Who Is Your Santa, Part II: Miracle on 34th Street (1947)

For many of us, our first movie experience of Santa Claus is in the holiday classic, Miracle on 34^th Street (1947).  This film has been heralded as a classic for a variety of reasons – its sweet and humane nature, its wonderful performances, and its simple message of faith.  It was written and directed by George Seaton (1911-1979), who also wrote for the Marx Brothers and provided the voice of the radio’s Lone Ranger, and was based on a story by Valentine Davies (1905-1961). 

For those who came in late – Kris Kringle (Edmund Gwenn) comes to New York to see if there are any vestiges of the Christmas Spirit to be found in then-contemporary America.  She gets a job “playing” Santa at Macy’s – where he sends customers to other stores if it is in their best interest.

He also becomes involved with Macy’s employee Doris Walker (Maureen O’Hara), a divorcee raising her daughter Susan (Natalie Wood).  Walker is a hard-headed realist; not only doesn’t she believe in Santa Claus, but thinks Susan should not clutter her head with irrelevant intangibles. 

Santa playing himself at Macy’s turns out to be a tremendous coup for the store, and Kris takes a spare room in the apartment of Fred Gailey (John Payne), Walker’s beau.  Before long, people come to doubt Kringle’s sanity, and he is put on trail in Manhattan court.  Gailey comes to his defense, and this leads to a great deal of wrangling over the questions of reality, of sanity and the nature of the Christmas Spirit by the Judge, (Gene Lockhart), the District Attorney (Jerome Cowan) and the Judge’s political advisor (William Frawley).

By any critical yardstick, Miracle on 34^th Street is a magnificent picture.  Gwenn won the Oscar for Best Actor in a Supporting Role, and the film captured Oscars for Best Writing/Original Story for Valentine Davies and Best Writing/Screenplay for George Seaton.  Though nominated for best picture, it lost to Gentleman’s Agreement – yet another instance of the good folks at the Academy getting it wrong.

There are many reasons the film works so well on so many levels.  First off, the performances are spot on.  Not just Gwenn (1877-1959), O’Hara (born 1920) and Wood (1938-1981), but the other supporting cast, as well.  Payne (1912-1989) plays the honest lawyer hero as an American Everyman, a type that was recognizable in countless films of the era, but now gone thanks to the corrosive effects of multiculturalism.  His easy charm, sense of decency and commitment to ‘the little guy’ were all tropes of what it meant to be an American Everyman, and it’s a delight to watch him. 

However, for your correspondent, the best performances were from supporting players Lockhart (1891-1957), Cowan (1897-1972) and Frawley (1887-1966).  Lockhart, as a decent judge in an uncomfortable position, is a joy to watch – in fact, he elicits our deepest sympathy.  Cowan, as the hard-bitten DA, is a delight.  This fine actor was in countless movies of the era (for example, as Humphrey Bogart’s partner in The Maltese Falcon), and his breezy playing and city-slicker veneer are superb.  However, acting honors must go to Frawley, as the Judge’s advisor.  An old New York type not seen anymore, Frawley is an operator and wise guy.  Here, for example, is Frawley and Lockhart before a possible ruling on Santa’s sanity:

Frawley: All right, you go back and tell them that the New York State Supreme Court rules there’s no Santa Claus.  It’s all over the papers. The kids read it and they don’t hang up their stockings.  Now what happens to all the toys that are supposed to be in those stockings?  Nobody buys them.  The toy manufacturers are going to like that; so they have to lay off a lot of their employees, union employees.  Now you got the CIO and the AF of L against you and they’re going to adore you for it and they’re going to say it with votes.  Oh, and the department stores are going to love you too and the Christmas card makers and the candy companies. Ho ho. Henry, you’re going to be an awful popular fella.  And what about the Salvation Army?  Why, they got a Santa Claus on every corner, and they’re taking a fortune.  But you go ahead Henry, you do it your way.  You go on back in there and tell them that you rule there is no Santy Claus. Go on. But if you do, remember this: you can count on getting just two votes, your own and that district attorney’s out there.

Lockhart: The District Attorney’s a Republican.

And that, more than anything, I think, is why this film works so wonderfully well.  It’s not just a warm-hearted fantasy, it’s a hard-bitten screwball comedy.  Screwball, in the 1930s and 1940s, was a delicate mixture of the sentimental and the cynical.  One could not overwhelm the other, but both must be present in the brew.  In fact, it’s important to remember that no Christmas miracle rides in to save the day.  Rather, harried New York postal workers (at one time, it seems that they actually did something), send their Santa letters in the dead letter office to Kringle at the courthouse simply to get rid of them, and a grateful Judge finds that sufficient to acquit Kringle while still saving face.  Or, if you would … a cynical miracle.

Even better, Seaton’s screenplay is written in that delicious – and vanished – American idiom of the time.  That patois had a distinct, rat-a-tat-tat rhythm, and anyone listening can catch the cadence in classic screwball comedies.  American English, like American movies and music and radio and fiction of the time, had a distinct voice – breezy, confident, smart-alecky and down-to-earth.  We lost that rhythmic poetry in the 1960s, when we seemed to lose so much of our national identity along with everything else, but it is one of our great contributions to language.  (My favorite line?  This: But maybe he's only a little crazy... like painters or composers... or some of those men in Washington…)

As Alfred, the janitor at Macy’s laments, Yeah, there's a lot of bad 'isms' floatin' around this world, but one of the worst is commercialism.  Make a buck, make a buck. Even in Brooklyn it's the same - don't care what Christmas stands for, just make a buck, make a buck.  What Miracle on 34^th Street says is that even in this jaded, cynical and commercial world in which we find ourselves, intangible mysteries surround us.  And if a bunch of hard-boiled Gothamites believe… so should you.

Tomorrow: The Santa Claus of William Joyce!

Christmas Comes to Loew’s Jersey City

Perhaps part of the reason there are so many bad films today is because we have so degraded the experience of going to the movies.  It’s important for everyone hustled into small, cramped theaters, looking at tiny screens, or gagging on trailers to remember that going to the movies was once serious business.

People dressed to go the movies.  Often, live performances would accompany a film, either with film stars making personal appearances or bandleaders playing before and after the show.  And because movies were so plentiful and affordable, people went all the time.  While these days barely 75 major films are released a year, in the 1930s and 1940s, some 500 films would be released.  Yes, that number was 500!

And movie-going was the great American secular religion.  It made gods out of names that still resonate mightily: John Wayne (1907-1979), Fred Astaire (1899-1987), Humphrey Bogart (1899-1957), Judy Garland (1922-1969), Bette Davis (1908-1989) and Greta Garbo (1905-1990), for example.  And, like most religions, it demanded the right ambiance for the sacrament to take place.  And that … led to the creation of Picture Palaces.

There are very few of them today, but movie theaters were often built along the lines of cathedrals.  They were filled with grand (or simply ornate) architecture, they were constructed on colossal scale and they were designed to be a sacred space.  Entering a Picture Palace of old was to enter another realm – where dreams came true, good triumphed over evil, and movies were worthwhile.

Most of these Picture Palaces did not survive the change in the movie business that started in the 1950s and lasted through the 1970s.  In the 50s, movies faced stiff competition from television, and as fewer movies were produced, more and more Picture Palaces found that the economics of supporting such a vast piece of real estate was no longer feasible.  Most went under the wrecking ball, to survive only in cherished memories, while some smaller movie houses were sub-divided into multiplexes. 

Fortunately for New York-area readers, one Picture Palace still remains, and is the focus of a volunteer-supported base of film and live-performance buffs.  The Loew’s Jersey City first opened in September 1929, one of five “Loew’s Wonder Theatres” that opened during 1929-1930.  At that time, Journal Square in Jersey City was a popular entertainment and shopping destination.  Loew’s Jersey City cost $2 million 1929 dollars to build – and ticket prices were first 35 cents. 

The initial plan for Loew’s was to run live theatre performance as well as films.  The stage of the theatre was equipped with a full counterweighted fly system with the 50'-0" wide screen rigged to be flown in and out. In front of the stage, a three segment orchestra pit was installed. One segment, on left side of the pit as viewed from the audience, contained the pipe organ console. The organ lift could rise independently and rotate. The remaining width of the orchestra pit could also rise, lifting the orchestra up to the stage level. The third segment was an integrated piano lift in the center of the orchestra lift that could either rise independently or with the orchestra lift.

Loew’s hit its nadir in the 1980s; the last first-run film to play there was Friday the 13^th Part VI: Jason Lives.  Plans were soon announced to demolish the building, but it subsequently sold to the city of Jersey City, after which volunteers began the restoration project.  The house had been broken into a multiplex, and volunteers restored mechanical systems while the Garden State Theatre Organ Society acquired a sister pipe organ to the match the original.

This wonderland echoes with memories.  I know people who were there for live performances of Frank Sinatra, Martin and Lewis, Abbot and Costello and Kirk Douglas.  I first went to Loew’s in the early 1990s for a screening of This Island Earth (1955).  Volunteers had just begun to reclaim this lost treasure, and the film was actually shown in the lobby.  Since then, the theatre auditorium proper has been largely restored, creating a premium theatre experience.  In the past few years, your correspondent has seen films as diverse as A Christmas Carol (1951), March of the Wooden Soldiers (1934), Pearl of Death (1944), Jason and the Argonauts (1963) – with Ray Harryhausen in attendance, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969), Psycho (1960) and many others.

This Christmas, the Friends of Loew’s (as the volunteers are called) have several special treats in store.  On Saturday, December 14, Santa Claus will appear in the lobby from Noon till 3:00 PM.  The visit with Santa is free, and digital photos are available for only $4.  Visitors who bring a new hat, scarf, pair of gloves or warm socks for the Winter Warmth Drive for the Homeless can have their picture for free.

That evening starting at 6:30, Loew’s hosts a concert and sing-along of popular holiday music, performed by Taresa Blunda, Howard Richman, the Choir of St. Dominic’s Academy and the Brass Ensemble of the JC Arts High School with Bernie Anderson at the Wonder Organ.  And that treat is followed by a screening of the original Miracle on 34^th Street, starring Edmund Gwenn, Maureen O’Hara and Natalie Wood.  Tickets for both the concert and film are only $14 for adults and $7 for children and seniors.

The Friends of Loew’s have been working for nearly two decades to both restore this theater to its former glory, and to establish it as a premiere revival house and performance space.  But they can’t do it alone.  Readers are encouraged to go to events held at Loew’s, or to provide support in terms of work or donations.  You can get more information at www.loewsjersey.org, or by calling (201) 798-6055.

For those of you who will be joining me on Saturday, Loew’s Jersey City is located at 54 Journal Square, Jersey City, right across from JFK Blvd and the PATH Station.

Merry Christmas!