Dec 11th & 12th
Miracle on 34th Street (1947/1994)
If you don't know the plot...what's the matter with you?
Fine, I'll tell you:
After a disaterous Thanksgiving parade, a Macy's store hires new guy, Kris Kringle, to play Santa and listen to children's Christmas wishes. He's better than the old, stupid, drunk unconvincing Santa but Susan, the daughter of the uptight parade director, doesn't fall for his act. She knows, thanks to her thoroughly pragmatic (and somewhat trailblazing) mother, that Santa does not exist...until he starts doing subtle but extraordinary things.
Santa's not towing the Macy's line, however, and is sending some customers to Gimbels for better deals, which leads to a confrontation with Susan's mother, Doris who attempts to fire him before Mr Macy himself steps in and insists that Kringle stay. His honesty and kindness has been creating a very loyal customer base. Doris is forced to acquiesce but sends Kringle for a psych evaluation - he does, after all, really believe he's Santa Claus.
Kringle is declared delusional by the psychologist who promptly gives him a crack on the head with his cane. In short order, he's arrested and a trial begins.
Fred, a kindly neighbour, set on restoring magic to Susan and Doris' lives , uses his law firm to defend Kringle pro bono. His opening statement? Kringle really is Santa.
Now go watch it before I tell you how it turns out, you dummies!
Okay.
Let's do this in the right order:
The original is a movie about Christmas miracles which happen because of the outpouring of cheer and goodwill to all men from normal people.
There's a lot of fun in the film especially between Doris and Fred and Kris Kringle and Susan. But more than that, it's sincerely touching. The delivery of Christmas letters to the court and the challenge of whether the judge is willing to legally declare Santa non-existent is on par with the donations of the citizens of Bedford Falls in It's A Wonderful Life.
The film gently pokes fun at Doris' career driven, pragmatic mentality. She's not able to have fun or to appreciate the absurd but she's not unkind or without affection. Edmund Gwen is remarkably convincing as both Santa Claus and as a delusional old man and the balance he strikes really is the lynchpin of the film. You feel ready to believe either way. And that's how writer/director George Seaton wants it, with no definitive answer. Are his 'miracles' magic or serendipity?
By the end, as Susan discovers a dream house to live in with her mother and Fred, just like she wished for, we're hopefully touched enough and feeling Christmassy enough that, sure, why not? He might have been Santa! But that's not the miracle.
The miracle was that the world cared enough about children's experience of Christmas to bend legal precedent in order to keep the magic alive.
It's very simply shot, very unassuming, and utterly captivating.
Actually, I've changed my mind. The real miracle was turning a courtroom drama into a Christmas classic.
The John Hughes penned remake is much less playful yet certainly a little more openly magical than it's predecessor. It removes ambiguity in favour of full blown Christmas magic and in many ways this decision loses much of the real magic of the original. In some ways I still find this surprising of Hughes, whose calling card is heartfelt emotions laid bare.
From the start the film sets a different tone, leaning into the slapstick of drunk Santa and re-establishing the characters as more contextually appropriate to the 90s - which of course immediately dates it far worse than the original.
Ambitious, professional, no-nonsense Maureen O'Hara's Doris is replaced by 90s power-bitch Dorey played by Elizabeth Perkins (because people in the 90s weren't called Doris...but they were called Dorey?) and she is a much less likeable woman. She seems not just business-like but actively cold and dismissive of Susan, played by 90's child-angel Mara Wilson. Likewise Fred becomes Bryan (Dylan McDermott, for some reason) and Edmund Gwen's mysterious Kringle becomes Richard Attenborough's Very-Definitely-Santa-Claus.
It also makes sure we know, right off the bat, that they definitely don't have the blessing of Macy's department store, renaming it Cole's.
Beyond these changes, it's hard to fault the remake, which follows the original almost like for like in many respects. But where Seaton's less-is-more approach slowly beguiles, director Les Mayfield's more is definitely more take on the story feels like it's trying hard to be extra Christmassy and extra miracle-y. I know that approach works for a lot of people, but for me it's a bit much.
Richard Attenborough is incredible in the role. He does everything and more. Of course we believe he's Santa. He doesn't need to talk to reindeer, or to leave a calling card in the magical new house. We would know. That it's so obviously Santa Claus makes it doubly hard to accept when he's accused of being too interested in children. That line always goes down like a lead balloon with me.
Anyway, whichever you watch, you're going to have a thoroughly great time.
Reigniting belief in Christmas is an essential part of a true festive classic, and these movies have that in spades.
Grade: A- Miracle on 34th Street (1947)
B Miracle on 34th Street (1994)