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Auction History Result 5p0232 MEET JOHN DOE linen 1sh 1941 art of Gary Cooper & Barbara Stanwyck, directed by Frank Capra Date Sold 9/1/2020 Sold For: Login or Register to see sold price. An Original Vintage Theatrical Linenbacked One-Sheet Movie Poster (1sh; measures 27" x 41" [69 x 104 cm]) (Learn More) Meet John Doe, the classic 1941 Frank Capra political populist romantic newspaper journalism mistaken identity melodrama (about a female reporter who writes a fictional story, which she presents as fact, about a man who is planning to commit suicide in protest of the world's treatment of downtrodden people; when the column is a giant hit, she must find a man to portray the writer and hires ex-baseball player Gary Cooper) starring Gary Cooper (in the title role as John Doe), Barbara Stanwyck, Edward Arnold, Walter Brennan, Spring Byington, James Gleason, Gene Lockhart, Rod La Rocque, Sterling Holloway, Irving Bacon, Regis Toomey, J. Farrell MacDonald, and Ann Doran. Note that in the original story this movie was based on (by Richard Connell and Robert Presnell), it concludes with John Doe standing on the roof, preparing to jump, and the Barbara Stanwyck character, Nan, tries to talk him out of doing it, and he is unshakable, and he says "I'll always love you, Nan" and she replies "I'll always love you, John". He then looks out at the crowd, which is singing the Battle Hymn of the Republic, and when the clock strikes midnight, Nan looks at where he was standing, and it is now empty, and she has "a look of pride and great joy". Frank Capra and screenwriter Robert Riskin did not want this ending, because it involved the character committing suicide, and they felt that the Catholic Church would strongly object to that, which might make the movie unable to get distribution. Capra filmed five different endings and previewed at least two of them. In one, they had the suicide take place, and ended with Walter Brennan holding John's dead body. In another, it ends at the John Doe Convention, with John Doe disgraced, and the editor saying "Well, boys, you can chalk another one up to the Pontius Pilates." Another had Nan talking John out of committing suicide. In another, John convinces the corrupt publisher to change his ways and join John in his crusade. But none of those four seemed right. At one of the previews where they showed one of the above endings, a viewer suggested ending it with the John Doe members telling John that they had never stopped believing in him, and Capra then filmed that ending, and this is the ending that is on the movie's final version! NOTE: Click on linked names to see a biography. If you know who did the art (if any), please let us know. Important Added Info: Note that there is a re-release of this poster that has been mistakenly sold as a 1941 original, including by us (of course, once we discovered it, we immediately notified the people who purchased it from us incorrectly described, and offered to give them a complete refund, even though years have passed)! The reason that re-release is confused with this original is because it was likely printed from the same plates, except the small writing on the bottom was removed and only a "Lithographed in U.S.A." is on the bottom of the re-release. Also, the re-release has brighter colors than that of the original poster. What IS linenbacking? Learn More Overall Condition and Pre-Restoration Defects with Quality of Restoration: fair to good. The poster had paper loss at the middle crossfold, measuring around 1" x 1", but it was in the background above the stars' heads. It had a large uneven area of paper loss in the lower right, extending from the far right of the bottom fold to the bottom of the poster, affecting a lot of the bottom right of the image, and the small printing in the bottom border. It also had tiny tears and tiny paper loss in the bottom half of the vertical fold and in the bottom horizontal fold, with a lesser amount of wear on the other folds. It had pinholes around the edges. Overall, the poster was in fair condition prior to linenbacking. The poster was pretty well backed, but the restorer did not make much of an effort to recreate the bottom right background area, and they did not recreate the missing small printing in the right of the bottom border. You can clearly see signs of the above defects and the restoration of the above defects, so please bear this in mind before bidding on this poster. Learn More about condition grades 
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