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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!
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Important Added Info: Note that when Spanish heralds have printing on the back, we picture both sides, but when they are blank on the back, we only picture the front.

Please note that Spanish heralds, like U.S. heralds, were printed in very large quantities, and then sent to individual theaters in Spain, and they would sometimes have the backs of them overprinted with their theater name and specific play dates. But because a movie might play in Spain for a period of a year or two (traveling from theater to theater), there is no guarantee that the date overprinted on the back of the herald is the same as the date that the herald was first printed (and the date that the movie first played in Spain).

Therefore, we don't list the date overprinted on the back of a herald as the date of the herald unless we know that was when the movie first played in Spain. If we believe the herald was printed earlier, then we use that date. If it is important to you that the date on the herald is the date the movie first opened, then please look at our image of the back of this herald to see if there is a different date printed on it. Please note that Spanish heralds, like U.S. heralds, were printed in very large quantities, and then sent to individual theaters in Spain, and they would sometimes have the backs of them overprinted with their theater name and specific play dates. But because a movie might play in Spain for a period of a year or two (traveling from theater to theater), there is no guarantee that the date overprinted on the back of the herald is the same as the date that the herald was first printed (and the date that the movie first played in Spain).

Therefore, we don't list the date overprinted on the back of a herald as the date of the herald unless we know that was when the movie first played in Spain. If we believe the herald was printed earlier, then we use that date. If it is important to you that the date on the herald is the date the movie first opened, then please look at our image of the back of this herald to see if there is a different date printed on it.

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