Miracle on 34th Street (1947)

Okay, now we're getting into familiar territory, aren't we. Tell me truthfully, now. Is there anyone who hasn't been living in a yurt in Outer Mongolia for their entire lives who doesn't know the plot of this film? (No offense to Outer Mongolians implied, really.) But, for the sake of the two or three people out there who haven't seen the movie, I'll fill you in. The rest of you will just have to bear with me. It's Thanksgiving Day. New York City. 1946. A man (Edmund Gwenn), portly, elderly, with a white beard and twinkly eyes shows up at the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade and agrees to stand in for an inebriated Santa Clause. Everyone is captivated by him, and he's hired to be Macy's store Santa for the Christmas season. There's only one problem. This gentleman, who has been living at an old-folks home on Long Island for a while now, claims that he really IS Santa Clause. The one and only Santa Clause. Says his name is Kris Kringle. Won't say how old he is. Says his next of kin are Comet, Cupid, Donner, Blitzen...you know the rest. And he's a delight to everyone who meets him, including Susan Walker (Natalie Wood), daughter of Macy's parade organizer, Doris Walker (Maureen O'Hara). He boosts Macy's Christmas sales by telling customers where to go to find things that Macy's doesn't carry. At first, this shocks the management, but when delighted customers start spending more at Macy's, Kris gets a raise. Yes, everyone loves Kris. Everyone, that is, with the sole exception Mr. Sawyer (Porter Hall), the store's personnel manager. An amateur psychiatrist, he decides that Kris is delusional and dangerous and must be put away for everyone's safety. When Kris bops Sawyer on the head during an argument, Sawyer convinces Doris to have him taken to Bellevue for a psychiatric evaluation. Disheartened, Kris fails the test on purpose. Now it's up to Doris' neighbor and would-be suitor Fred Gailey (John Payne) to get Kris out of the Asylum. This leads to a hilarious court case, with Gailey using a branch of the US Government itself to prove his claim that Kris cannot be insane because he actually is who he claims to be - Santa Claus. And while all of this is going on, Fred is trying his best to woo the once-bitten-twice-shy Doris, and Kris is doing his best to convince both Doris and Susan that not only does Santa Clause exist but also that Kris is the real McCoy. Many "miracles" great and small occur during the course of the story, but none greater or more important than Doris and Susan finding out that they can believe in things that don't make any rational sense.

Miracle on 34th Street is a delightful Christmas movie that's all about the power of faith, the idea that sometimes you just have to believe in something even if it doesn't make sense to do so. The story is charming, just the kind of thing people need and want to see during the holiday season. Ed Gwenn is the perfect Santa Clause, portly, with his lovely white beard and his soft voice. He is the perfect embodiment of old St. Nick. In fact, he looks like he could have been the model for countless Coca Cola ads. Maureen O'Hara is great as the divorced single mother, trying to raise her daughter to be rational and level-headed. And eight-year-old Natalie Wood is utterly charming as little Susan, just learning how to believe in things that most children her age believe whole-heartedly. Most of the other characters are portrayed by Hollywood's stable of peerless character actors - something that seems to be missing in Hollywood these days. If there's one weak spot in the film, it's John Payne playing the would-be suitor. Leading men are terrible parts in films of this nature, because there's just not a lot you can do with them. He's handsome and he's smart and he's successful, but he doesn't get the great lines that the character actors or even Doris and Susan get, so he just sort of hangs around and helps to move the action forward, but he's not exactly memorable. On a trivia note, all of the footage or the parade was taken at the actual 1946 parade, in which Ed Gwenn was the official Santa Claus and performed all of the official duties associated with that position. Yes, that's really Gwenn addressing the crowd from the top of the marquee in front of Macy's.

There have been several remakes of Miracle on 34th Street, including a so-so made-for-TV version in 1974 with Sebastian Cabot, and a horrendous butchering of the story in 1994 starring Richard Attenborough. Best to avoid all of the remakes - they cannot compare to the original. Neither can the colorized versions that are widely available. To me, they look like those hand-tinted photographs from by-gone days. No black-and-white film should ever be colored. It's a travesty. Miracle on 34th Street was filmed in glorious black-and-white, and that's how it should be viewed. The film is rated G and it has a runtime of 96 minutes.

Tomorrow Is Forever (1946)

The year is 1917. America has finally entered WWI. Young John McDonald (Orson Welles) signs up to do his patriotic duty. His pregnant wife, Elizabeth (Claudette Colbert) isn't so sure that this is such a good idea. He tells her not to worry, that the war will be over in no time and he'll be back home with her. She's not so sure. Maybe she has a premonition. John walks out the door, never to walk back into it. Fast-forward twenty four years. America is on the verge of another world war. Elizabeth has been happily married to Lawrence Hamilton (George Brent) since John disappeared. She has two sons: Drew (Richard Long) and Brian (Sonny Howe). Brian is Lawrence's son; Drew is John's. Lawrence has raised him as his own son, however, so he doesn't know that he's not. One day, a man comes into Lawrence's factory to look for a job. His name is Erik Kessler. He's a chemist. He fled Germany with his young daughter Margaret (Natalie Wood). Lawrence hires Kessler. What nobody knows is that Erik Kessler is John McDonald. He was severely injured during WWI, his body crippled, his face disfigured. Instead of going home, he stayed in Germany. He didn't want to burden his young wife with a crippled husband. Better, he decides, if she thinks he's dead. He became a chemist, lived his life. Margaret was the daughter of John/Erik's best friend, Dr. Ludwig (John Wengraf), the surgeon who saved his life. When the doctor was killed by the Nazis, John/Erik adopted Margaret.

When Elizabeth first meets John/Erik, she finds him oddly familiar, but she can't place where she's seen him before. Besides, she has other problems. Her son Drew wants to enlist in the war. Elizabeth fears a repetition of the tragedy with John and refuses to let him. One rainy night, when Lawrence is out of town, Drew runs away with some of his buddies to enlist. Not able to reach Lawrence, Elizabeth turns to John/Erik for help. He goes out into the stormy night and catches up with Drew at the train station. He tries to convince the boy to wait until he has finished school before enlisting. After some serious arm twisting, Drew finally agrees and accompanies John/Erik home, still not knowing that the man in the cab with him is his true father. Later, John/Erik takes ill from being out in the storm. To his dying breath, he insists that he is Erik Kessler, even though Elizabeth knows that he is really her long, lost husband, John McDonald. Referring to Lawrence, John/Erik tells Elizabeth, "Here is the one you wait for. No other man is your husband." After John/Erik dies, Elizabeth and Lawrence adopt Margaret.

Irving Pichel's Tomorrow Is Forever is one of the finest films that Orson Welles ever made. Sure, he's great in Citizen Kane and Touch of Evil, but he's never played a more tender role than that of Erik Kessler. He is simply fantastic. His character is a broken, sad man, and the depth of passion that Welles is able to evoke with just the slightest movement of his sad eyes is unbelievable. And Claudette Colbert is fantastic as Elizabeth, the woman whose dead husband walks back through her front door one day. As the film progresses, and you watch Elizabeth slowly figuring out who Kessler is, your heart aches for these two souls, but mostly for John/Erik. And that's due entirely to the strength of Welles' performance. George Brent puts in a strong performance as Lawrence Hamilton, the man whose entire world stands on the brink of destruction, and Richard Long is great as the hot-headed Drew, the young man who wants so badly to get into the war, not understanding - as his parents do - just how destructive war can really be. Natalie Wood (this was her 3rd film) is charming as little Margaret, who knows far more about the destruction of war than Drew does. And therein lies the message of this film and the reason that it still works so well today. Tomorrow Is Forever was made just as America was emerging from its second world war in less than three decades. Americans knew well then what Americans are just finding out again - war destroys lives.

Tomorrow Is Forever is rated G. It is filmed in glorious black and white and has a running time of 105 minutes.

The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947)

There aren't very many mash-ups of romance and ghost story, for very obvious reasons - the lovers can never touch. I mean, think of it. They exist on different planes. One's corporeal, the other spiritual. How, therefore, do you have the meetcute? The first accidental touch? The first kiss? And the sex scene is, by necessity, downright impossible. That's not to say that it hasn't been tried. Ghost tried it in 1990. They solved all of the above problems by making the two characters lovers before one of them died. We all remember the clay pot scene. *yawn* But no movie has ever accomplished this mash-up better, or with more class, than The Ghost and Mrs. Muir. Directed by Joseph L Mankiewicz, the film stars the lovely Gene Tierney as Lucy Muir, a widow who moves to Gull Cottage on the English coast with her daughter and her housekeeper in the late 1800s, and Rex Harrison as Captain Daniel Gregg, the ill-tempered sea captain whose ghost haunts the cottage.

When Lucy and Anna (a very young Natalie Wood) arrive at Gull Cottage, Lucy discovers to her grief that it is not entirely empty. The cantankerous ghost of the late Capt. Gregg still walks the corridors and bedrooms of the cottage, and at first he makes life quite unpleasant for Lucy. He has plans for his house, and he's not about to let a little thing like death stand in the way of his plans. He wants Gull Cottage to be made into a retirement home for old seamen, and he doesn't want Lucy and her family renting it. By the time her dividend checks have run out, however, and she faces eviction, Capt. Gregg has come to admire her brass, and he thinks up an idea to save her. He will dictate to her the story of his life, and she will write it down and publish it. Thus begins one of the greatest movie romances of all time between two characters who never lay a finger on one another. They are left to convey every emotion, every bit of longing with their words and their looks. And do they ever do a good job of it. As the captain unfolds his life-story to her, Lucy grows fonder and fonder of him. And as her own story comes out, the captain falls in love with her too. They gaze lovingly while they talk, but seldom at each other, often out to sea, as their voices sound the affection that their words never say. But it's a doomed relationship. Capt. Gregg is a spirit, and Lucy is a woman. She needs a man, and, while he doesn't want to stop her, he nevertheless gets jealous of every man she meets. Finally, after the book is published and becomes a success, the captain decides to leave Lucy, to let her live out her life without him among the living. His final words, spoken to the sleeping Lucy, are some of the most heart-wrenching ever uttered in any film.

The Ghost and Mrs. Muir is a moody, atmospheric film, shot along the Monterrey coastline. The sets of Gull Cottage include plenty of deep recesses where the shadows cluster thickly, light reflected from the water that ripples across the walls and ceilings, fog that curls in through the open windows. It also includes plenty of humorous moments, usually involving the captain's dealings with the poor mortal men that enter Lucy's life. The Ghost and Mrs. Muir is a film that has aged beautifully and hasn't lost one bit of its charm or its pathos in the last 65 years. Next time you're in the mood for a great love story, one that'll require at least one Kleenex, check out The Ghost and Mrs. Muir.

The Ghost and Mrs. Muir is rated G and is available in velvety black and white.