Spotlight
Spotlight Date: 8-August-04
Spoiler Rating: Medium
Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936) and Meet John Doe (1941)
When I first clued in to the gloriousness of Gary Cooper, his collaborations with Frank Capra stuck in my mind as two sides of the same coin. After all, "Mr. Deeds Goes to Town" and "Meet John Doe" not only share a director and star, but they also have the same screenwriter (Robert Riskin) and a similar storyline about a little guy who almost drowns in the big, bad world personified by an aggressive female. Yet when I sat down to watch them again, I found that each resembles another of Capra's films more than the other. What they have in common most is a timeless blend of intelligence, humor, and emotion inseparable from the humanity of their director and the ingenuousness of their leading man.
Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936)
The gentler of the Capra/Cooper films begins with the death of a multimillionaire and the subsequent search for his heir. The deceased's attorneys find what they seek (but not what they expect) in the super-quaint village of Mandrake Falls, Vermont, where they spring the news to a tuba-playing, greeting-card-writing, civic-minded bachelor named Longfellow Deeds. Mr. Deeds is a simple fellow (by which I mean he enjoys a quiet life without pretension, acquisitiveness, or hypocrisy), so he reacts to inheriting $20,000,000 much more calmly than most people would during the Great Depression or any other time. His halting discomfiture leads the attorneys to peg him a sucker, which opinion is widely adopted after Deeds moves to New York to assume the responsibilities that so much money entails. Although he holds most of the wolves at bay using old-fashioned common sense (and a willingness to bop predators on the nose), he falls for a reporter who leads him on in the interest of a scoop (Jean Arthur). Deeds' trust and faith in other people is slowly eroded until the inevitable discovery nearly blasts it to bits, and only a public declaration of love and respect can reconcile him and his fundamental values with a society that has almost forgotten their worth.
"Mr. Deeds Goes to Town" borrows markedly from Capra's "Platinum Blonde:" it examines the gulf between the upper and lower classes, attaches the derisive label of "Cinderella Man" to the hero, and uses the image of a cavernous, echoing mansion as a metaphor for the vacuity of wealth. But it has more bite to it, despite a number of sweet and funny moments, and relates to public desperation as much as personal disillusionment. Although the ultimate message of benevolence clearly reflects the director's view (and earned him his second Oscar), much of the film's success at delivering this message and straddling light and heavy themes derives from Cooper's guileless performance. Longfellow Deeds is at once so pure and so wise, so childlike and so mature, that it almost pains a poor soul like me to contemplate how too-good-to-be-true he is. Yet Cooper makes him true with his special brand of masculine innocence. It would be a bitter world, indeed, in which such a person could be swindled, maligned, or abused, and by the end you want to join the supporting cast in defending his honor --- and thus declaring your own.
Meet John Doe (1941)
If "Mr. Deeds Goes to Town" is a heavier version of "Platinum Blonde," then "Meet John Doe" is the next step in the evolution, pointing the way to "It's a Wonderful Life." Like that classic tale, "Meet John Doe" concerns a man forced to shelve his dream who finds redemption in community at the moment he settles for suicide. I find it interesting that John Doe hasn't enjoyed the lasting popularity of George Bailey, for in many ways his story is more sappy, more powerful, and more Christmasy --- and also more poignantly depressing in that good, ol' Capraesque way.
Cooper stars as a baseball player who has been riding the rails since an injury knocked him out of the game. The conniving reporter this time around is Barbara Stanwyck (in a fine performance), a plucky gal driven to desperate measures to support her family after a tycoon (Edward Arnold) buys the newspaper and threatens to replace all its staff. To create job security, she invents an editorial correspondent named John Doe, an average American fed up with societal injustice who intends to throw himself off the roof of New York City Hall in protest. His outcry generates such an enormous public response (and so much revenue) that a flesh-and-blood Doe has to be hired to keep the fabrication going, for which Cooper fits the bill. Against the warnings of his best friend and fellow hobo (Walter Brennan), the newly minted champion of the people climbs on board a wagon that gets more and more out of control, leading at last to a national grassroots movement whose doctrine of "Love thy neighbor" is strong enough to sway the presidential election. When Cooper discovers that the Oval Office is actually in the sights of his dishonest handlers, his house of cards collapses and he decides to carry out John Doe's original plan of killing himself. On Christmas Eve, with representatives of good and evil, love and hate all around him, he learns his final lesson and makes his final choice.
As "Meet John Doe" illustrates, even when Capra's characters address large social issues their victories remain small and private (which may explain why George Bailey's triumph resonates more: his modest sphere better suits his reward). Capra is smart and honest enough to own that the little man whom he so passionately espouses is often put upon, gullible, and easily roused to a mob; the ones who stand out are those who keep up hope, embrace love, and recognize the claims of compassion even though they have to go through hell to do it. (If comic books tout the superhero, Capra endorses the subhero.) "Meet John Doe," like "It's a Wonderful Life," is at times almost difficult to watch, since the protagonist's trials show him how to face his obstacles instead of overcoming them. Again, however, Cooper helps to smooth the way. Playing a more dimwitted and confused man than Longfellow Deeds, he delivers inspiring speeches, cradles midgets on press junkets, blushes to meet his public, naively woos his siren, and plummets to suicidal despair with the consistent ease of the man who is nothing but his well-meaning self. In "Meet John Doe" and "Mr. Deeds Goes to Town," Cooper and Capra craft men who represent life's hard and soft truths and the courage it takes to sustain them.
Copyright © 2004 The Jujube (M. I. Kim). All rights reserved.
