Sunday, April 1, 2012

Meet John Doe

What does it take for us to be a Great Society?

I think the movie, Meet John Doe, is inspiring and the speech given by John Doe, played by Gary Cooper, is certainly applicable today.

Please take a few minutes and watch the speech posted on the right. See below for details about the movie.

MEET JOHN DOE, a 1941 Capra movie is relevant today. According to FilmSite.org “The film was intended to combat Fascism. John Doe’s protests in the movie are a lot like the Occupy Wall Street protests today.

THE STORY: In an effort to keep her newspaper job with the New Bulletin (just taken over) Ann Mitchell (played by Barbara Stanwyck) writes her last column (Lavendar & Old Lace). She’s being fired because her column has no “fire” to it. So, she creates “fire” with a fictitious letter that boosts newspaper sales. So, the newspaper owner decides to run with a John Doe column. They hire “Long John” Willoughby, a homeless ex-ball player (bush league, sand lot) pitcher with a bad arm that needs fixing (played by Gary Cooper) to play John Doe. Consequently, John Doe is in demand to speak. His speech starts a whole movement with John Doe Clubs all over the USA. This video clip is John Doe’s inspiring eight minute speech on how (paraphrasing) “by tearing down the fences that separates us we can be a team and start loving our neighbors.”)

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