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Miracle on 34th Street

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Miracle on 34th Street
File:Miracle on 34th Street.jpg
Miracle on 34th Street movie poster
Directed byGeorge Seaton
Written byValentine Davies (story)
George Seaton (written by)
Produced byWilliam Perlberg
StarringMaureen O'Hara
John Payne
Edmund Gwenn
Gene Lockhart
Natalie Wood
Porter Hall
William Frawley
Jerome Cowan
Music byCyril Mockridge
Distributed by20th Century Fox
Release date
May 2 1947 (U.S. release)
Running time
96 min.
SpracheEnglisch

Miracle on 34th Street (also titled The Big Heart in the UK) is a 1947 film which tells the story of a gentle old man, working as a Santa Claus at Macy's department store in New York City, who contends that he is the real deal. The movie was written by Valentine Davies and director George Seaton; Davies also penned a short story version of the tale which was published simultaneously with the film's release.

The film won Academy Awards for Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Edmund Gwenn), Best Writing, Original Story (Valentine Davies) and Best Writing, Screenplay. It was also nominated for Best Picture. It was placed #9 at AFI's 100 Years... 100 Cheers.

The film was colorized twice, first in a poorly recieved version released in the 1980s, and most recently by Legend Films. The new colorized version was released in 2006.

Plot summary

Template:Spoiler Kris Kringle (Edmund Gwenn) attends the annual Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade and finds to his indignation that the actor cast as Santa (Percy Helton) is drunk. When he complains to the special events director, Doris Walker (Maureen O'Hara), she persuades Kris to replace him. He proves to be sensational and is hired to be the Santa for Macy's flagship New York City store.

Once there, both his firm belief in the spirit of Christmas and his firm contention that he is actually Santa himself cause problems. Although Doris initially wants to fire him as crazy, Kris' winning ways and unorthodox ideas, such as recommending rival stores when they have better bargains, generate so much good publicity and customer goodwill for Macy's that Mr. Macy himself (Harry Antrim) promises Doris and her boss generous bonuses, making it awkward to get rid of Kris. Meanwhile, her idealistic lawyer boyfriend Fred Gailey (John Payne) and her no-nonsense young daughter Susan (Natalie Wood), whom she has raised not to believe in such childish fantasies, gradually come to see there is something special about the man.

Things take a turn for the worse when Kris and incompetent, would-be psychologist Sawyer (Porter Hall) get into a heated argument over the quack's diagnosis of a young, impressionable employee (Alvin Greenman) as mentally ill simply because he is generous and kind hearted. In a fit of anger, Kris raps Sawyer on the head, which Sawyer exaggerates in order to have him sent to Bellevue mental hospital. Once there, the discouraged Kris deliberately fails his mental examination and is recommended for permanent commitment.

However, Fred persuades Kris not to give up and works to secure his release. To that end, Fred gets a formal hearing before Judge Harper (Gene Lockhart), in which he makes the stunning argument that Kris should be released because he really is Santa Claus - at least in the eyes of the law. Although Doris has no faith in Fred's ability, he is able to support his argument with clever questioning of witnesses, including the son of the prosecutor, District Attorney Mara (Jerome Cowan). In addition, Judge Harper is sympathetic, if only because his political advisor (William Frawley) has informed him that an unfavorable ruling would derail his upcoming bid for re-election.

However, Fred hits a snag when Mara points out that Kris has no authoritative support for his claim. While Fred searches frantically, Susan, by now firmly believing in Kris, writes him a letter to cheer him up. A mail sorter (Jack Albertson) sees it and realizes that the post office could clear out the many letters to Santa taking up space in their dead letter department by delivering them to Kris at the courthouse. When Fred learns this, he successfully argues that the United States Postal Service, a branch of the federal government, accepts Kris' claim. When asked to produce his evidence, Fred has all the mail brought in and the judge is practically buried beneath bags and bags of letters, which conveniently lets him rule in favor of Kris.

On Christmas morning, Susan is disillusioned because Kris was apparently unable to supply her greatest wish, a house in the suburbs. However as Fred, Doris and Susan are driving along a route Kris recommended, Susan is elated to see the house of her dreams with a for sale sign in the front yard. Fred and Doris decide to get married and purchase the house. Fred boasts that he must be a great lawyer since he managed to do the seemingly impossible in getting Kris officially recognized as Santa. However, he then spots a cane leaning against the fireplace that looks exactly like the one Kris used. Fred then remarks "Maybe I didn't do such a wonderful thing after all."

Trivia

  • The main character's name, Kris Kringle, is that of a German giftbringer similar to Santa Claus.
  • When Kringle is hired (the second time), he is told to take a "mental exam" because he keeps claiming he is really Santa. Kringle boasts that he knows all of the questions because he has taken many before. The questions include things like "How much is 3x5?" and "Who was the first President?" Kringle then challenges Mrs. Harper with an atypical question: "Who was Vice-President under John Quincy Adams? Daniel D. Tompkins, and I bet your Mr. Sawyer doesn't know that!" Unfortunetely, J.Q. Adams's Vice President was John C. Calhoun, not Daniel D. Tompkins. Tompkins was VP under James Monroe, predecessor to Adams.
  • In the book, Reel Justice, the authors point out that Judge Harper had an easy way of dismissing the case early without the political repercussions he feared. This was when the prosecutor rested his case immediately after Kris Kringle admitted in court simply that he believed he was Santa Claus. In doing so, Judge Harper could have ruled that prosecution had forfeited its opportunity to prove that Kringle was dangerous, the basic point of the hearing (his actual mental state itself being irrelevant), and ordered the subject immediately released.
  • Significantly, the morally uplifting ending at the end of the movie, where Kris is found to be Santa Claus and the power of faith and belief in good things wins out, comes as a result of virtually every character working simply for their own self-interest. The judge does not want to find Kris insane because he is worried about the political backlash; Macy endorses Kris as Santa Claus because he fears the publicity if he denounces him; the prosecutor concedes the existence of a Santa Claus because he does not want to admit that there is no Santa in front of his son; and even the postal workers send the letters that save Kris to the courthouse because they want to clear out their dead letter storage. This irony, where everyone's self-interest comes together to end in an uplifting ruling that speaks of the power of faith, is quite notable. This serves as an example of Adam Smith's invisible hand, in which the society as whole receives a benefit when individuals pursue their own interests. (The 1994 remake does not have this plot line and instead has a simpler ending where everyone is just won over and "believes.")

Remakes

There were two remakes:

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