At first I was sore at the state administration
because it’s on account of the slimy politics here that we have all this
unemployment. But, in looking around it seems the whole world’s going to pot.
Sometimes the nation’s favourite classic film channel
will classify the films it screens as PG for parental guidance and in this case
I not only didn’t have to guide my daughter into watching it she was hooked
from the moment Barbara Stanwyck appeared on screen. Here is someone
recognisably “modern” in terms of her agency and her self-belief and it’s hard
to believe she was much different than her go-getting character Ann Mitchell, a
journalist who makes news because she has to but then realises her true values
through the aid of Gary Cooper’s John, a down on his luck baseball player who
starts of playing out her sensationalist story and ends up moving audience and
America alike with his integrity and belief in fair play.
I don’t recall ever having seen this film before but I’ve
certainly heard of it and the narrative clicked very quickly as I realised that
this was a tale of the eternal truths of politics and the press – darn if it
isn’t still so much about today and populism, fake news and manufactured
emotionalism. The owner of the newspaper that starts the rumpus is one DB
Norton (Edward Arnold) and he decides to ride the story of John Doe all the way
to the White House, using his media outlets and power to maximise a grass roots
movement around John Doe to break the mould of American politics. Now, where
have we heard this kind of talk before and recently?
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| Ms Barbara Stanwyck |
The story starts with the familiar pains of a newspaper
in search of profit, Norton has just taken over The Bulletin and its rebranding
as The New Bulletin begins with a jackhammer being taken to the old values as
etched in stone at the front of the building “A Free Press Means a Free
People” replaced by a sign for the new title and the tag line “A
Streamlined Newspaper for a Streamlined Era” – one with morality removed
perhaps? New Editor in Chief Henry Connell (James Gleason) gives it straight to
the redundant Ann as she protests: “Sorry sister… We’re after circulation.
What we need is fireworks, people who hit with sledgehammers, start arguments!”
Ann has a mother and two younger sisters to provide for
and she’s going to going down fighting even as she gets the boot and told to
finish off her last column. She does more than that and drafts a letter from one
“John Doe” who is so disgusted with the state of American society with its
unfairness and lack of opportunity that he claims he’ll throw himself off City
Hall on Christmas Eve (yeah, Merry Christmas…).
What did he buy a paper for? He’s in the oil business…
Why did he engage a high-pressure editor like Connell…?
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| Coop may well do... |
The letter is duly published and the fireworks duly begin
the next day at the Governor’s office where they immediately smell a rat but
the wrong one assuming this is all an attack by Norton and his new client
journalists. Who buys a media brand without expecting to get involved in
politics? Who indeed…
The blow back is also underway in Connell’s office when
he hauls Ann in to find out who John Doe is immediately wishing to de-escalate
a situation in which people over the city have offered the young man work and
other help. His jaw hits the floor when she tells him she made it up and, just
as she’s about to get kicked out a room full of down and outs gathers in the
editorial offices claiming to be John Doe.
Her mind moving faster than Rebeka Brooks on speed
(former editor of the UK’s iconic gutter press sleaze-zine, News of the
World) Ann realises how long the story will run if they select the right
man for the John Job and before Connell has time to choke on his cigar, they’re
lining up the candidates and selecting a starving former minor leagues baseball
player laid low by long-term injury, Long John Willoughby (Coop). Long John’s
on his uppers but he’s square enough and even comes with a walking, talking
conscience The Colonel (played by the wonderful Walter Brennan) who tries to
steer his pal away from money and back to the freedoms of being broke and free.
From this point on things get both complicated and also
uplifting as despite the political manoeuvring after John gives a speech on the
radio, written by Ann and inspired by her father, during which he starts to
realise the power he can have to bring people together. He urges simple
neighbourly kindness and soon John Doe Clubs are formed as people with very
little give a lot.
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| The folks who trust and support. |
Naturally the contemporary viewer wonders what happened
to writer Robert Riskin (Democrat) and director Frank Capra (Republican – in
old money) both during and after this very potent storyline. The two were
friends but clashed over this film and didn’t collaborate any further. What
they produced is both a call to individual responsibility as well as a work
that can’t fail to be a critique of cynical politics and media at a time when –
along with films like It’s a Wonderful Life and Mr Deeds Goes to
Washington – there seemed to be a groundswell of discontent with business
as usual in politics.
What starts out as fake turns into something very genuine
and, despite the frequent humour – I love the boys playing baseball in the
hotel like kids using an imaginary ball – there comes a point when John has to
start to be real no matter how inconvenient that can be for those who would use
him to win office. There’s also the very real concern with just how will the
lot of the common John/Joan be improved?
The character arc for Ann and John is well handled by two
of Hollywood’s finest ever talents and Stanwyck especially is fabulous, razor
sharp and full of vim whilst Cooper plays the everyman with humility and guilt.
In the end can their essential decency save them and everyone else?
Guess we’ll just have to find out as this year of years unfolds like yesterday’s news.
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| Mr Walter Brennan |
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| Democracy dies in streamlined darkness... |
