Reel Classics: Miracle On 34^th Street

Christmas is quick­ly approach­ing, and today Reel Classics will look at one of my favorite Christmas movies, Miracle On 34^th Street.  I must admit that this is one of sev­er­al that I make the effort to watch every year.  The film stars John Payne as Fred Gailey, an attor­ney, and Maureen O’Hara as Doris Walker, a sin­gle mom and events direc­tor at Macy’s Department Store in New York City.  Natalie Wood por­trays Doris’ six-year-old daugh­ter Susan, and Edmund Gwenn has the role of the real star of the film, Kris Kringle. 

The sto­ry opens on Thanksgiving Day with the annu­al Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.  We find the gen­tle­man who has been hired to por­tray Santa Claus in the parade is dis­cov­ered by Kris Kringle to be intox­i­cat­ed, and he imme­di­ate­ly com­plains to Doris Walker.  She is very stressed deal­ing with all that goes with putting on this event and notices that the gen­tle­man who has com­plained has a round fig­ure and white beard and looks like he could play the role of Santa.  She quick­ly asks if he would take on the role, and he agrees.  He is an imme­di­ate hit with the folks watch­ing the parade, which leads to her offer­ing him a posi­tion at Macy’s to play Santa for the vis­it­ing children. 

During the parade we meet Doris’ daugh­ter, Susan, who is watch­ing the parade from an apart­ment high above the street.  She is accom­pa­nied by their neigh­bor, Fred Gailey.  He is sur­prised that this young girl does not believe in Santa and has been taught by her mom to not believe in such fan­tasies.  Steve learns that this cyn­i­cism is part of who Doris is as well, hav­ing become dis­il­lu­sioned after her divorce. 

Kris Kringle finds him­self in a bit of trou­ble at Macy’s when he is instruct­ed to sug­gest items that Macy’s has over­stocked, and instead, he directs the par­ents to a com­peti­tor’s store to find the item the child wants.  The floor man­ag­er is sur­prised when a par­ent comes up to him com­pli­ment­ing Macy’s for putting com­mer­cial­ism sec­ond to sat­is­fy­ing chil­dren’s hopes.  Mr. Macy hears of this and is very hap­py about the pos­i­tive publicity—offering both the floor man­ag­er and Doris a bonus. 

Fred brings Susan to see Santa and sees him take a young Dutch girl onto his lap to speak to Santa.  The mom tells him that the young girl does­n’t speak English and that she was recent­ly adopt­ed from an orphan­age in Europe after hav­ing lost her fam­i­ly in the war.  Kris imme­di­ate­ly begins to speak to the girl in Dutch, and she con­vers­es with him.  Susan begins to won­der if this tru­ly is Santa Claus, and Doris insists that Kris tell her daugh­ter that he is not Santa.  Instead, he states that he is Santa.

Eventually, Kris is referred to the store’s “coun­selor,” Granville Sawyer, who admin­is­ters a “psy­cho­log­i­cal eval­u­a­tion” and decides that Kris Kringle suf­fers from grand delu­sions.  Sawyer facil­i­tates Kris being sent to a psy­chi­atric facil­i­ty, and Kris — con­vinced by Sawyer that Doris is a part of this action — delib­er­ate­ly fails his exam­i­na­tion.  Fred Gailey steps up and encour­ages Kris not to give up, and says he will rep­re­sent him at the hearing. 

As the sto­ry pro­ceeds, we see Susan becom­ing more of a believ­er, and her rela­tion­ship with Kris Kringle grows.  We also see Doris’ hard shell begin to soft­en and she too begins to ques­tion what may be real.  In the court­room scenes we find the judge con­cerned about neg­a­tive pub­lic­i­ty with an upcom­ing election—is he going to send Santa away?  We also see folks step­ping up to defend Kris Kringle and his beliefs, includ­ing the head of Macy’s him­self.  But it is a let­ter from Susan to Kris Kringle, also signed by Doris, sup­port­ing him that tru­ly turns the tide.  A most pow­er­ful scene occurs when the United States Postal Service is intro­duced into the court­room.  For those of you who have seen this Christmas clas­sic before, you know what I’m talk­ing about.  For those of you who have yet to see it, I will not spoil it for you. 

This film is about believ­ing and hope.  It is about putting the grow­ing com­mer­cial­ism and cyn­i­cism present in soci­ety post World War II aside (some­thing that, in my opin­ion, is just as preva­lent in today’s soci­ety).  It is heart­warm­ing to see the cold, hard bar­ri­er erect­ed by Doris and instilled upon her daugh­ter begin to melt.  A quote from Fred Gailey sums it up:  “Faith is believ­ing things when com­mon sense tells you not to.  Don’t you see?  It’s not just Kris that’s on tri­al, it’s every­thing he stands for.  It’s kind­ness and joy and love and all the oth­er intangibles.”

Miracle On 34^th Street had a cou­ple more famil­iar faces in the cast.  William Frawley (Fred on I Love Lucy) played the part of Charlie Halloran, the polit­i­cal advis­er to the judge.  Judge Harper was played by Gene Lockhart who, inter­est­ing­ly, was in anoth­er well-known Christmas clas­sic—A Christmas Carol (1938).  He played the role of Bob Cratchit.  Jerome Cowan played the part of the District Attorney Thomas Mara.  Though his name may not be famil­iar, his face cer­tain­ly will be to those fans of the old­er films.

Interestingly, though Miracle On 34^th Street is a Christmas-themed movie, it was released in May of 1947.  This was due to Darryl F. Zanuck’s insis­tence, as he believed more folks attend­ed the movies in warmer weath­er.  The deci­sion was made not to dis­close that it was a Christmas movie.  This effort is seen in the trailer—a most unusu­al one.  When the film opened in New York, news­pa­per colum­nist Hedda Hopper report­ed that Macy’s would close for half a day so the employ­ees could attend the showing. 

Miracle On 34^th Street was nom­i­nat­ed for four Academy Awards.  It won three, includ­ing Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Edmund Gwenn), Best Writing Original Story, and Best Writing Screenplay.  Also nom­i­nat­ed for Best Picture, it lost to Gentleman’s Agreement.

The parade scenes were actu­al­ly filmed dur­ing the Thanksgiving Day Parade in 1946.  Gwenn was the Santa that year.  The scenes at Macy’s were also shot on loca­tion.  Valentine Davies, the Oscar-win­ning writer, said he got the idea for the film while fight­ing his way through the Christmas shop­ping crowds and try­ing to find a present for his wife.  He said that see­ing all the com­mer­cial­ism made him won­der what the real Santa Claus would think of it all. 

Critics offered a warm recep­tion to the film.  The New York Times crit­ic wrote “For all those blasé skep­tics who do not believe in Santa Claus—and like­wise for all those natives who have grown cyn­i­cal about New York—but most espe­cial­ly for all those patrons who have grown weary of the monot­o­nies of the screen, let us hearti­ly rec­om­mend the Roxy’s new pic­ture, Miracle on 34^th Street.  As a mat­ter of fact, let’s go fur­ther:  let’s catch its spir­it and hearti­ly pro­claim that it is the fresh­est lit­tle pic­ture in a long time, and maybe even the best com­e­dy of this year.” 

A BBC crit­ic described it as “a clever and deeply orig­i­nal sto­ry, that remains true and con­fi­dent in direc­tion, while deliv­er­ing con­sid­er­able charm all the while.” Even more mod­ern reviews are very pos­i­tive.  The Critics Consensus on Rotten Tomatoes reads, “Irrefutable proof that gen­tle sen­ti­men­tal­ism can be the chief ingre­di­ent in a won­der­ful film.  Miracle On 34^th Street deliv­ers a warm hol­i­day mes­sage with­out resort­ing to treacle.”

In her auto­bi­og­ra­phy, Maureen O’Hara wrote about what the film had come to mean to her:  “Everyone felt the mag­ic on the set, and we all knew we were cre­at­ing some­thing spe­cial...Miracle On 34^th Street has endured all this time because of the spe­cial rela­tion­ship of the cast and crew, the uplift­ing sto­ry, and its mes­sage of hope and love, which steals hearts all over the world every year.” She also spoke of John Payne’s love for the film.  “John real­ly believed in and loved Miracle On 34^th Street and always want­ed to do a sequel.  We talked about it for years, and he even­tu­al­ly even wrote a screen­play sequel.  He was going to send it to me, but trag­i­cal­ly died before he could get around to it.”

In December 1947, Lux Radio Theater broad­cast a six­ty-minute adap­ta­tion with Maureen O’Hara, John Payne, Edmund Gwenn, and Natalie Wood all repris­ing their roles.  There have been mul­ti­ple tele­vi­sion remakes over the years with var­i­ous well-known actors in the role of Kris Kringle (1955-Thomas Mitchell, 1959-Ed Wynn, 1973-Sebastian Cabot).  In 1995 a fea­ture film remake star­ring Richard Attenborough as Kris Kringle was released. 

In 2005 Miracle On 34^th Street was select­ed by the Library of Congress for preser­va­tion in the National Film Registry.  In 2006 the American Film Institute ranked it #9 on its list of 100 Most Inspiring Movies Of All Time.  It was also nom­i­nat­ed by the American Film Institute in 1998 for the Top 100 Greatest American Movies.

A cou­ple of inter­est­ing notes regard­ing Edmund Gwenn.  He had to gain 30 pounds to become a bit rounder for the role of Santa.  And regard­ing Edmund Gwenn, Maureen O’Hara stat­ed, “...by the time we were halfway through the shoot, we all believed Edmund real­ly was Santa Claus.  I’ve nev­er seen an actor more nat­u­ral­ly suit­ed for a role.”  When he accept­ed the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor, he said, “Now I know there’s a Santa Claus.”

The Internet Movie Database (IMDb) rates Miracle On 34^th Street at 7.9 of 10.  Rotten Tomatoes gives it a Critics Score of 96% and an Audience Score of 87%.  In search­ing my Roku device, I found it avail­able for free stream­ing on a site called Freebie TV.  It is also avail­able on DVD at the Clark County Public Library. 

As I put the wrap (and tie the bow) on this Reel Classic review, I again want to say why this is one of my “go-to” Christmas movies every year.  As stat­ed above, it is a sto­ry about believ­ing, about hope, and about love.  In my opin­ion, we all could ben­e­fit from a whole lot more of that, espe­cial­ly in these times of so much divi­sive­ness and hate.   I wish you all peace and love–not just at Christmas but all year round.  That is my Christmas wish. 

Information for this Reel Classic review was gath­ered from Internet Movie Data Base (IMDb), Rotten Tomatoes, Turner Classic Movies (TCM) and Wikipedia. I’ll be back soon with the next Reel Classic, but before I leave you with the trail­er below let me remind you that if you enjoy these clas­sic movies, please join me on the sec­ond Tuesday of each month at 6:00 PM at the Clark County Public Library for “Ron Kibbey’s Comedy Classics.”  I present a clas­sic com­e­dy film, usu­al­ly accom­pa­nied by a vin­tage car­toon.  Popcorn and drinks are pro­vid­ed.  More infor­ma­tion about the next film is avail­able on the library’s web­site and Facebook page, as well as the WinCity Voices Facebook page.

(Editor’s note: we usu­al­ly embed the YouTube trail­er here, but this par­tic­u­lar one is not embed­d­a­ble, so please click the link below to view the trailer.)

https://youtu.be/-ce_op2qG24