Red River

Howard Hawks' Red River (1948) presents a patriarchal society where men live by a macho, male code that excludes women and explores the notion of what it is to be a man and how violence aids in this definition. The lack of women in this male-dominated world leads to the forming of male friendships that contain the subtext of homoeroticism. Red River consists of an on-going battle between the old, nostalgic male-dominated world, embodied by Thomas Dunson (John Wayne), versus a more progressive world, as represented by Matthew Garth (Montgomery Clift), that combines the old world values with compassion. Hawks’ film also uses violence and the notion of professionalism as a male refuge.

From the start of the film, Red River establishes a male-dominated world devoid of women. Dunson and Cookie, his loyal friend, decide to leave the settlers and stake out their own claim on the frontier. His love interest (Coleen Gray) appears and, despite her protest to the contrary, he excludes her from his world because the frontier is, as he puts it, "too much for a woman." She cannot go with him to tame the frontier because that does not fit into his old world values where men explore and women stay home. He is a man set in his beliefs as Nadine Groot (Walter Brennan) explains to the settlers, "He's a might kept man when his mind is made up. Even you can't change him."

Dunson is a self-made man who strikes out on his own to start a cattle ranch known as the Red River in Texas with loyal friend Groot and a young boy named Matt who survived a Native American Indian attack. Ten years pass and Dunson cultivates enough cattle to sell them for a lot of money in Missouri. So, Dunson, Cookie and a grown-up Matt make the perilous journey that sees them facing Indians, bad weather and internal strife – the latter of which may be the greatest danger as Dunson becomes a hard, twisted version of his former self.

Red River is quick to establish the male code of what it is like to be a real man. Before Dunson starts the cattle drive he talks to all of his ranch hands and explains the rules that will govern the drive when he states that "Every man who signs on for this drive agrees to finish it. There'll be no quitting along the way. Not by me and not by you." Dunson is framed by himself in this scene. Only he has the power to establish the rules because he is the authority figure of this male group. Once the men sign on for the drive, they must live by Dunson's professional code of conduct.

Dunson belongs to an older time where a real man is defined in terms of getting your enemy before they get you. In Hawks' film the "enemy" takes many forms, from Native American Indians to the wild frontier that the men must navigate in order to reach their destination. When Dunson and his loyal friend leave the settlers at the beginning of the film they are attacked by Indians. Dunson efficiently guns down two of them and kills another with a knife. It is a savage scene as the two men wrestle vigorously in the water before Dunson prevails. By his way of thinking, he has proven that he is a real man because he can handle any dangerous situation.

After the brief encounter with the Indians, Dunson finally reaches the expansive area that he will turn into a prosperous ranch. He looks at the land and proudly appraises it as "Everything a man could want." Over the years, Dunson kills many men all in defense of the American Dream of conquest and taming the frontier. Dunson is clearly a man of old-fashioned sensibilities who stays fixed in his ways, refusing to change for no one, even for the woman he loves. These old world values only strengthen when he learns of her death. Dunson becomes cold and dead inside. Everything he loved is gone with her passing and he refuses to let his guard down for anyone. To fill this void, Dunson creates a male friendship with the only surviving member of the settlers: a little boy named Matt. Dunson meets Matt and after a manly display in which the boy threatens him with gun to which he slaps out of his hand, does Dunson decide that, "He'll do." Matt has been accepted into the fold. He is now part of the male-driven world.

To show compassion or emotion is to show weakness in Red River. Those who reveal a more feminine side are punished. During the cattle drive, Dan (Harry Carey, Jr.), one of the cowboys, tells Dunson and Matt his dreams of the future. With the money he will earn from the cattle drive, he plans to buy a house and a pair of red shoes that his wife always wanted. It is an emotional moment that reveals a domesticated way of life that goes against Dunson's frontier vision. This opposition is destroyed when Dan is consequently killed in the stampede. Dan is killed because he does not belong in Dunson's world. He yearns for a more docile lifestyle. However, Dunson does show some emotion when he learns of Dan's death. He tells Matt to give the money that Dan would have earned to his wife and, although he does not come right out and say it, to use some of the money to buy her a pair of red shoes.

This is a brief glimpse of Dunson's compassionate side, but it quickly disappears when he finds out who caused the stampede: Bunk Kenneally (Ivan Parry), a cowboy with an obsession for sugar. One night when he tries to steal some sugar he accidently disrupts all of the dishes. Kenneally is filmed alone by Hawks as he tries in vain to prevent the accident. By doing this, Hawks is illustrating how Kenneally, like Dan, is different from the rest of the men. He displays a feminine property in the form of his weakness for sugar and this results in the stampede that kills Dan. Dunson returns back to his cold, macho persona as he plans to whip Kenneally for his weakness. In Dunson's mind, he equates stealing sugar with the characteristics of a weak child when says, "Stealing sugar like a kid. Well, they whip kids to teach 'em better." Kenneally is no better than a child in Dunson's eyes. But Matt intervenes and spares Kenneally's life where Dunson would have killed him. This is the first real indication that Dunson's values are wrong. Matt represents the new version of what it is to be a man. He can be compassionate and still be a man.

After Matt saves Kenneally, Cherry Valance (John Ireland) comes up to him and says, "But your heart's soft. Too soft. Might get you hurt some day." Matt merely replies, "Could be. I wouldn't count on it." Matt can be kind, but he is not afraid stand up for his beliefs. It is this kindness that the men respect, while they fear Dunson's rigid work ethic, which results in Matt taking over as leader of the cattle drive when the elder man goes over the edge. This is a symbolic passing of the old world into the new. Dunson's values are no longer valid with the current times and so Matt must take his place with a modern version of manliness.

Matt represents the new version of what it is to be a man. He can be compassionate and still be a man. He can be kind, but he is not afraid stand up for his beliefs. It is this kindness that the men respect, while they fear Dunson's rigid work ethic, which results in Matt taking over as leader of the cattle drive when the elder man loses control. This is a symbolic passing of the old world into the new. Dunson's values are no longer valid with the current times and so Matt must take his place with a modern version of manliness.

An interesting adult male friendship forms between Cherry and Matt who admire each other's prowess with a gun. Cherry consistently gazes at Matt in admiration, fascinated with his gun. Hawks reinforces this friendship by framing the two men together in a shot and in doing so permeates the scene with homoerotic undertones. Cherry comments that Matt has a nice gun and that there are "only two things more beautiful than a good gun. A Swiss watch or a woman from anywhere." Next to guns and watches, women do not rate very high in this world where male friendships are more important.

Despite the dual nature of Matt in Hawks' film, and the admission that he and Dunson "love each other," as one character observes, Red River ultimately fulfills the notion that violence and professionalism are a male refuge. Dunson finally changes his brand so that it will have Matt's initial on it as well. Dunson draws the new brand into the ground and says to Matt, "You've earned it." Hawks cuts to a shot of the new brand and the film ends. This symbolic passing of the male mantle of power from Dunson to Matt undermines the progressive nature of his character. All of Matt's actions are undermined in this moment when he symbolically becomes a man with Dunson's blessing. As a result, Red River upholds the conventions of male genres.

The Big Sleep

BLOGGER'S NOTE: This post is part of the Film Noir Blogathon over at The Midnite Drive-In Blog.

The Big Sleep (1946) is often considered one of the quintessential classic film noirs and with good reason. Adapted from Raymond Chandler’s novel of the same name by none other than William Faulkner and Leigh Brackett and directed by Howard Hawks, it stars Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall who had previously appeared together in To Have and Have Not (1944). The studio wanted to capitalize on the undeniable chemistry between the two actors and the public’s fascination with them. The end result is an atmospheric private detective story masterfully told and expertly filmed.

Philip Marlowe (Bogart) arrives at the Sternwood house to speak to its patriarch about a job. While waiting in the foyer he meets the youngest daughter, Carmen (Martha Vickers), who coyly flirts with him. “You’re not very tall are you?” she says and without missing a beat he replies, “Well, I try to be.” She practically throws herself at him but he wisely and politely rebuffs her playful flirtations.

Marlowe meets with General Sternwood (Charles Waldron) in his greenhouse and the man is a no-bullshit kind of person that has no problem speaking his mind. He’s being blackmailed by a man named Joe Brody (Louis Jean Heydt) and the man who usually took care of these matters has disappeared. It seems that Carmen owes a sizable amount of money to Arthur Geiger (Theodore von Eltz), a rare book dealer. Sternwood hires Marlowe to get rid of Geiger and so begins his journey into a shadowy criminal underworld.

Before leaving, Marlowe visits with Vivian (Bacall), the eldest daughter, and it gives us a chance to see the sparks fly between Bogart and Bacall as their characters engage in some wonderful verbal sparring until Marlowe delivers a lengthy zinger:

“I didn’t ask to see you. I don’t mind if you don’t like my manners, I don’t like them myself. They are pretty bad. I grieve over them on long winter evenings. I don’t mind your ritzing me, drinking your lunch out of a bottle. But don’t waste your time trying to cross-examine me.”

Bogart delivers this dialogue clearly and quickly with just the right amount of withering sarcasm that puts Vivian in her place. The Big Sleep is full some of the best-written, snappy dialogue, like a memorable exchange early on between Marlowe and the Sternwood’s butler (Charles D. Brown):

Marlowe: How did Mrs. Rutledge know I was here?
Butler: She saw you through the window, sir and I was obliged to tell her who you were.
Marlowe: I don’t know I like that.
Butler: Are you attempting to tell me my duties, sir?
Marlowe: No, just having fun trying to guess what they are.

While the butler delivers his lines emotionlessly, Marlowe has a wry smile on his face as he enjoys messing with the man. Writing clever dialogue and having someone talented enough to say it has become a lost art and this film is a potent reminder of just how entertaining it is to watch a film that is so well-made.

After doing some legwork, Marlowe trails Geiger to his home and we get the first proper noir set piece as the private investigator hangs back while his target makes his way in the pouring rain at night. Time passes, the rain stops and a flash of light goes off in the house followed by a gunshot forcing the P.I. into action. No more playful flirting for Marlowe as he becomes embroiled in a convoluted mystery.

I was never a big fan of Humphrey Bogart’s but watching The Big Sleep again made me rethink my stance on him. Watching the actor deftly shift gears in a given scene, changing tone from comedy to drama and back again, is seeing a very skilled thespian masterfully plying his trade. He could play a ladies’ man, coyly flirting with women, and also be a tough guy, like when Marlowe finds himself in a dangerous situation.

Bogart’s Marlowe is quite the ladies’ man, flirting with nearly every woman that crosses his path, from the Sternwood women to a cute librarian (Carole Douglas) to a sexy bookstore proprietress (Dorothy Malone) who all happen to be gorgeous knock-outs. It is interesting to see the number of women from all walks of life that Marlowe encounters – a reminder that it took place during World War II when many men were overseas fighting. With the amount of flirting that goes on in this film maybe it should have been called The Big Flirt.

Lauren Bacall plays the quintessential “tough dame” that often populated film noirs. She more than holds her own against Bogart considering their difference in age and acting experience, but she had natural ability and a screen presence that is always interesting to watch. She even gets to sing in one scene – “And Her Tears Flowed Like Wine” – which provides an enjoyable moment of levity. She is more than capable of handling the screenplay’s twisty dialogue and portraying a sophisticated woman.

The scenes between Bogart and Bacall crackle with sexual tension as their characters flirt with each other and, as it turns out, they were in love with each other in real life. It is easy to see in the way they look at each other in a given scene – that is genuine chemistry between two people. It is also a large part of the film’s appeal.

After the success of To Have and Have Not, Warner Bros. studio head Jack Warner wanted to find another film for Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall to star in after audiences responded to their on-screen chemistry. He asked Howard Hawks, who had directed them in To Have and Have Not if he had any ideas. He had been talking with William Faulkner about possibly adapting Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep.

In 1939, Warner Bros. had toyed with the idea of buying the film options to the book but feared that the subject matter (pornography, nymphomania, homosexuality, etc.) would never get past the censors. Hawks assured Warner that he could get a screenplay that would pass the censors. Enticed by the re-teaming of Hawks with Bogart and Bacall, the studio chief green-lit the project.

Hawks employed Faulkner to write the script and while he tackled the plot, the director hired first-time novelist Leigh Brackett, whose novel No Good from a Corpse impressed him, to work on the dialogue. Hawks told his writers, “Don’t monkey with the book – just make a script out of it. The writing is too good.” They proceeded to soften or omit the less savory aspects of Chandler’s novel to appease the censors. It took them only six weeks to produce a shooting script.

Principal photography began on October 10, 1944. There was tension between Bogart and Bacall, who had an affair while making To Have and Have Not, when, before filming, he told her that since his wife had stopped drinking, he was going to give their marriage another try. This made Bacall very nervous during filming and she relied on Hawks to make it through the endeavor

The emotional toll of his turbulent marriage affected Bogart, who still loved Bacall, causing nights of little sleep and heavy drinking. His on-again-off-again relationship with his wife put terrible strain on him to the point that in one instance he was unable to report to work. Fortunately, Hawks covered for him with the studio. It got so bad that by November, the film was 17 days behind schedule.

Illness and injuries to various cast members also slowed down filming as well as continual rewrites of the script. Eventually, Faulkner burned out and left the production and Hawks brought in Jules Furthman to sharpen dialogue, reshape scenes and come up with a new ending. To make up time, the director shot faster and cut pages from the script. Principal photography finished on January 12, 1945. It took 76 days to film – 34 more than had originally been scheduled.

The Big Sleep had its world premiere in the Philippines in August 1945 and by October it was being shown to United States servicemen in several bases overseas. Hawks felt that the Marlowe-Vivian relationship needed more work. In addition, Bacall’s film Confidential Agent (1945) was released and bombed with the actress receiving bad notices. Worried that this might affect The Big Sleep, it was felt that three to four additional scenes of her and Bogart together would improve the film. Philip Epstein, co-screenwriter of Casablanca (1942), was hired to write these new scenes.

The new version, which debuted in 1946, featured 18 minutes of new material but was actually two minutes shorter. In addition to the scenes between Bogart and Bacall, another one was added with Marlowe and Carmen. Cut from the 1945 version was a scene where the facts of the case are reviewed by Marlowe and Chief Inspector Ohls (Regis Toomey). As a result, the version we know and love came across as a tad confusing or “enigmatic” as Leonard Maltin put it.

With the atmospheric sounds and memorable score by Max Steiner, coupled with Sidney Hickox’s richly textured black and white cinematography, Hawks creates a fantastic mood and, at the right moments, a sense of danger that is vintage noir. The common complaint is that at some point it becomes impossible to figure out what The Big Sleep is about but for me I hardly notice it because I get caught up in what’s going on, enjoying a given scene – the interaction between characters and the snappy dialogue that is bantered back and forth, which makes the film such a pleasure to watch again and again.

SOURCES

Grimes, William. “The Mystery of The Big Sleep Solved.” The New York Times. January 9, 1997.

McCarthy, Todd. Howard Hawks: The Grey Fox of Hollywood. Grove Press. 1997.

The Killers (1946)

Ernest Hemingway’s short story “The Killers” was first published in Scribner’s Magazine in 1927 and featured two hitmen sent to kill a man who makes no attempt to run or defend himself. Producer Mark Hellinger bought the screen rights for $36,750 and the screenplay was written by John Huston (uncredited), Anthony Veiller and Richard Brooks. The Killers was released in 1946 and featured Burt Lancaster in his film debut, pairing him up with a young Ava Gardner after five years of minor roles. The end result is a classic film noir featuring a doomed protagonist and an alluring femme fatale intertwined over a large sum of money.

Late one night, two hitmen – Max and Al (William Conrad and Charles McGraw) – arrive in a small New Jersey town looking for a boxer known as Ole “Swede” Andreson (Burt Lancaster). Director Robert Siodmak presents a place enshrouded in shadows with the local diner providing a welcome source of light. The two no-nonsense men enter the eatery and proceed to give the owner a hard time. They exchange some nice hard-boiled dialogue (they repeatedly call the owner “bright boy”) and tell him of their intent to kill Swede.

One of the customers – a man (Phil Brown) who works with Swede – manages to escape and get to his co-worker before the hitmen. He warns Swede who doesn’t seem particularly upset and already resigned to his fate. In fact, when we first see him, Swede is lying in bed, his head obscured in darkness and already looking like a corpse. The two men arrive and shoot Swede to death. Why didn’t he run? Why did he just let these men kill him? Insurance man Jim Reardon (Edmond O’Brien) tries to figure out the answers to these questions and decipher his last words, “Once I did something wrong.” The film proceeds to flashback to Swede’s last days and then further back as Reardon talks to those who knew him.

Burt Lancaster delivers a muscular performance, portraying a man with no desire to live and then, as his past is delved into, anguish over someone that drove him to attempt suicide. Even further back reveals a boxer from Philadelphia who turned to crime thanks to a bum right hand. The actor does a nice job of creating a doomed protagonist. It’s all in Lancaster’s haunted, defeated eyes. When told he can no longer fight because of his permanently damaged hand, Swede looks for a new direction in life. He doesn’t want to be a cop and so he turns to a life of crime.

Ava Gardner creates quite a first impression as Kitty Collins, an alluring woman that meets Swede at a party and immediately catches his attention. They soon become an item and it’s not hard to see how she so easily corrupts him. The actress looks stunning (she sure knows how to wear a sweater!) and Kitty knows exactly the emotional buttons to push in order to get Swede to do what she wants.

The Killers is filled with all kinds of memorable little touches, like Siodmak showing a heist being pulled visually with voiceover narration as if providing a commentary track over what went down instead of going the conventional route by having it play out in typical fashion – something that has been done countless times. There is also stand-out dialogue, like when a doctor says about one of Swede’s criminal associates, now on his deathbed, “He’s dead now except he’s breathing.”

For a film noir, The Killers spends a lot of time exploring the Swede’s motivations and examining why he was so willing to die. At the end, he had no reason to live. He drove away the people he loved, betrayed by the woman he loved, and was unable to continue as a boxer – his real passion. Swede’s fatal flaw is that he’s loyal to a fault, willing to go to the mat for Kitty, blinded by love to her conniving, manipulative ways. Like most noirs, the prime motivation for Swede is money and a dame – both of which prove to be his downfall.

Prior to The Killers, Ernest Hemingway had refused Hollywood’s advances to adapt his work but producer Mark Hellinger was an “old friend,” and he agreed to sign over the film rights to him. The first few minutes of the film are quite faithful to the source material but deviate significantly afterwards. Don Siegel was originally considered to direct but Hellinger went with Robert Siodmak. Siegel ended up making his own adaptation in 1964 with Lee Marvin, John Cassavetes and Ronald Reagan in a rare bad guy role.

Burt Lancaster was only 23-years-old when he made The Killers and was paid $20,000 for his work on it. Ava Gardner has been under contract with MGM since 1941 but had only appeared in minor, forgettable roles. Hellinger was impressed with her work in Whistle Stop (1946) and wanted her to play Kitty Collins. MGM agreed to loan her out to Universal.

The Killers was a box office hit, playing around-the-clock at New York’s Winter Garden theater, which had more than 120,000 moviegoers see it in the first two weeks. The film was well-received by critics, but more importantly Gardner, who became friends with Hemingway, said that the writer, “always considered The Killers the best of all the many films his work inspired.”

A man’s life is made up of many parts, much like a puzzle as Reardon finds out during the course of his investigation. He only gets the entire scope of Swede’s life by talking to several people in his life. Together, their testimonies provide a better understanding for why he did what he did and why it led to his sorry fate. It’s what makes The Killers a tragic tale.

SOURCES

Frankel, Mark. “The Killers (1946).” Turner Classic Movies.

Blu-Ray Review of the Week: I Married A Witch: Criterion Collection

Screwball comedies don’t come more full of charm then I Married A Witch (1942), and this is due in large part to the casting of Veronica Lake as a sexy sorceress who casts a spell on a man descended from the Salem puritan that burned her at the stake many years ago. The film was an adaptation of The Passionate Witch, a novel by Thorne Smith, and guided to the big screen by French director Rene Clair who had a rocky Hollywood debut with The Flame of New Orleans (1941). I Married A Witch did well, but unfortunately Lake burned her bridges in Hollywood and Clair couldn’t find any screenplays that interested him. This does nothing to change the fact that the film they made together is a comedic gem.

Before she and her father Daniel (Cecil Kellaway) are burned at the stake for practicing witchcraft, Jennifer (Lake) curses her accuser Jonathan Wooley (March) so that his descendants will be unhappy in love. After an amusing montage depicting generations of Wooleys with failed love lives, we land in the present as Wallace Wooley (March) is running for governor and engaged to Estelle Masterson (Hayward), daughter of a wealthy newspaper magnate.

It is at this moment that a violent storm zaps an oak tree that had been planted over Jennifer and Daniel’s ashes, its roots imprisoning their souls. However, the damaged tree allows them to be free, taking on the form of witches’ smoke. They stumble across Wallace and Jennifer is delighted that the curse is still working. She decides to take human form in order to torment Wallace in person. Veronica Lake’s first appearance on camera is quite a sight to behold as Jennifer literally materializes out of the smoke in a raging building fire.

Wallace is compelled to run into the building and rescue her. Right off the bat, the chemistry between the two is apparent as Jennifer acts seductively coy while Wallace is neurotically frantic – understandably so as the building comes down around them. He seems to have it all – he’s being groomed for governor and on the eve of being married to a beautiful, rich woman. However, Estelle is bossy and he doesn’t seem all that thrilled with his impending governorship. Wallace is a bit uptight and leads an ordered life only for Jennifer to come along and throw a monkey wrench in his plans with her cute, sex kitten voice and stunning beauty.

Myron Selznick, the agent for French filmmaker Rene Clair, sent him the book The Passionate Witch by Thorne Smith, which he read and thought that it could be made into a film. He met Preston Sturges, they talked about the project and the legendary director agreed to produce it. Paramount Pictures was looking for the right film for Veronica Lake, an actress attracting a lot of buzz, some of it for her trademark beautiful blond hair. They decided that I Married A Witch would be perfect for her and paired the actress up with Clair.

Smith had died before completing the novel, which was finished by a colleague. Very little of the book, which contained some fairly raunchy passages for the time, made it into the film. Producer Buddy DeSylva told Clair that screenwriter Bob Pirosh was assigned to work on the screenplay and he would be given it when the script was finished. Clair was used to writing and directing his own scripts and this news came as something of a shock to him. However, the director ended up working with Pirosh on the script and the submitted it to the studio, but they wanted considerable changes. Clair and Pirosh rewrote it significantly before they were given approval to begin filming. During principal photography, they continued to rewrite, sometimes even the night before the next day’s shooting, in an attempt to sneak by their version of the film by producer DeSylva.

Like so many screwball comedies, the carefree spirit in I Married A Witch triumphs over the stodgy type. Of course, Jennifer has some help by putting Wallace under her spell, but who could resist Veronica Lake’s considerable charms? This film is one of her signature roles in an unfortunately all-too brief career in Hollywood. She demonstrated quite a gift for not just physical comedy, but also successfully bantering back and forth with Fredric March. She even sings! Rene Clair’s film is a classic opposites attract screwball comedy albeit with a supernatural twist. It tweaks the classic evil witch cliché by presenting one who creates a curse only to succumb to her own love potion through a comedy of errors.

The Criterion Collection recently released a brand new edition on Blu-Ray. It is safe to say that I Married A Witch has never looked better on home video with the transfer looking fantastic. The filmic grain is intact and the print itself looks as good as it ever has. The extras are slim with an audio interview by director Rene Clair from the late 1950s. He talks about working on experimental films vs. commercial ones. Clair speaks candidly about his career. Also included is a trailer.

SOURCES

Dale, R.C. “Rene Clair in Hollywood.” Film Quarterly. Winter 1970-71.

Meet John Doe

The mark of a truly gifted filmmaker is when their work is able to transcend the times in which they were made and continue to be highly regarded, beloved and is still relevant to subsequent generations. Such is the case with Frank Capra who made not one but two timeless classics with Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939), one of the most highly regarded films about American politics ever made, and It’s A Wonderful Life (1946), the quintessential Christmas movie. Meet John Doe (1941) is not as popular as these two films but it is just as important. Like the aforementioned motion pictures, it features an everyman character exploited by both corporate interests and the media, which makes it just as timely today as it was back when it was first released.

It is significant that the opening credits play over a montage of every day Americans at work: farmers, miners and switchboard operators. Then, it segues to a succession of shots that feature college students, soldiers, children playing at school, and finally a nursery full of babies. Capra brilliantly encapsulates the circle of life in the opening credits along with iconic images of America at its best – hardworking men and women, including our armed forces and our youth expanding their horizons through education. He is suggesting that these are the ideals we must live up to before telling it like it really is with his film.

We are introduced to the newly revamped newspaper The Bulletin with its new slogan, “A streamlined newspaper for a streamlined era.” Along with the new era comes firings, including several veteran employees that are given the axe in rather humiliating fashion – by some young, punk kid who whistles and points at each person before making a clucking noise and making a throat-slashing gesture with his finger. The corporate hatchet man and new managing editor Mr. Connell (James Gleason) casually refers to the recent firings as “just cleaning out the deadwood.”

Among the recent firings is a resourceful columnist by the name of Ann Mitchell (Barbara Stanwyck) who pleads to keep her job and is even willing to take a pay cut but Connell isn’t firing people for financial reasons. He’s trying to boost the paper’s circulation. He dismisses Ann but not before reminding her that she has one last column to finish. Understandably upset, she channels her anger and frustration into the column by writing a letter from a “disgusted American” citizen known only as John Doe. This fabricated person has been unemployed for four years and is so fed up with the state of things that he plans to commit suicide by jumping off the City Hall roof as a form of protest.

Ann’s “John Doe” letter is published and is so well-written that people believe it is real, which freaks out the powers that be, from the mayor on up to the governor. Naturally, Connell brings Ann in demanding that she produced John Doe. She admits to making it all up. Just as the editor devises a plan to sweep it all under the carpet, the savvy columnist pitches him a new scheme that she promises will boost circulation: tell John Doe’s life story over a series of columns until his suicide on Christmas Eve. Of course, they’ll have to find some patsy to pose as John Doe. It won’t be too hard as a lineup of unemployed men show up to the Bulletin offices claiming to be him. Ann and Connell interview each one, looking for what he cynically calls, “the typical American that can keep his mouth shut.”

After a series of rejects in walks Long John Willoughby (Gary Cooper), a downtrodden yet still good-looking man with a rip in his pants and not a penny to his name. He used to be a baseball pitcher until he blew out his arm. He’s just desperate enough for work that he agrees to pose as John Doe and basically signs his life away to Connell, much to the chagrin of his travelling companion known only as the Colonel (Walter Brennan) who is afraid that money will ruin his friend. For him, being poor and homeless is to be free and happy without a care in the world. Money ruins everything because once you have it people who never gave you the time of day start trying to sell you things and that leads to all sorts of material items, like license fees, taxes, ID cards, bills, and so on. You’re no longer free. You become part of the competitive rat race – something that the Colonel wants no part of. This is all conveyed in a monologue brilliantly delivered by veteran character actor Walter Brennan. While the Colonel exaggerates somewhat for effect, what he’s saying is essentially the truth. He’s the voice of reason and his speech – one of Meet John Doe’s key monologues – is a warning, foreshadowing what will eventually happen to both Ann and Willoughby.

The Bulletin throws all kinds of money at Willoughby, cleaning him up and getting him nice clothes. Pretty soon what the Colonel warned would happen does and Willoughby becomes seduced by money and fame. This scheme has also corrupted Ann. Once a hardworking columnist, she’s seduced by fame and fortune, consumed by the hype machine she helped create. What started off as a stunt to boost circulation becomes a national movement with John Doe clubs popping up all over the place as people are genuinely moved and inspired by the fusion of Ann’s words and Willoughby’s impassioned delivery of them. The rest of the film plays out the usual Capra arc as Ann and Willoughby get consumed by the system and must find it within themselves to break free of it by being true to themselves. It’s a classic individual vs. the system story.

In her first scene, Barbara Stanwyck emanates sympathy as she pleads for her job and then tries to fast talk her way in keeping it only to return to her office in anger as she rails against her fat cat bosses. In a few short minutes, the actress conveys an impressive range of emotions that almost immediately has us on her side. Then, when Ann is summoned back to Connell’s office to explain the John Doe letter, Stanwyck displays an uncanny knack for screwball comedy as Ann banters back and forth with the new managing editor, pitching her John Doe scam.

At home, Ann thinks of nothing but providing for her family while her mother (Spring Byington) is more concerned with helping the less fortunate, like giving money to a woman who just had a baby and a family that needs groceries. She doesn’t think about herself while Ann becomes self-absorbed – so much so that she can’t figure out how to write John Doe’s first speech to the American public. It is rather telling that she can’t come up with something “sensational” to captivate the masses. It is her mother that comes up with a solution – that he should say “something simple and real, something with hope in it.” Ann’s inability to figure out what to write without her mother’s help shows she’s getting corrupted by the allure of money. Over the course of the film, the actress manages to chip away at the sympathy we felt for Ann early on as she goes from someone fighting to stay employed and support her family, to a crass opportunist that becomes consumed by her own hype.

Much like Stanwyck did, Gary Cooper elicits our empathy right from his first appearance. Willoughby walks into the Bulletin offices looking like a hobo, but there is a quiet dignity and kindness evident in his slightly apprehensive facial expressions. There is a bit of self-consciousness thrown into the mix as he’s questioned by Connell. Willoughby looks hungry and just a bit desperate, but seems smart and a bit wary about what is being proposed to him. It’s a tricky balancing act that Cooper maintains expertly. His character has an impressive arc where he goes from anonymous everyman to media-created celebrity to a champion of the people when he confronts the businessmen who built him up, delivering an impassioned speech for the ages. Then, Cooper digs deep and shows just how low Willoughby goes when the powers that be fight back, destroying his credibility in the eyes of the people. It is a dark, scary scene on par with the darkest moments of It’s A Wonderful Life.

In many Capra films, he saw corporations and their greed for profit as the enemy to the basic decency of everyday people. In Meet John Doe, this is represented by powerful publisher D.B. Norton (Edward Arnold), a large, shrewd man that thinks in terms of money and strikes a deal with Ann, bypassing Connell, much to his chagrin. This is a crucial scene because it shows how Ann has wheeled and dealed her way to the top of the corporate ladder, striking a deal with one of the most powerful men in the country. Norton is a manipulative antagonist who uses his influence to manipulate the spontaneous grassroots John Doe movement to make money, using Willoughby as the means to do this. The publisher’s real agenda is the creation of a third political party and with John Doe’s endorsement he will lead it with the hopes that it will take him all the way to the White House.

Eagle eyed fans of the Coen brothers’ semi-Capra homage, The Hudsucker Proxy (1994) will notice at least two things in Meet John Doe that they quoted in their own film. There is the man trying to stencil a name on Connell’s door, reminiscent of the one removing Waring Hudsucker’s in the Coens’ film. In Meet John Doe, there is a character that says at one point, “That gag’s got whiskers on it,” which Bruce Campbell’s character says at one point in The Hudsucker Proxy. Not to mention, both feature everyman characters bent on committing suicide during the holiday season, Christmas Even in Meet John Doe and New Year’s Eve in The Hudsucker Proxy.

In November 1939, writer friend Robert Presnell gave Frank Capra a treatment he had written with Richard Connell entitled, The Life and Death of John Doe. Connell and Presnell were developing a stage production of the former’s short story “A Reputation.” Capra and his business partner Robert Riskin read it and bought it the same day. Several days later, the two men began work on the screenplay. It would be the director’s first independent film and one in which he intended to earn critical praise, having grown tired of enduring derogatory remarks like, “Capra-corn.” He also wanted to show them “contemporary realities” like, “the ugly face of hate; the power of uniformed bigots in red, white, and blue shirts; the agony of disillusionment; and the wild dark passions of mobs.” Initially, he used the treatment’s title as the working title for the film. He changed it to The Life of John Doe before finally settling on Meet John Doe because the prior title might have been perceived as being based on a biography.

With Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Capra had fulfilled his contractual obligations to Columbia Pictures. Studio head Harry Cohn was so oppressive that Capra decided to start his own indie company with Riskin. However, they still needed a movie studio to provide them with facilities and set up a deal with Warner Bros. The first film of this new deal was Meet John Doe. Capra found it difficult running his own indie film company and ended up mortgaging his home to finance Meet John Doe. He had to do this because the director lacked cash due to heavy income tax payments. Capra was able to get a loan from the Bank of America.

Capra picked WB because they had a fantastic roster of movie stars, chief among them Gary Cooper. For the role of Long John Willoughby, the only actor Capra wanted was Cooper, but at the time he approached him there was no script. This wasn’t a problem for the actor who had read and then made the mistake of turning down the script for Stagecoach (1939), which went on to make John Wayne a movie star. Other actors followed suit – Barbara Stanwyck, Edward Arnold, and Walter Brennan – all without reading the script because Capra’s name alone was good enough to make them want to do it. For the role of Ann Mitchell, Capra screen-tested Ann Sheridan and Olivia de Havilland. The director wanted Sheridan, but was overruled by the studio because of a contract dispute. He eventually went with Stanwyck whom he had worked with on several films.

Capra and Riskin ran into script difficulties when they realized that the third act had problems – there was none. They had abandoned their usual formula and didn’t know what should happen to Willoughby at the end. They consulted with trusted friends and confidants within the film industry but still couldn’t solve their problem. So, Capra went ahead and began filming on July 8, 1940 without an ending only to eventually film and test-screen four different conclusions for critics and audiences in six major cities on March 12, 1941. After two weeks, Capra received a letter from someone called, “John Doe,” who hated all four endings. This person went on to tell the director how his film should end. Capra was so impressed that he re-assembled the cast and crew and shot yet another ending, which was the one that it is in the final film.

Meet John Doe received strong critical reaction. The New York Daily News gave it four stars. The World-Telegram felt it was “the finest film Frank Capra ever made, bar none.” The Herald-Tribune wrote, “It is a testament of faith as well as brilliant craftsmanship.” The New York Times felt that the film was a “distinct progression in Mr. Capra’s – and the screen’s – political thinking.” Finally, The New York Post felt that Capra had “made seven-eighths of a great and timely film.” It was a bittersweet victory for Capra. Due to federal law, Capra and Riskin had to pay taxes on the film’s income before the profits came in. As a result, they had to dissolve their company to pay taxes on the film.

With its John Doe clubs made up of every day folks frustrated with the rich getting richer and the poor staying poorer, Meet John Doe anticipates the Occupy movement by several decades. Or, rather, it is merely chronicles yet another cycle of discontent that often emerges spontaneously at crucial moments in history, like the civil rights/anti-war movement during the 1960s. As Willoughby says towards the end of the film, “Well when this fire dies down what’s going to be left? More misery, more hunger and more hate and what’s to prevent that from starting all over again? Nobody knows the answer to that one.” Prophetic words indeed.

Capra’s film equates the rich with corruption and dishonesty as embodied by the power hungry D.B. Norton. It warns of the dangers that comes with having too much money and how it can corrupt, making one turn their back on the things that matter, specifically basic, common decency, which Capra champions in his films. Meet John Doe shows how 99% of the population is at the mercy of the powerful and wealthy 1% and acts a warning – one that is more potent now than ever before. Like a true artist, Capra puts it all out there, wearing his idealistic heart on his sleeve. That kind of idealism may no longer be fashionable any more, but in these trying times may be it is exactly what we need.

SOURCES

Capra, Frank. The Name Above the Title: An Autobiography. Da Capo Press: New York, 1997.

Dirks, Tim. “Review: Meet John Doe (1941).” Filmsite.org.

McGee, Scott. “Meet John Doe.” Turner Classic Movies.

Miller, Frank. “Behind the Camera on Meet John Doe.” Turner Classic Movies.