Awards & Honors

Richard Connell and Robert Presnell were nominated for the Oscar® for Best Original Story.

THE CRITICS' CORNER - MEET JOHN DOE (1941)

"The synthetic fabric of the story is the foundation weakness of the production, despite the magnificence of the Capra-directed superstructure. With excellent acting, particularly by Miss Stanwyck, parts of the film are emotionally effective. The climactic mass-meeting of the Doe adherents at which their hero shows his feet of clay, is an expertly imagined and technically perfect presentation of mob psychology and movement. Less convincing are the transitional changes in the hearts and minds of the leading characters."
- Flin., Variety

"...in spite of a certain prolixity and an ending which is obviously a sop, this is by far the hardest-hitting and most trenchant picture on the theme of democracy that the Messrs. Capra and Riskin have yet made-and a glowing tribute to the anonymous citizen, too."
- Bosley Crowther, The New York Times

"He [Gary Cooper] has given great performances in the past, but none to touch this superbly modulated characterization. Whether he is toying with the idea of double-crossing the sob sister, is becoming involved with a fervent zeal for the John Doe movement, or is standing in pitiful lonely debasement when the Fascist publicist exposes the whole hoax, his is the utterly realistic acting which comes through with such authority on the screen."
- Howard Barnes, The New York Herald Tribune.

"Frank Capra's Meet John Doe is...an admirable challenge to the spirit of life today, is a picture that could make history and give a new turn to the thoughts of the nation, if -- and the IF is very large indeed -- it does not die abornin' ...[because] it lacks the inspiration of a great ending."
- Edwin Schallert, The Los Angeles Times.

"Meet John Doe (1941) is Frank Capra's wonderful, message-laden populist melodramatic tale about the common man. The sentimental, hard-hitting film is often grouped into a populist trilogy of Capra films about American individualism - associated with Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936) and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939), although it is generally considered the weakest of the three."
- Tim Dirks, The Greatest Films

"After a bright start, this hunkers down to serious hand-wringing... Coop's hick (none too convincingly hinted at as the new Messiah) turns out to be a bore, and Capra strains to accommodate political chicanery and his own half-baked idealism."
- TimeOut Film Guide

Compiled by Frank Miller