Meet John Doe is a 1941 American comedy drama film directed and produced by Frank Capra, written by Robert Riskin, and starring Gary Cooper, Barbara Stanwyck and Edward Arnold.

The film is about a "grassroots" political campaign created unwittingly by a newspaper columnist with the involvement of a hired homeless man and pursued by the paper's wealthy owner.

Infuriated, Ann prints a letter from a fictional unemployed "John Doe" threatening suicide on Christmas Eve in protest of society's ills.

When the letter causes a sensation among readers, and the paper's competition, The Chronicle, suspects a fraud and starts to investigate, editor Henry Connell is persuaded to rehire Ann, who schemes to boost the newspaper's sales by exploiting the fictional John Doe.

Ann starts to pen a series of articles in Doe's name, elaborating on the original letter's ideas of society's disregard for people in need.

Meanwhile, Willoughby is offered a $5,000 bribe from The Chronicle to admit the whole thing was a publicity stunt, but ultimately turns it down and delivers the speech Ann has written for him instead.

The John Doe philosophy spreads across the country, developing into a broad grassroots movement whose simple slogan is, "Be a better neighbor".

Despondent at letting his now-angry followers down, Willoughby attempts suicide by jumping from the roof of the City Hall on Christmas Eve, as indicated in the original John Doe letter.

[4]In the Variety review, there was a more critical look at the plot: The synthetic fabric of the story is the weakness of the production, despite the magnificence of the Frank Capra-directed superstructure.

A musical stage version of the film, written by Eddie Sugarman and composed by Andrew Gerle, was produced by Ford's Theatre in Washington, DC, from March 16 to May 20, 2007, featuring Heidi Blickenstaff as Ann Mitchell and James Moye as John Willoughby/John Doe.

[9] In 1945 Capra and Riskin sold all rights in Meet John Doe to Sherman S. Krellberg's Goodwill Pictures, a New York distributor.