Required Christmas Viewing 1
1. Miracle on 34th Street.
Important note: The 1947 version. No other version is acceptable.
There was a 1994 version with the Jurassic Park old man as a gap-toothed Santa with dingy yellowing hair, plus annoying oily-haired pretty-boy Dylan McDermott as a smarmy Fred, a.k.a Bryan with a Y—-if you’ve ever walked into a video store and immediately smelled some unidentifiable rancid odor, chances are it was the 1994 version of Miracle on 34th Street.
Aside from the pathetic casting, it’s like the producers sat around and said, “Hey, remember that Santa Claus movie from the 40’s? That movie that was so well-written that it won two Oscars for the script? Yeah that one. Hey, why don’t we remake it! Only…we’ll update it for the 90’s…instead of it being good, we’ll just really screw it up! Like say by adding, I dunno, some random criminals!
“And we can totally screw up the court case–instead of the lawyer coming up with a brilliant argument, we’ll make the lawyer completely useless! But then, we’ll have the judge just arbitrarily decide to rule in favor of Santa Claus. I dunno…just pick any old lame reason, nobody’ll care. Maybe because money says ‘In God We Trust’. Yeah, that’ll work…yeah, the lispy kid will go up and hand the judge a dollar, see, and the judge will look down at it and just happen to notice that it says something about God, and so because of that, that…uh…that means…that…the…yellow-haired guy is Santa Claus. I don’t know, we’ll maybe think that through a little more, if we have any time.”
And there were a couple of TV versions. One starred David Hartman as the lawyer. He was this big hulking guy who used to host Good Morning America in the 70’s, and, although I hate to say it for fear of possibly coming off as indelicate or offensive, he had the head and face of a horse. An unattractive horse. So yeah, that’s who you want as your leading man.
No, no, go get the 1947 version. This is a good movie to start your month of Christmas viewing with, since it starts out right at Thanksgiving.
One of the reasons it’s so good is because rather than hiring an actor, they simply got Santa Claus to play himself, under the stage name Edmund Gwenn. He is able to do such a good job as Santa Claus (or Sinterklaas, like that kid calls him) for the simple reason that he is Santa Claus. Now that’s class. You know Santa has a full-time gig, a pretty major organization to run, which has to be a lot of work even in the off-season, but still he believed so much in the script that he made time to shoot the movie.
Another reason it’s so good is Maureen O’Hara. Hello.
And Natalie Wood. The kid was, what, seven? And she could act better than half the people in the movie; heck, better than half the people in show business back in the 40’s.
And the movie just reeks of 40’s. But wait; this is a good thing. The 40’s were just like the coolest time ever. Double-breasted jackets, long overcoats, Stetson hats, pocketwatches, baggy pants…okay, maybe they wore the pants a little high. Huge sedans that weighed hundreds of tons, made of real metal, where if you hit a deer or a pedestrian you probably wouldn’t notice.
Chris86 favorite scenes:
• The great ten-second close-up double-take when Fred finds out that Susan’s mother is (shuddering gasp) divorced. That’s right, I used the D-word. The word so ghastly and unthinkable that even as late as the 1970’s, Tammy Wynette was only allowed to spell it.
• After Mr. Sawyer mouths off to Santa, and promptly gets his skull broken open thanks to some swift justice from Santa’s steel-tipped cane, the nurse in the infirmary puts about 97 individual cold compresses on his head in the space of about three minutes. Lady. Come on. I know you’re good at your job, but I’m almost certain those washcloths are still effective for more than two seconds each.
• When Mr. Macy is bragging on his great employees for coming up with the whole send-people-to-other-stores gimmick, after a while one of his underlings looks exaggeratedly at his watch as if to say, whohoo, hint, hint, it’s time for lunch.
Dude. When R. H. Macy is talking, you’ll just sit there quietly and patiently and look interested and like it. When he’s done, he’ll tell you. You don’t look significantly at the clock or sigh really loud unless you want early retirement, as in like that day, along with a size eight footprint on the back of your pleated pants.
But Mr. Macy inexplicably lets it go. I guess cz it’s Christmas. Well that’s your good luck, tapeworm.
• Santa’s reaction when Susan yanks his beard.
• Check out Santa’s employment card. “Donder”? So spelling’s apparently not his strong suit.
• The brilliant inescapable logic that settles the Kourt Kase.
• Fred’s last name is Gailey. I’m serious. Gailey. (snicker)
This is one of my all-time favorite Christmas movies. But don’t take my word for it, it won like three Academy Awards. So if you’ve never seen it, see it; if you haven’t seen it in a long time, it’s about time to give it another look. Thank me later.
Next: Required Christmas Viewing 2
pingback:
