cancer, making us wonder if this Capracorn has bitten off more than it can chew?
The Sourpuss Smithers Speech.
Kapow! Here's Capra in full effect, tantalising and daring us not to be swept away with his call to arms for humanity to exist on a par with each other. Observe as the soda jerk gives it his all and Cooper the magnificent shifts between joy and sheepish shame purely on visual ticks alone. Pic has now shifted into a dark territory, trawling dark territories that has often been forgotten where Capra is concerned. Whilst arguably not being up with the best Capra films in his armoury, it is however one of his smartest. The portrayal of the human spirit in many guises is stark and poignant, whilst thematically Capra got his point over about the unsavoury elements blossoming in America.
The cast are nailed on watchable, Cooper as Doe has the right amount of sympathy and guts to draw the audience into Doe's mindset, and in one rousing address he has the viewers in the palm of his hand. Stanwyck as Mitchell delivers a multi stranded emotional turn that calls for convincing thesping, which she delivers in spades, while the support cast are all solid with the stand out a bizarrely unnerving Edward Arnold as D B. Norton, now here is a man wishing to be a dictator if ever there was one! 9/10
