As a last act of rebellion for being fired from her newspaper, Ann creates a letter from a man who is going to kill himself on Christmas Eve to protest the state of civilization. Once the phony letter is published and read, there are outcries from the public in support of the "John Doe" who supposedly wrote it.

Ann and the editor hire an unemployed baseball player, Cooper, to pretend to be John Doe so as to keep the story alive. Once John Doe gives a speech, written by Ann, an entire movement of average Joes spring up around the country. The new owner of the newspaper jumps on this opportunity and decides to use John Doe's popularity as a springboard for political gain.

Meet John Doe contains elements from many of Capra's better movies. The newspaper reporter falling in love with the person they are writing about is straight from It Happened One Night. The political pontificating is from Mr. Smith goes to Washington,. The movie's Christmas Eve suicide attempt is directly from It's A Wonderful Life. However, all of those movies are much, much better than this one.

Meet John Doe is so heavy handed in it's message that it is like getting hit over the head with a baseball bat while someone is yelling in your ear to love your neighbor and country! There is one light scene were Gary Cooper plays a pantomime game of baseball in his hotel room. Unfortunately, it is just one brief moment in a series of melodramatic scenes.

The best this movie has to offer is the great Gary Cooper. Man, is he good! My favorite movie of his is The Pride of the Yankees (1942). In that movie, he represents an average Joe without being over the top about it. The best scene Cooper has in this movie is where he makes his first public speech. His performance is wonderfully subtle as you watch him go from being nervous and uncomfortable to being taken in by the very speech he is reading for the first time.

Cooper is great and Stanwyck is adequate. Capra however, has been better in many other films.

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