Miracle on 34th Street [1947 film]

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 show more 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. show less

A man who claims to be Santa Claus gets a sanity hearing.

Cute and amusing. Surprisingly, it doesn't feel very Christmassy for a movie that has so much to say about Christmas.

Concept: A
Story: B
Characters: B
Dialog: B
Pacing: A
Cinematography: D
Special effects/design: B
Acting: B
Music: C

Enjoyment: B

GPA: 2.9/4

The real Santa is hired by Macy's to play the department store's Santa in the Thanksgiving Day parade, but has to prove in court that he is who he says he is.

Acting: 5.0; Theme: 5.0; Language: 5.0; Content: 5.0; Overall: 5.0

After a divorced New York mother hires a nice old man to play Santa Claus at the Macy's Christmas parade, 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.

***December 15, 2021***
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Christmas classic

(1947)
Starring: Maureen O'Hara, John Payne Director: George Seaton Rating NR

It is light, it is charming, it is delightfully funny and completely captivating. It is all that, and something more. It has an undefinable spiritual quality that raises the spirits of the beholder into a happy, hopeful mood. In the battle of the classic Hollywood Christmas movies, It's A Wonderful Life feels charmingly ancient, fixed in a middle 20th century that scarcely anyone today remembers first-hand. Miracle On 34th Street feels more modern, with slangy dialogue and naturalistic asides, and a general awareness of how Christmas has become about the intertwined stresses of shopping and selling.