ARE YOU LOOKING TO BUY MOVIE POSTERS OR RELATED ITEMS? We are the world's leading auctioneer of movie posters and related items. You are currently on one of our non-auction pages. We hold 4,000 to 5,000 auctions every FOUR WEEKS. To learn more about our auctions, click here. To register to bid on our auctions, click here.

About eMoviePoster.com:

In the past 32 years, we have auctioned MORE movie paper for MORE money than ANY other auction company, period!

EVERY item we auction starts at $1, with NO reserve, and NO buyers premium, and EVERY item is honestly described, with an unenhanced super-sized image!

We charge consignors the lowest rates of ANY major auction, and we have held over 1,834,000 online auctions!

Go to our current auctions in our Auction Galleries, and you will quickly see why we are the most trusted auction site!

eMoviePoster.com was founded in 1999 as the first all-movie poster auction website. We have auctioned well over 1.8 MILLION posters (movie and NON-movie), lobby cards, stills and related items through our auctions since 1999, surely the most of any online auction!

eMoviePoster.com

eMoviePoster.com - The most trusted vintage original movie poster site & the only major online auction with no buyers premiums!

What are the objects in the corners of some images? Learn More
Login or Register to see large images.
Auction History Result

9x047 MEET JOHN DOE style B 1/2sh 1941 Frank Capra, c/u of Gary Cooper & Barbara Stanwyck, rare!

Date Sold 10/20/2019
Sold For: Login or Register to see sold price.


An Original Vintage Theatrical Folded Style B Half-Sheet Movie Poster (1/2sh; measures 22" x 28" [56 x 71 cm]) (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.
Important Added Info: Note that this is an extremely rare poster. We have never auctioned one in all our years of auctioning! For unknown reasons, the half-sheet on this movie seems to be by far the most rare poster of any of this standard sizes, one-sheet or smaller. Note that this poster could conceivably be rolled in a tube, because it is not backed, but doing so would virtually certainly damage it, so we will ONLY send this poster in a large flat package. Please bear this in mind before bidding on this poster (incorporate the added shipping cost into the amount you bid).

Note that this item needs to be shipped in an oversized flat package. Most of these items absolutely can only be sent in flat packages, and could not possibly be rolled into a tube. Some of them might SEEM like they could be rolled in a tube, like a half-sheet, but they can't. The reason these items are in this auction is specifically because they CAN'T be rolled (because rolling any of them would damage them, even if they somehow can be rolled). So please bear in mind that this item must be sent in a LARGE flat package (the size of the package will depend on the size of the item when ready for shipping), and bear this added expense in mind before placing a bid on it. IN THE CASE OF EXTREMELY LARGE FLAT ITEMS, THE SHIPPING COST WILL BE VERY HIGH, SO PLEASE DO NOT BID WITHOUT THINKING ABOUT THAT ADDED SHIPPING AMOUNT, AND INCLUDE THAT AMOUNT IN WHAT YOU BID (so if you would pay $150, but the shipping is likely $100, then only bid $50). And those who live outside the U.S. and who do not have a U.S. address to ship to SHOULD NOT BID AT ALL ON EXTREMELY LARGE FLAT ITEMS, BECAUSE THEY COST HUNDREDS OF DOLLARS TO SEND OUTSIDE THE U.S.

Condition: fair to good. This poster (printed on a linen-like paper, which Warner Bros. did with some half-sheets, inserts and lobby cards) had a fold down the center and many light partial vertical folds (no doubt caused while it was roughly handled while it was rolled), It has stains, tears and tiny p down the edges and many creases and scuffs scattered through the image (in addition to the vertical folds described above. There was surface paper loss in the middle vertical fold in the 2" just below Cooper's hair, and someone put brown paint on that area, to make it less noticeable. Obviously this very rare poster can be restored but bear in mind its defects before bidding on it.
Learn More about condition grades

Complete Buyer Protection - No time limit on our guarantees & NO buyer beware
Hershenson Help Hotline - Direct line to Bruce (our owner!) for urgent problems
Also, please read the following two pages of Consignor Reviews - Page 1, Page 2, and two pages of Customer Reviews of our company - Page 1, Page 2, which shows you in our customers' own words exactly what makes our company and our auctions so very different from all others!


LAMP Approved - Founding Sponsor since 2001 - eMoviePoster
Postal Mailing Address:
Bruce Hershenson, P.O. Box 874, West Plains, MO 65775. 
(For our UPS or FedEx address, click here)
phone: +1 417 256-9616     fax: +1 417 257-6948
E-mail: Contact Us
Hours of Operation:
Monday - Friday 8:30 AM - 12:00 PM & 1:00 PM - 5:00 PM (CDT)