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Miracle on 34th Street (1947)
In director George Seaton's perennial Christmas classic
- a dramatic comedy-fantasy about the commercialization of Santa
Claus and Christmas itself:
- the charming 'Kris Kringle' (Edmund Gwenn) -
an older white-whiskered, kindly gentleman - was given the
job of Santa Claus to ride on the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade
float when the previously-hired 'Santa' was found to be intoxicated;
afterwards, the new, grandfatherly
jolly fellow from the North Pole, who proved to be a smash hit
following the parade, was hired by
special-events parade organizer and divorced, workaholic single
mother Doris Walker (Maureen O'Hara) to be the store's new, in-house
Saint Nick replacement
- during the end of the parade,
Doris joined her young
2nd grade daughter Susan Walker (8 year-old Natalie Wood) and her
handsome neighbor, lawyer-attorney Fred Gailey (John Payne) to watch
the parade from his apartment window. Fred had learned tha the
delightfully-skeptical Susan had been taught
to not be fooled by 'make-believe' myths, illusions or fairy tales
("My mother thinks they're silly")
- as advice just before beginning his job at Macy's
as 'Santa,' toy department boss Mr. Julian Shellhammer (Philip
Tonge) urged Kris Kringle to memorize and push a list of overstocked
toys on undecided children: ("Before you go up on the floor, I
just want to give you a few tips on how to be a good Santa Claus...Here's
a list of toys that we have to push. You know, things that we're
overstocked on. Now, you'll find that a great many children will
be undecided as to what they want for Christmas. When that happens,
you immediately suggest one of these items. You understand?")
- Kringle responded with disgust at X-mas commercialization: ("Imagine
- making a child take something it doesn't want just because he
bought too many of the wrong toys. That's what I've been fighting
against for years, the way they commercialize Christmas")
- instead of following his boss' advice, Kris told
a frantic mother (Thelma Ritter) to shop elsewhere if they couldn't
find what they wanted at Macy's; he reasoned why he
would direct customers to other stores: "The only important
thing is to make the children happy. Whether Macy's or somebody else
sells the toy doesn't make any difference"; Shellhammer was aghast,
dismayed and shocked when he overheard and discovered that Santa
was recommending that shoppers go elsewhere; Shellhammer threatened
to fire Kris for directing customers to other stores, until the
mother congratulated him and thanked him for promoting a Santa who
was honest and restored the Christmas spirit - she also vowed to
be a loyal Macy's customer
- meanwhile, Fred urged Susan to stand in line to
speak to the new 'Santa Claus', and encouraged her to
believe in him; although she did commend
Kringle's authenticity, Susan didn't believe
that the actual, warm-hearted, white-haired Kris Kringle was real,
and pulled his beard to test him
Kringle with Skeptical Susan Walker
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- stepping aside with Fred, Doris told him she didn't
want to encourage Susan's 'make-believe' trust in Santa's existence
- since it might cause lasting developmental harm: "By filling
them full of fairy tales, they grow up considering life a fantasy
instead of a reality. They keep waiting for Prince Charming to
come along"
- while Susan watched from the side and was impressed,
Kringle kind-heartedly spoke to a non-English-speaking
immigrant Dutch girl/orphan (Ida McGuire) in her own native language
(and performed a duet of a traditional Dutch carole with her)
- after Susan's visit to the store, Doris urged
Kris Kringle to tell Susan that Santa didn't exist:
"Would you please tell her that you're not really Santa Claus, that
there actually is no such person?"; however, Kringle responded
that he was truly the genuine thing - Saint Nick - and his real name
was 'Kris Kringle': ("Well, I'm sorry to disagree with you, Mrs.
Walker, but not only IS there such a person, but here I am to prove
it")
- Doris soon found out that Kris Kringle's employment
card revealed that his address was the Brooks' Memorial Home for
the Aged in Great Neck, Long Island, NY, an old folks home; problems
arose when Kringle kept claiming that he was the real Santa Claus.
Doris now considered firing him; in the midst of laying off Kringle,
Doris was called into store owner R.H. Macy's (Harry Antrim)
office, with all of his department heads in attendance. She learned
that the general tide of consensus was that Kris had increased
positive PR and goodwill for the store, and had generated additional
business; to her surprise, she was praised (with Shellhammer) for
initiating an unofficial new "policy" of promoting other
rival businesses as a gesture of good-will
- Doris and Shellhammer agreed to keep 'Kris Kringle'
on as the store's 'Santa Claus,' but submit him to testing by the
store's incompetent psychologist and bad-tempered personnel director
Mr. Granville Sawyer (Porter Hall); meanwhile, Kringle was grateful
to Doris for restoring his job, and then entered into a concerned
conversation with her about the loss of the real meaning of Christmas:
("For the past 50 years or so, I've been getting more and
more worried about Christmas. Seems we're all so busy trying to
beat the other fellow in making things go faster and look shinier
and cost less that Christmas and I are sort of getting lost in
the shuffle....Christmas isn't just a day. It's a frame of mind.
And that's what's been changing. That's why I'm glad I'm here.
Maybe I can do something about it")
- after 'Kris Kringle was tested by Sawyer, a meeting
was held in Doris' office with the resident physician and geriatrics
expert Dr. Pierce (James Seay) of the Brooks' Home for the Aged;
the ego-bruised Sawyer recommended that Kringle should be dismissed
immediately and institutionalized; however, Dr. Pierce disagreed
with Sawyer and claimed that 'Kringle' was only slightly delusional,
but not dangerous to himself or to others; he also contested Sawyer's
claim that 'Kringle' would become violent (and use his ever-present
cane as a weapon) if his delusion was ever challenged
- as Dr. Pierce was leaving, he recommended that Kringle
live in the city (closer to his employment so he wouldn't face
a train-ride from Great Neck) and rent a room from someone who
worked at the store so that they could ride to and from work together;
as it turned out, Fred offered a spare room in his
Manhattan apartment to Kringle since he was supportive of the positive
effect Kringle was having on Susan; and then, Kris could ride to
and from work with Doris to Macy's
- as Susan was being put to
bed at Doris' place, she told
Kris about her Christmas wish for a "real house" -
and pointed out a picture of her idealized home that she had torn out
of a magazine, with a tree-swing in the backyard; Kringle said
he would attempt to acquire the home for her, but made no firm
promises: "Well, it's a tall order, but I'll do my best"
- in the Macy's cafeteria, Kris spoke to 17 year-old,
slightly-chubby Alfred (Alvin Greenman) from Brooklyn, who was
a janitor at the store and had been dressing
up as Santa at his neighborhood YMCA for three years; he was angered
that the store's psychologist Sawyer diagnosed Alfred as having a "guilt
complex"; Kris left to confront Sawyer and disagree
with his psychoanalytic interpretation of Alfred's problems; he also
rapped him over the head with his cane/umbrella. The jealous, nasty
and mean-spirited Mr. Sawyer embellished his injury
and what had happened during the violent encounter to Mr. Shellhammer
and Doris and framed his fellow employee Kris for the assault, and
Doris was urged to have Kris examined further and possibly institutionalized
at Bellevue Hospital
- Kris was tricked and deceived, and taken to Bellevue,
where in disgust, he deliberately failed all of his tests; Fred
visited him, restored Kris' hope, and promised to help and encourage
Kris to not give up, and not let down those who were beginning
to believe in him
- lawyer Fred Gailey, Doris'
love interest, decided to quit his prestigious law firm position,
and proposed to defend Kris in an 'insanity hearing'; Fred and Doris
experienced a brief falling-out over his decision; she disagreed
with him when he claimed that it was worthwhile and acceptable
to have faith in him and in his commitment to the red-suited character
(including the power of imagination and the Christmas spirit)
- in the stirring
finale set in the NY State Supreme Court, a battle between
lawyers was set to determine Kris' sanity or lunacy and whether he
should be committed or not; in
one of the courtroom scenes, as a clever strategy, Fred
asked questions of the District Attorney's young son Tommy, Jr. (Bobby
Hyatt) on the witness stand:
"Do you believe in Santa Claus?" and "Why are you so
sure there's a Santa Claus?" - and the boy answered affirmatively
that his dad had told him so. It was a winning maneuver proving that
Santa Claus actually existed
- Kringle's twinkly-eyed earnestness and wholesomeness
removed the doubts of even the skeptical Doris and Susan; on Christmas
Eve at the conclusion of the case, Susan
wrote a letter to Kris Kringle to cheer him up while in court for
his insanity hearing (with her mother's added postscript: "I
believe in you, too"); their letter ended up in the dead-letter
section of the New York post-office, where postal worker mail-sorter
Al (Jack Albertson) who saw the courthouse address on
Susan's letter, decided to clear out the storeroom
by proposing to send all the dead letters addressed to Santa to the
courthouse
- Gailey also made
a dramatic display of US mail evidence in the courtroom - 21 bags
and stacks of thousands of letters addressed to Santa Claus, brought
into the court from the 'dead letter' section of the PO, and proving
that Kris was Santa Claus: ("Your
Honor: Every one of these letters is addressed to Santa Claus. The
Post Office has delivered them. Therefore, the Post Office Department,
a branch of the federal government, recognizes this man, Kris Kringle,
to be the one-and-only Santa Claus!"); NY superior court Judge
Henry Harper (Gene Lockhart) agreed and dismissed the case, and
Kringle was released
Arriving at Susan's Dream House
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Kringle's Cane
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Fred's Proposal to Doris
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- in the concluding scene on Christmas Day,
Susan was in a car with Doris and Fred, repeatedly trying to persuade
herself to have faith that Santa existed: "I
believe" - and then she expressed overwhelming joy at driving
up to the house of her dreams - a house (with a "For Sale" sign)
that she had asked Santa to give to her;
she told Fred and Doris after wildly running through the house:
("But this is my house, Mommy, the one I asked Mr. Kringle for. It is!
It is! I know it is! My room upstairs is just like I knew it would
be! Oh, you were right, Mommy. Mommy told me if things don't turn
out just the way you want them to the first time, you've still
got to believe. And I kept believing, and you were right, Mommy!
Mr. Kringle is Santa Claus!")
- in the ending, Fred kissed Doris and proposed to
her in their future home; Susan helped to persuade them to think
about seriously purchasing the house - but Fred then expressed
his doubts about brilliantly winning the case: ("I must be
a pretty good lawyer. I take a little old man and legally prove
to the world that he's Santa Claus....Maybe I didn't do such a
wonderful thing after all"); the discovery of Kris Kringle's
red cane found inside forced them to reevaluate everything
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Kris Kringle with Toy Department Boss Mr. Shellhammer
in Locker Room
Divorcee Doris Walker (Maureen O'Hara) With Neighbor Friend
Fred Gailey (John Payne)
Kringle with Dutch Girl
Kris Kringle's Address on His Employment Card
Susan and Doris - Believers in Kris
'Insanity' Court Hearing
Bundles of Letters Addressed to Santa
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