Meet John Doe (1941) on Netflix
Passed19412h 2mComedyDramaRomance
Fired columnist Ann Mitchell prints a fake letter from an unemployed man named John Doe, who threatens suicide on Christmas Eve. When readers respond, her paper hires a tramp to play him.
- Netflix3.7/5
- IMDb7.6/1016,578 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes92%
Trailer
Plot summary
The Bulletin has new management, and columnist Ann Mitchell is among the staff let go to streamline the paper. Told to file one last column, she invents a letter from an unemployed man who signs himself John Doe and vows to jump from a building on Christmas Eve. Readers take the letter to heart, the rival Chronicle smells a fraud, and editor Henry Connell brings Ann back and lets her build the paper's sales around the nonexistent man. Men down on their luck crowd the office claiming authorship. Ann and Connell settle on Long John Willoughby, a former baseball player with an injured arm who needs money, and install him in a hotel suite as John Doe.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Meet John Doe (1941)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Frank Capra called Meet John Doe's ending its most challenging aspect: several endings were tried, the final one was simply the version he and his team were least dissatisfied with, and he suspected the trouble lay in something wrong earlier in the story.
- Gary Cooper was always Frank Capra's first choice to play John Doe, and he agreed to the part without reading a script because he had enjoyed their earlier collaboration, Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936), and wanted to work with Barbara Stanwyck.
- The hardbitten newspaper reporter was initially offered to Ann Sheridan, though the first choice for the role was turned down by Warner Bros. Pictures in a contract dispute, and Olivia de Havilland was similarly approached without success.
- Because its copyright was not renewed, Meet John Doe fell into the public domain in 1969 and has since been sold in numerous home video copies sourced from inferior quality prints, while the restored LoC print remained in storage.
