MIRACLE ON 34TH STREET

New Zealand Listener, Volume 17, Issue 435, 24 October 1947, Page 25

MIRACLE ON 34TH STREET

(20th Century-Fox)

S comedy-drama, one of the "surprise" box-office successes of the current season, gives the impression of having been made by some-

body who knew exactly how to sit on a fence and keep his tongue tucked into his cheek the whole time. Only this would seem to explain the film’s curious, but by no means unattractive, blend of cynicism and sentimentality. At one moment it is taking a swipe at Big Business, with such a statement as "There’s a lot of bad ’isms floating around these days and one of the worst is commercialism"; at the next it is pushing Big Business’s barrow up Broadway by \photographing the Macy Christmas "Parade and many of the activities inside the actual Manhattan department stores of Macy’s and Gimbel’s. There is a lot of sound talk about the perversion of the Christmas spirit in the interests of salesmanship; but in the outcome it is made pretty plain that this sort of salesmanship pays good dividends and is therefore adequately justified. Yet, however muddled Miracle on 34th Street may be in its moralising, it has the benefit of an idea for its plot which makes it a pleasant and often

ingenious diversion, with more than an average share of wit, several sequences of genuinely tear-jerking quality, and one or two elaborate performances. The "miracle" is performed by an old fellow with genuine white whiskers and a very warm heart (Edmund Gwenn), who turns up in Manhattan just before Christmas and insists that his name is Kris Kringle. Nothing will shake his assurance that he is the one and only Santa Claus, in person: he maintains his identity against the pitying disbelief of a "modern" mother (Maureen O’Hara) and her more openly scornful little daughter (Natalie Wood), the active. vindictiveness of an outraged psychiatrist (Porter Hall), and even in the face of.a public trial for his sanity. The general attitude seems to be that he is "only a little crazy, like poets, painters, composers, and some of those men in Washington." But most of the scoffers he eventually converts; and the sanity trial; by an ingeniously logical device, becomes’ a legal triumph in which the Courts of New York, backed by the Federal Government, are forced to acknowledge that there really is a Father Christmas. Before this happy though rather embarrassing finale, the old chap has had a rare opportunity to:practise what he preaclies by playing Santa Claus in R.

H. Macy and Co’s. toy department during the Christmas rush, He packs in the customers; he raises a lump in the throat by suddenly talking in Dutch to a shy little refugee from Holland; and he raises a storm by advising customers to go to rival stores if they can’t get exactly what they want at Macy’s. The storm quickly subsides when it is seen that the old chap’s innocent honesty is paying handsome dividends in hard cash and goodwill. Stores all over the country start to adopt his policy. "From now on (explains ‘Mr. Macy’) we are going to place public service before profitsand consequently we are going to make more profits than ever. After all, you can’t argue with success." ‘ : Oh yes, you can; but for once*I’m not inclined to try. Miracle on 34th. Street is a preposterous piece of whimsy, of course-but somehow it comes off. |