Considered to be part of a series of films directed by Frank Capra about civic involvement (including Mr. Deeds Goes to Town and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington), Meet John Doe was released about half a year before America’s entry into WWII, and was designed as a parable about the dangers of home-grown fascism.

The story of the John Doe Clubs, an innocent grassroots political campaign organized around a mythical “John Doe” who wants to spread kindness and end corruption, gives way to allegory when D. B. Norton, a media tycoon, attempts to hijack the clubs and divert their energy towards his bid for the presidency.

“We’re coming to a new order of things,” D. B. declares to a roomful of social and economic bigwigs. “What the American people need is an iron hand!”

The American people in the audience who, at the time, were politically divided along pro- and anti-war lines, would have understood what the film was referencing. D. B. Norton had the potential to be an American Hitler. Scary stuff.

In Meet John Doe, however, Americans, prove to be less civically passive than the Germans, Spanish and Italians of the day. The film’s protagonist, a hobo hired by a D. B. Norton-owned publication to pretend to be the nonexistent John Doe, declares that he will not let himself be used for such dishonest political ends. He attempts to expose the whole affair as fraudulent; at the same time, D. B. decides to throw in the towel and beat him to it by exposing Doe’s dishonesty first. Rioting ensues.

Having written his parable into a messy situation, Capra was not sure how to continue. He tested at least two (some say four) endings before settling on one that was mailed to him in an anonymous letter signed “John Doe”. In one ending, the film peters out on a dismal note—D. B. Norton does not succeed in running for president but, by trying to, wrecks the populist John Doe movement. “Chalk another up to the Pontius Pilates,” groans Henry Connell, a journalist who regrets his role in the unfolding mess. Though Connell’s line stayed in the film, it comes several minutes before the final ending.

In another possible ending, John Doe commits suicide. Though predictable and appropriate, audiences also found this ending to be too much of a downer.

Instead, Capra decided to conclude with a message of hope that, while simple, heartwarming, and conclusive, lacks the political awareness of the rest of the film. Disregarding the gloom of the Great Depression and the echoes of the increasingly ominous situation in Europe that had, until this point, been important undercurrents in the story, Capra foreshadows the reemergence of the John Doe clubs as a force for good, a force that, having been tried and tested once, might prevent the future rise of power hungry politicians to dictatorial levels of power. John Doe, convinced by his followers, decides not to kill himself. Even D. B. Norton seems a little touched. It’s too bad things did not unwind so simply overseas.

–for Reel 13 by John Light