The People vs. John Doe


The People vs. John Doe is a 1916 silent feature film about capital punishment co-directed by Lois Weber and Phillips Smalley. The film was released by Universal Film Manufacturing Company.

Plot

A wealthy farmer and his sister are murdered just days after the man hired an uneducated farmhand. A detective eager to collect reward money brutally forces a confession from the farmhand and his mentally disabled brother. Both men are convicted and sentenced to death. An attorney suspects that the men's confessions are false, tracks down the real murderer and saves the men from execution.

Cast

Production

Lois Weber's script was based on one of the most notorious death penalty cases at the time. Like the character in her film, Charles Stielow was an uneducated farmhand unjustly accused of murder and sentenced to death. Attorney Grace Humiston and suffrage activist Inez Milholland Boissevain were instrumental in efforts to exonerate him. Weber's script was originally called "The Celebrated Stielow Case."

Release

All references to the Charles Stielow case were removed from the film prior to release and the film's title was changed to The People vs. John Doe. Nonethless, Universal rushed the film into release less than a week after New York governor Charles S. Whitman commuted Stielow's death sentence. Opponents of the death penalty screened the film to draw attention to their cause in New York City and Pennsylvania.