Review: Miracle on 34th Street

Based on a novel by the amusingly named Valentine Davies (who wrote and directed “The Benny Goodman Story”), Maureen O’Hara plays a cynical realist who just so happens to work for Macy’s department store and is seen early in a panic because Santa (Percy Helton, of all people) is a drunken mess when he’s supposed to be taking part in the Christmas parade. A white-bearded elderly fellow (Edmund Gwenn) offers himself up as a last minute replacement. However, it seems that this loveable old fella is under the impression that he really is Santa Claus, or Kris Kringle as he calls himself here. Divorcee O’Hara, who has raised her young daughter (Natalie Wood, cute as a button) to see things as realistically as possible, scoffs at the very such notion, but helps get the man a job as their in-store Santa. He strikes up a quick friendship with the young girl and even her mother (worried as she is about his faculties), though the company psychiatrist (a perfectly hissable Porter Hall) resents the old man as someone trying to insult and make a fool of him. Even when Kris advises customers to seek better deals at other department stores, the company head (Harry Antrim) finds that it proves a winner for the store on a PR level, and pretty soon their rivals are implementing similar policies. Even when they find out that Kris was formerly at a mental hospital, the doctors and administrators there chalk him up to being a harmless eccentric and he continues his employ at Macy’s. But then a disagreement with Hall sees Kris act out violently and before long, Santa Claus is defending himself on trial! John Payne plays the friendly, pipe-smoking attorney and neighbour of O’Hara, who befriends young Wood and gives Kris a place to stay, possibly mostly motivated by romantic interest in the somewhat frigid O’Hara. Jack Albertson plays a postal employee, and Thelma Ritter plays a Macy’s customer in her screen debut.

 

Talk about Christmas magic, this 1947 Yuletide favourite from writer-director George Seaton (“For Heaven’s Sake”, “The Hook”, “Airport”) takes the concept of whether Santa Claus really does exist, and deftly- nearly impossibly!- navigates it to a conclusion that will neither ruin Christmas for the less cynical out there, nor will it insult the intelligence of the rest of us. Of course, the subject matter has been revisited numerous times, hell even TV shows and sitcoms borrow elements from it. But it has rarely if ever been equalled, and Seaton’s screenplay won an Oscar. It’s a truly lovely, charming little film and one of the best Christmas movies ever made.

 

The perfect Edmund Gwenn is the big standout here (if maybe a tad small to be Santa…but what does that even mean?), and it was nice for the veteran character actor to have won an Oscar for not only a damn terrific performance, but for basically playing Santa. He even looks an awful lot like the Rankin/Bass stop-motion Santa Claus if you ask me, and has a noticeable twinkle in his eye. But early on, there’s some really nice cynicism in the film, with Gwenn being asked by the department store to promote certain toys. It’s just about the only film you’ll ever see that both deals with the commercialisation of Christmas, but champions the magic of it. Meanwhile, I find Maureen O’Hara a bitter and taciturn presence on screen normally, but at least here she’s well-cast as a cynical working woman and mother trying not to fill her child’s head with fantasies. So far as child actresses go, Natalie Wood was definitely one of the best. She’s cute and far from the worst actress in the film. Look out for small but memorable appearances by two veteran character actors in their early years on screen. Thelma Ritter shows that she was never young and she has always been a scene-stealer. Jack Albertson would later appear in another kiddie favourite (“Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory”) and here the young-ish Albertson plays an important part in the film’s climax.

 

There’s also plenty of humour, including Kris Kringle having the reindeer as his next of kin. For me, the only dated element here is the alarming trust a mother puts in letting a virtual stranger hang out with her pre-pubescent daughter. But it’s a film from a much different, less cynical time I guess and one needs to remember that. Still, the pipe-smoking weirdo…er…neighbour is rather unenthusiastically played by John Payne, the lone dud in an otherwise solid cast.

 

I’m not sure ‘courtroom drama’ and ‘Christmas movie’ really go together, but the judge here sure is put in a bit of a pickle. I mean, can he really rule that there is a Santa Claus? Can he really rule otherwise? Ultimately, the film seems to tip the scales narrowly in favour of believing in Santa, but really the ending is just meant to be ‘cute’ I think, not necessarily taken literally. It’s a rare Christmas movie that doesn’t actually lie, yet let’s people believe if they want. I think it actually gets the point of Santa Claus, even if a Grinch like me struggles to really support the idea of Santa Claus. Hell, you could even apply the logic used here to understand God. And before you jump on me, I think that it’s intentionally part of the film- ‘Faith’ is a term far too often used in the film to just be a coincidence. What a cute, sweet film that hasn’t been too badly damaged by the passage of time. Not a great film, but a lovely and charming one. Gwenn is excellent. 

 

Rating: B-