20 facts you might not know about 'Miracle on 34th Street'

Valentine Davies has the “Story By” credit for the movie, while director George Seaton is credited with the screenplay. However, Davies did more than concoct the story. He also wrote a novella version of “Miracle on 34th Street” that was released at the same time as the film.

Maureen O’Hara had been a successful actress in the United States for a while by the time she was asked to play Doris Walker in this movie. She was hesitant, though, on account of the fact she had just moved back to her native Ireland. Then, she saw the script and was willing to fly back to the United States to film it.

Maureen O’Hara was a known actor already in 1947, but the girl who plays her daughter had a bright future as well. Susan is played by Natalie Wood, who would go on to be one of the biggest names in Hollywood for a while. Wood had been in a few films already, but in roles with names like “Little girl who drops ice cream cone.”

If you’ve watched classic television, you’ll recognize a couple faces from “It’s a Wonderful Life.” William Frawley, aka Fred Mertz from “I Love Lucy,” is in the film. So is Jack Albertson in an uncredited role. Albertson played Grandpa Joe in “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory,” but he also won an Emmy for his work on “Chico and the Man.” He played the Man.

“Miracle on 34th Street” is a pretty perfect film for modern Christmas sensibilities, given that it runs from Thanksgiving to Christmas Day. It begins with the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York, and the movie was filmed during the actual 1946 version of that parade.

Shooting on location in New York in late November is rolling the dice, and it did not pay off for O’Hara and Edmund Gwenn, who plays Kris Kringle. They had to be outside in the parade scenes, and O’Hara wrote in her memoir that it was “bitterly cold” that day. According to records, on November 28, 1946, there was a high of 49 in New York and a low of 39. It’s a morning parade, so it could have been quite chilly at that point.

That parade shoot? It was filmed using nine cameras at the same time. Assistant director Arthur Jacobson also did some guerilla shooting in New York City. He had Gwenn and Wood get in line in a department store’s cafeteria for one scene, and he had O’Hara do her shopping spree in Macy’s just with actual shoppers around her.

R.H. Macy is in “Miracle on 34th Street” as the owner of Macy’s in New York. This is not accurate, as the Macy family had sold the company in 1895. Oh, also Rowland Hussey Macy had died in 1877, just a bit earlier than the 1946 time period of the movie.

It took them a little while to settle on the title for the film. The first title considered was “My Heart Tells Me,” and other titles considered include “The Big Heart,” “It’s Only Human,” and “Meet Me at Dawn.” In fact, it was actually originally released in the United Kingdom as “The Big Heart.” 34th Street probably didn’t resonate as much in the U.K., one assumes.

“Miracle on 34th Street” is a perfect Christmas movie. So, naturally, they released it in…June. Yes, a movie about Santa Claus that takes place during the holiday season was released on June 11, 1947. Darryl Zanuck, the head of 20th Century Fox, presumed that people went to see more movies in the summer.

How do you promote a Christmas movie in June? Well, you avoid any of the Christmas stuff in the promotional materials. The film got a bizarre trailer where a producer walks around a backlot running into stars who praise “Miracle on 34th Street.” The Christmas aspect is not mentioned at all, and the original poster focuses on O’Hara and John Payne, barely featured Gwenn’s Kris Kringle.

Have you ever seen a movie or TV show do a bit where a bunch of letters is dumped onto a desk in support of something, specifically in court? “The Simpsons” did this bit once, for example. Well, that’s all in homage to “Miracle on 34th Street.” In the movie, Fred, who is representing Kris Kringle in court, has bags and bags of mail for Santa Claus dumped on the judge’s desk as proof that his client is the real Santa.

Critics enjoyed “Miracle on 34th Street” and so did audiences. However, one group had a problem with this feel-good, family-friendly film: The Catholic League of Decency. This watchdog group rated the movie a “B” on their scale, which meant “morally objectionable in part.” Their issue? O’Hara’s character is a divorcee.

It was scripted that Susan would tug on Kris Kringle’s beard to see if it was real. However, Gwenn improvised his reaction to Wood’s yank. He thought it would benefit the film if she was surprised by his reaction.

This is not merely a Christmas classic. It was also a darling of the Academy. While the movie lost to “Gentleman’s Agreement” when it came to Best Picture, it won three Oscars. Davies and Seaton won separately for the script (there used to be Best Story and Best Screenplay Categories) while Gwenn won Best Supporting Actor. Yes, an actor has won an Oscar for playing Santa.

“Miracle on 34th Street” was surprisingly not the only Christmas movie up for Best Picture for 1947. That year, “The Bishop’s Wife” also got nominated. If that wasn’t unusual enough,” It’s a Wonderful Life”  was nominated in 1946.

The American Film Institute has put “Miracle on 34th Street” on multiple film ranking lists over the years. It came in at number five on their top-10 fantasy film list. On top of that, it was ninth on the “100 Years…100 Cheers” list, which was their list of the most inspiring movies.

The process of colorization of black-and-white films was a controversial one. Ted Turner was big on colorization, but a lot of people were against the idea of colorizing films that were originally in black-and-white. “Miracle on 34th Street” was actually one of the first movies to be colorized. It occurred in 1985.

In 1994, a remake of “Miracle on 34th Street” was released. John Hughes adapted the script, Richard Attenborough played Kris Kringle, and Mara Wilson was in the Natalie Wood role. This time, though, Macy’s wouldn’t give permission to use their name, so the department store is changed to the fictional Cole’s.

In the ‘40s and ‘50s, the story was adapted to a radio play a few times, with Gwenn playing Kringle each time. There was a 1963 musical adaptation on Broadway retitled “Here’s Love.” We’ve gotten a few television adaptations, with the most famous of them probably being the 1973 version with Sebastian Cabot. Lastly, in 2012 Macy’s in New York City did a 30-minute puppet version.