Meet John Doe

Mad with anger for having to compose one last article after being fired, the calculating columnist, Anne Mitchell (Barbara Stanwyck), pens a flaming but utterly fictitious letter by the fictional author, "John Doe", who protests against the world's perpetual injustices. Threatening to commit suicide on Christmas Eve, John's desperate manifesto strikes a chord with an army of captivated readers all over America, and as a result, the newspaper decides to embody the ultimatum's spirit in the person of the down-at-the-heels vagabond and former pitcher, Long John Willoughby (Gary Cooper)--the nation's next-door hero. Now, as Ann's creation and the unstoppable "John Doe Movement" take the country by surprise, artful manipulation, rampant corruption, and above all, corporate greed, threaten to put a premature end to the noble idea. Will the world ever find out the truth?