Meet John Doe

(Hier ist John Doe | L'Homme de la rue)

by Frank Capra

USA 1941





(click to enlarge)



Director:
Frank Capra
Producer:
Frank Capra
Production Companies:
Frank Capra Productions for Warner Bros.
Screenplay:
Robert Riskin (based on a story "The Life and Death of John Doe" by Robert Presnell, Richard Connell)
Cinematographer:
George Barnes, A.S.C. (b/w, 1.37:1)
Editor:
Daniel Mandell
Music Score:
Dimitri Tiomkin
Art Director:
Stephen Goosson
Costume Designer:
Natalie Visart
Sound:
C.A. Riggs
Cast:
Gary Cooper (Long John Willoughby/John Doe), Barbara Stanwyck (Ann Mitchell), Walter Brennan (Colonel), James Gleason (Connell), Edward Arnold (D.B. Norton), Spring Byington (Mrs. Mitchell), Gene Lockhart (Mayor Lovett)
Runtime:
135 min / 123 min (re-release)
Premiere:
3 May 1941 (USA)




"Meet John Doe est certainement le meilleur film américain jamais réalisé sur ce vertige ideologique qui ébranla tout patriote jusqu'ici aveuglément persuadé de l'infaillibilité du système américain. "
— Michel Cieutat, Frank Capra

"Meet John Doe is a sermon delivered by a master technician. Capra's virtuosity astonishes in the scenes of a mass rally in the rain, the director in his manipulation of crowds and his organising of the images displaying an almost peerless cinematic command."
— Charles Higham, Joel Greenberg, Hollywood in the Forties

"Both the film itself and the way it was created are riddled with cynicism masked as desperation, or desperation masked as cynicism—it's diffcult to tell where the phony sentiment leaves off and the real sentimentality begins. "
— Richard Corliss, Talking Pictures: Screenwriters in the American Cinema

"Capra's supposed optimism was a cover for his more fundamental pessimism, and his happy endings which seem tacked on, as in Meet John Doe, represent an inability to reestablish the emotional balance."
— Joseph McBride, Frank Capra: The Catastrophe of Success




Film Reviews | DVD Reviews





Image NTSC Region 0 vs. Sanctuary NTSC Region 0








Distribution:
Image Entertainment / Hal Roach Studios
Region 1 (not encoded)
Sanctuary Digital Entertainment / The Laureate Collection
Region 2 UK (not encoded)
Special Edition
Runtime:
122:16 min 122:08 min (lacking Warner Bros. logo)
Video:
1.33:1/4:3 FullScreen
Average Bitrate: 4.47 mb/s
NTSC 720x480 29.97 f/s
1.33:1/4:3 FullScreen
Average Bitrate: 4.95 mb/s
NTSC 720x480 29.97 f/s
Audio:
English Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono English Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono
Audio commentary Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono
Subtitles:
None English (captions), Deutsch, Español, Français
Features:
None • Audio commentary by film historian Ken Barnes (includes archive comments by Frank Capra)
• 3 featurettes: Meet Mr. Cooper (16:37 min)
Meet Miss Stanwyck (14:46 min)
Meet Mr. Capra (18:20 min)
• Supporting Cast & Crew
• Digital restoration of Meet John Doe (a before and after comparison) (01:51 min)
• Vintage Radio Promotion: (A) Sorry Wrong Number starring Barbara Stanwyck & Burt Lancaster, (B) For Whom The Bell Tolls starring Gary Cooper & Ingrid Bergman
• Production background
DVD Release Date: 13 February 2001
Snap Case
Chapters: 12
DVD Encoding: NTSC Region 0
SS-SL/DVD-5
DVD Release Date: 15 October 2001
Keep Case
Chapters: 20
DVD Encoding: NTSC Region 0
SS-DL/DVD-9




Frame 1: Menu
(Image left, Sanctuary right)




Frame 2
(Image left, Sanctuary right)




Frame 3
(Image left, Sanctuary right)




Frame 4
(Image left, Sanctuary right)




Frame 5
(Image left, Sanctuary right)




Average Bitrate Region 1:
4.47 mb/s


Average Bitrate Region 2:
4.95 mb/s





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Last update: 30 Sep 2002