25 Greatest Christmas Films: #10 — 'Miracle on 34th Street' (1947)

And so we finally reach the top ten. Admittedly, from here on in there will be few surprises. These are the greats, the perennials, the timeless classics that we all grew up on, pass on to our children, and give us one more reason to love and anticipate the holiday season.

Nominated for Best Best Picture of 1947, everything about Miracle On 34th Street works, but what makes it uniquely special is the on-location shooting, most especially for the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade which opens the film. It was rare for a production from this era to lug cast, crew, and equipment across the country when it was so much cheaper and convenient to reproduce wherever and whatever was needed on a Southern California backlot where everything from litter to weather could be controlled. Thankfully, some studio exec was thinking outside the box and so there it is, forever encapsulated on celluloid — a big, beautiful New York City all decked out for Christmas in glorious black and white. And if that doesn’t spark your holiday spirit, well, you’re hopeless.

None of that location shooting would’ve meant much, though, without a warmhearted, simple, but meticulously crafted Oscar-winning script that rolls its grounded but still magical story out effortlessly over a briskly paced 96-minutes full of plot-twists, romance, political intrigue, business rivalries, and smashing good courtroom scenes where the stakes are about as high as they can get: Santa Claus might be declared a menace to society and sent to prison.

Edmund Gwenn, who also won an Oscar, is the Kris Kringle by which all movie Santas are measured (and fall short), Natalie Wood is beyond adorable (and believable) as an eight year-old cynic-in-training, and John Payne manages to hold his own in a role that probably should’ve gone to Glenn Ford. But it’s Maureen O’ Hara’s performance as the brittle, literal divorced single mother of young Natalie who anchors the film while managing to be both hardened and loving at the same time. This breathtaking redhead (and the only reason to wish “Miracle” was shot in Technicolor) is the force much of the plot continually bumps up against and what a formidable force she is.

The great joy of these older films is always the supporting cast of players, and here we have no less than William Frawley, Gene Lockhart, Jack Albertson, and Thelma Ritter, who makes the most of a small but memorable role that might be the best argument ever against the commercialization of Christmas.

And just count the iconic scenes: The drunken Santa, the bubblegum in the beard, Kris Kringle’s mental aptitude test, all those letters!, and of course, that stirring moment when Santa meets the sad little Dutch girl and cures her homesickness with a song. Which begs the question: What kind of hardhearted crumb doesn’t believe in Santa Claus?