Deccmber 24, 2022
I’m going to give away the skinny about the movie from the get-go. It didn't detract from my film experience when I watched it years ago after reading the same things...and viewing it again on this Christmas Eve. Watching the film felt like wishing on a star that the world would evolve, like the characters in the film, into a kinder gentler place. Emulating Kris Kringle, I vow that one way that I will contribute is by performing random acts of kindness.
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https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0039628/
After a divorced New York mother hires a nice old man to play Santa Claus at Macy's, she is startled by his claim to be the genuine article. When his sanity is questioned, a lawyer defends him in court by arguing that he's not mistaken.
At the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, the actor playing Santa Claus is discovered to be drunk by a whiskered old man. Doris Walker, the no nonsense special events director, persuades him to take his place. He proves to be a sensation and is quickly recruited to play Santa at the main store. While he is successful, Doris learns that he calls himself Kris Kringle and he claims to be the actual Santa Claus. Despite reassurances by his doctor that he is harmless, Doris still has misgivings, especially when she has cynically trained herself, and especially her six-year-old daughter, Susan, to reject all notions of belief and fantasy. And yet, people, especially Susan, begin to notice there is something special about Kris and his determination to advance the true spirit of Christmas among the rampant commercialism around him and succeeding in improbable ways. When a raucous conflict with the store's cruelly incompetent therapist, Granville Sawyer, erupts, he finds himself held at Bellevue where, in despair, he deliberately fails a mental examination to ensure his commitment. All seems lost until Doris' neighbor, Fred Gailey, reassures him of his worth and agrees to represent him in the fight to secure his release. To achieve that, Fred arranges a formal hearing in which he argues that Kris is sane because he is in fact Santa Claus. What ensues is a bizarre hearing in which people's beliefs are reexamined and put to the test, but even so, it's going to take a miracle for Kris to win.—Kenneth Chisholm (kchishol@rogers.com)
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MY TAKE...
The 1947 black-and-white film was a good fit for the post World War II years. The country had been through five years of war. And was in no mood for introspective films. Westerns and mysteries were in vogue. It didn’t take long to figure out who were the good guys, who were the bad guys and who should get their just desserts. “Miracle on 34th Street” was not just a good movie. It was an emotional tonic that the country gulped down with appreciation.
To add an infusion of magnanimity which the zeitgeist of the time seemed to need, the film floated the notion, through the character of Kris Kringle, played by Edmund Gwenn , that Christmas needed to be re-anchored to kindness, charity and giving.
In the very first scenes, Kringle decries what he sees commercialism overtaking charity. Through the magic of Hollywood’s clever screenplay and a perfect cast, charity and belief in the spirit of Christmas are reinvigorated.
The casting to match characters and their roles was brilliant. So were the men and women who played them. The lynch pin…Edmund Gwenn, a slight, mildly portly man with a full gray beard and a twinkle in his eye brighter than the North Star. His Kris Kringle was a perfect balance of kindness, empathy, perceptiveness, and sense of calling. His kind face is luminous. Amongst a group of fine actors, he is the grain of yeast that makes the whole film rise, the axis around which the entire film revolves scene after scene. All the other actors might’ve come from central casting, but Kringle may as well have come from the North Pole or somewhere at a considerably loftier altitude.
I weep every time I watch it, even though I know exactly what’s going on, including a developing romance between the lead actors and the tension produced by the little girl who doesn't believe in Santa Claus.
Believing in something or someone can be tricky. Inevitably your belief will be challenged. The film’s characters grapple with this from first scenes until the final scenes. The way their beliefs are resolved results in The Miracle of 34Th Street.
The acting, the perfectly cast characters, the themes...this movie is worth watching any day of the year.
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