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Auction History Result

Lot #: #261 MEET JOHN DOE 1sheet41 Cooper, Stanwyck

Date Sold 12/16/2003
Sold For: Login or Register to see sold price.
Appears in Vintage Hollywood Posters 6
CATALOG SOLD OUT

The image at right appears in the auction catalog we published as shown above and was sold long ago and we do NOT have it available for purchase.



Original Vintage Theatrical Linenbacked Folded One-Sheet Movie Poster (measures 27" x 41") (Learn More)

Meet John Doe, the classic 1941 Frank Capra political populist romantic newspaper journalism mistaken identity melodrama (about a female reporter who writes a fictional story, which she presents as fact, about a man who is planning to commit suicide in protest of the world's treatment of downtrodden people; when the column is a giant hit, she must find a man to portray the writer and hires ex-baseball player Gary Cooper) starring Gary Cooper (in the title role as John Doe), Barbara Stanwyck, Edward Arnold, Walter Brennan, Spring Byington, James Gleason, Gene Lockhart, Rod La Rocque, Sterling Holloway, Irving Bacon, Regis Toomey, J. Farrell MacDonald, and Ann Doran. Note that in the original story this movie was based on (by Richard Connell and Robert Presnell), it concludes with John Doe standing on the roof, preparing to jump, and the Barbara Stanwyck character, Nan, tries to talk him out of doing it, and he is unshakable, and he says "I'll always love you, Nan" and she replies "I'll always love you, John". He then looks out at the crowd, which is singing the Battle Hymn of the Republic, and when the clock strikes midnight, Nan looks at where he was standing, and it is now empty, and she has "a look of pride and great joy". Frank Capra and screenwriter Robert Riskin did not want this ending, because it involved the character committing suicide, and they felt that the Catholic Church would strongly object to that, which might make the movie unable to get distribution. Capra filmed five different endings and previewed at least two of them. In one, they had the suicide take place, and ended with Walter Brennan holding John's dead body. In another, it ends at the John Doe Convention, with John Doe disgraced, and the editor saying "Well, boys, you can chalk another one up to the Pontius Pilates." Another had Nan talking John out of committing suicide. In another, John convinces the corrupt publisher to change his ways and join John in his crusade. But none of those four seemed right. At one of the previews where they showed one of the above endings, a viewer suggested ending it with the John Doe members telling John that they had never stopped believing in him, and Capra then filmed that ending, and this is the ending that is on the movie's final version!
NOTE: Click on linked names to see a biography.
If you know who did the art (if any), please let us know.

Condition: very good to fine. The poster is linenbacked; prior to restoration there was a small area of paper loss in the lower right blank border just extending into the image background; there were several pinholes in each corner; there was tiny paper loss at the top two crossfolds and slightly larger paper loss at the bottom crossfold; the above very minor defects were well corrected during linenbacking; Overall, the poster was in excellent condition prior to linenbacking and it looks great now!
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