Sunday, January 25, 2026 at 11:00 AM
Hammer Museum, Los Angeles
Director Frank Capra and screenwriter Robert Riskin’s 1941 political fantasy *Meet John Doe* feels more prophetic than ever. It’s got it all: a disconnected, alienated (largely white) American working class, a changing media landscape, fake news, an incipient fascist cabal and, of course, mobs.The parting shot of a disgruntled reporter (Barbara Stanwyck) — a manifesto in the form of a suicide note, written by a fictional everyman — inadvertently launches a nationwide political movement after her nervous newspaper finds a patsy to play the part (Gary Cooper). Outwardly well-intentioned, the populist movement urging goodwill and neighborliness is quickly co-opted by corrupt autocrats working from the shadows to seize power. Director: Frank Capra. Screenwriter: Robert Riskin. With: Gary Cooper, Barbara Stanwyck, Edward Arnold. *35mm preservation print courtesy of the UCLA Film & Television Archive.* In the concluding chapter of his “Weimar Trilogy,” which began with *Little Man, What Now?* (1934) and Three Comrades (1938), director Frank Borzage depicts fascism’s ascendance in a small German college town following Hitler’s election to chancellor. The unleashed forces opposed to tolerance, community, reason and freedom of thought fall particularly hard on the family of a beloved professor whose Jewishness is suggested but never stated. The professor’s daughter (Margaret Sullavan) and a family friend (James Stewart) are star-crossed lovers whose resistance to fascism is framed by the film’s prologue as part of the age-old fight against “superstition” and “ignorant fears.” Director: Frank Borzage. Screenwriters: Claudine West, Hans Rameau, George Froeschel. With: Margaret Sullavan, James Stewart, Robert Young. *35mm restored print courtesy of the UCLA Film & Television Archive. Preservation funding funding provided by the Juanita Scott Moss Estate* *—Senior Public Programmer Paul Malcolm*