doe, john
One of my favorite movies has been on Time Warner Free Movies On Demand for a little while now: "Meet John Doe."
Directed by Frank Capra, the 1941 film stars a perennial fave of mine, Barbara Stanwyck, and Gary Cooper.
Stanwyck plays Ann Mitchell, a pushy journalist. At the outset, Mitchell and a host of her colleagues are laid off, but she's told to be sure to get her column turned in before she cleans out her desk. Furious, she makes up a letter that says, in protest against all the evils of the world, a "John Doe" will leap off the City Hall building on Christmas Eve.
The letter is printed, and then the newspaper is faced with either admitting the lie ... or finding a John Doe that they can pay until Christmas to say he's going to commit suicide. Enter Gary Cooper as Long John Willoughby, a former baseball pitcher who, like so many others, has fallen on hard times. He agrees to take on the role of John Doe, and his 15 minutes of fame begin.
It's a Capra film, so you know what it's like: charming and full of sentiment. And definitely worth a watch if you have the On Demand service with your cable. I keep catching snippets here and there while I'm cleaning house, but I've really got to put it on DVD before it's gone -- and so should you.