Author: womo

“Meet John Doe” is a 1941 American comedy drama film directed and produced by Frank Capra, and starring Gary Cooper and Barbara Stanwyck. The film is about a “grassroots” political campaign created unwittingly by a newspaper columnist and pursued by a wealthy businessman. It became a box office hit and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Story. Though the film is less well known than other Frank Capra classics, it remains highly regarded today. It was ranked #49 in AFI’s 100 Years… 100 Cheers.

Infuriated at being told to write one final column after being laid off from her newspaper job, Ann Mitchell (Barbara Stanwyck) prints a letter from a fictional unemployed “John Doe” threatening suicide on Christmas Eve in protest of society’s ills. When the note causes a sensation and the paper’s competition suspects a fraud and starts to investigate, the newspaper editor rehires Mitchell who comes up with a scheme of hiding the fictional nature of “John Doe” while exploiting the sensation caused by the fake letter to boost the newspaper’s sales, for which she demands a bonus equal to 8 months’ pay. After reviewing a number of derelicts who have shown up at the paper claiming to have penned the original suicide letter, Mitchell and editor Henry Connell (James Gleason) hire John Willoughby (Gary Cooper), a former baseball player and tramp who is in need of money to repair his injured arm, to play John Doe. Mitchell now starts to pen an article series in Doe’s name, elaborating on the letter’s ideas of society’s disregard of people in need.

Willoughby gets $50, a new suit of clothes, and a plush hotel suite with his tramp friend (Walter Brennan), who launches into an extended diatribe against “the heelots”, lots of heels who incessantly focus on getting money from others. Willoughby is hired to give radio speeches, guided by Mitchell who is promised $100 a week to write his speeches, paid by the newspaper’s publisher, D.B. Norton (Edward Arnold). Willoughby turns down a $5,000 bribe to admit the whole thing was a publicity stunt, gives Mitchell’s speech, and dashes off to the countryside with “The Colonel”. They ride the rails, playing the harmonica and ocarina until they show up in Millsville, where John Doe is recognized at a diner. He’s brought to City Hall, where he’s met by Hanson, who gives a five-minute monologue about how he was inspired to start a local John Doe club.

The John Doe philosophy spreads across the country, developing into a broad grassroots movement whose simple slogan is, “Be a better neighbor”. Far from being an altruistic philanthropist, however, Norton plans to channel the support for Doe into support for his own national political ambitions. As a culmination of this plan, Norton has instructed Mitchell to write a speech for Willoughby in which he announces the foundation of a new political party and endorses Norton as its presidential candidate.

When Willoughby, who has come to believe in the John Doe philosophy himself, realizes that he is being used, he tries to expose the plot, but is first stymied in his attempts to talk his own mind to a nationwide radio audience at the rally instead of reading the prepared speech, and then exposed as a fake by Norton, who claims to have been deceived, like everyone else, by the staff of the newspaper. Frustrated by his failure, Willoughby intends to commit suicide by jumping from the roof of the City Hall on Christmas Eve, as indicated in the original John Doe letter. Only the intervention of Mitchell and followers of the John Doe clubs persuades him to renege on his threat to kill himself. At this point in the movie, a reference to Jesus Christ is made, that a historical “John Doe” has already died for the sake of humanity. The film ends with Connell turning to Norton and saying, “There you are, Norton! The people! Try and lick that!”

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Produced and directed by Frank Capra, written by Richard Connell and Robert Presnell, Sr., starring Gary Cooper and Barbara Stanwyck.

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Source: “Meet John Doe” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.. 18 July 2012. Web. 29 July 2012.

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An atheist accidentally shoots his Baptist wife. She dies and goes to a crossroads, where the devil tries to lead her astray.

Cast (IMDB): Cathryn Caviness as Sister Martha Ann Jackson; Spencer Williams as Razz Jackson; Juanita Riley as Sister Jenkins; Reather Hardeman as Sister Ellerby; Rogenia Goldthwaite as The Angel; James B. Jones as Satan (as Jas. B. Jones); Frank H. McClennan as Judas Green; Eddie DeBase as Rufus Brown (as Eddie De Base); Alva Fuller as Luke Williams; R.L. Robertson as (as Rev. R.L. Robertson); The Heavenly Choir as Group Singers.

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WC Fields’ last starring film written by himself. A series of sketches strung together in a story where Fields tries to sell a movie to Franklin Panghorn. Includes the classic diner sketch. Enjoy.

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While pals Skinny (Donald Haines), Danny Graham (Bobby Jordan), Peewee (David Gorcey), Algy Reynolds (Eugene Francis), and Scruno (Sunshine Sammy Morrison) all work at the Reynolds Aviation Company, which is run by Algy’s father (Herbert Rawlinson), Muggs (Leo Gorcey), the only one of the kids who refuses to work, spends his time flirting with an ambulance nurse named Helen (Joan Barclay). Helen, though, is in love with her test pilot boyfriend Tom (Dave O’Brien). One day, when Tom’s plane crashes onto the plant airstrip, Reynolds suspects that the crash may have been the work of saboteurs. Later, on the airfield tarmac, Muggs jokingly appoints himself as the new operator of Dr. Richard Nagel (George Pembroke)’s ambulance plane and gives his pals a tour of the aircraft. Their playful games are soon brought to a halt by Nagel, the secret leader of a spy ring, who catches the boys on his plane and angrily orders them off.

Mr. Reynolds, certain that spies are working at the plant, asks Danny to act as a decoy so that the spies can be identified, and has him deliver to a downtown office a fake set of plans for a new bomb site. As Reynolds predicted, Nagel’s men ambush Danny on his way to the office, but the plan goes awry when the detectives sent to trail Danny lose him. Danny eventually turns up unharmed some time later. When Muggs reports to Reynolds his suspicions that Nagel is behind the espionage ring, Reynolds dismisses the accusation as a product of the boy’s imagination. Not convinced by Reynolds that Nagel is innocent, Muggs and Danny begin their own investigation into Nagel, starting with a visit to the doctor on the pretext of a fake ailment. The visit turns up nothing, however, and when Danny and Muggs return to the hangar, a suspicious “accident” that was apparently meant to harm them leaves Peewee injured. While Peewee recovers at the hospital, Tom nearly loses his life when he is unable to make contact with the control tower for a landing. The controller is later found bound and gagged in the tower, prompting the kids to resume their investigation in earnest.

Helen provides the gang with further clues when she confirms that the ambulance plane was being flown on many unusual trips to Mexico, supposedly to deliver patients. When Helen tells the East Side Kids that a man named Forbes is the next “patient” to be transported, they rush to his house, where they find secret plans hidden in his head bandage. Disguising Danny as the transportee, the kids send Danny and Muggs on the flight to learn who is behind the espionage ring. Danny and Muggs soon find themselves in trouble, however, when Nagel, having found Forbes locked in his closet, tries to warn the pilot of the boys’ ruse. Meanwhile, Tom learns of the dangerous mission and goes after the ambulance plane in his own plane. Tom arrives in Mexico in time to save Danny and Muggs, and all the spies are arrested. Back at the plant, Reynolds rewards Muggs for his heroism by giving him a job, but his stint there is short-lived as he is soon distracted by a pretty woman and crashes a plane.

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Directed by William West, produced by Sam Katzman, written by Al Martin, starring Leo Gorcey as Muggs McGinnis, Bobby Jordan as Danny Graham, Sunshine Sammy Morrison as Scruno, David Gorcey as Peewee, Donald Haines as Skinny, Eugene Francis as Algy Reynolds, Bobby Stone as Louie, Joan Barclay as Helen Munson, Dave O’Brien as Tom Lawson, George Pembroke as Dr. Richard Nagel III, Herbert Rawlinson as Mr. Reynolds, Dennis Moore as George, Forrest Taylor as Forbes, Robert F. Hill as Woodward, Mary Bovard as Mazie, , George Eldredge as Man, Alden “Stephen” Chase as Jack, Henchman,
Al Ferguson, Jack Kenny, Carey Loftin, Bud Osborne, Eddie Parker, and Dick Scott as Henchmen.

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Source: “Flying Wild” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.. 13 August 2013. Web. 26 August 2013.

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