Miracle on 34th Street ***** (1947, Edmund Gwenn, Maureen O’Hara, John Payne) – Classic Movie Review 508

In a fondly remembered performance that won him a Best Supporting Actor Oscar, a perfectly cast Edmund Gwenn is a twinkling miracle as merry old Kris Kringle in this delicious 1947 Christmas fantasy film about a whiskery old man who thinks he’s Santa.

He’s taken on by Doris Walker (Maureen O’Hara), the brisk and capable special events director of Macy’s Department Store in Manhattan, New York City, to take over as their new Santa Claus when she finds their usual one inebriated on the job on Thanksgiving Day.

Soon Doris doubts her decision when old Kris goes round claiming that he’s actually Santa, and, while a general big hit with the staff, customers and store, is attacking the commercialism of Christmas by guiding people away from Macy’s goods and into other stores. Unusually for movies of the time, heroine Doris Walker is a working single mom bringing up a six-year-old girl, Susan, who, after the departure of her dad in a failed marriage, has been brought up to face up to reality and so naturally at first disbelieves Kringle is Santa.

As a result of staff psychologist Granville Sawyer (Porter Hall) alleging Kringle is delusional, he is put into an institution as being insane. But the Walkers’ neighbour, a young lawyer (John Payne), agrees to represent Kringle in court and argues that the old man really is Santa as he says. Cue happy ending… Look, it’s Christmas everybody, we can be as sentimental as we want and wallow in it too.

This warm and welcome vintage fantasy film is a bona fide seasonal classic, and it’s a Christmas holiday family tradition to watch it on TV in America. The film has everything going for it, starting with a beautifully written story and screenplay. Then there’s a plush and splendidly realised production in the 20th Century Fox studios at Los Angeles. And the filming on Manhattan locations and at Macy’s at 151 West 34th Street in the winter of 1946 gives a lot of added value of to the movie.

And the acting’s thoroughly appealing throughout, with a confident O’Hara giving really skilled and winning performance as Doris Walker, while Natalie Wood is cute and appealing as her little daughter. But it’s mainly Gwenn’s triumph in a rich and adorable performance as Kris Kringle. Thelma Ritter makes her film début in an uncredited role as a boy’s mother.

It’s a triple Academy award-winner. As well as Edmund Gwenn’s award, story writer Valentine Davies won an Oscar for Best Original Story and screen-writer George Seaton (also the director) won another for Best Screenplay too, reflecting the film’s quality as well as its popularity.

In Britain they apparently didn’t know 34^th Street and so they called the movie The Big Heart. Remade in 1973 for TV and in 1994 with Richard Attenborough as Santa.

Maureen O’Hara’s career kick-started with two 1939 films with her mentor, Charles Laughton, Jamaica Inn and The Hunchback of Notre Dame. The lovely, fiery great star died on October 24 2015, aged 95.

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© Derek Winnert 2013 Classic Movie Review 508

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