Meet John Doe (1941)
Director: Frank Capra
Actors: Gary Cooper, Barbara Stanwyck, Edward Arnold, Walter Brennan, James Gleason
Runtime: 122 min.
After being fired from her job as a news paper reporter, Anne Mitchell (Barbara Stanwyck) writes one last column under a fictional name. This "John Doe" catches the mood of the people and an ex-baseball player turned hobo (Gary Cooper) is hired as a stand-in to impersonate John Doe in order to avoid any claims of deception. The newspaper publisher (Edward Arnold) decides to use him to further his political ambitions.
Trivia: Nominated for the Best Original Story Academy Award, the film is rated 49th on AFI's list of the 100 Most Inspirational movies.