Search - Miracle on 34th Street on DVD

Content Advisory: Child Classic Movie Release: 1947 DVD Release: 10/05/1999 Format: DVD - Black and White,Letterbox for TV - Closed Captioned Audio Tracks: English, French Subtitles: English, Spanish SwapaDVD Credits: 1 Number of Discs: 1 Run Time: 1 hrs 37 mins Studio: 20th Century Fox Members Wishing: 37 Genres: Fantasy, Children's/Family, Children's Fantasy, Holiday Film See Also: Miracle on 34th Street, Miracle on 34th Street [Blu-ray]

Edmund Gwenn plays Kris Kringle, a bearded old gent who is the living image of Santa Claus. Serving as a last-minute replacement for the drunken Santa who was to have led Macy's Thanksgiving Parade, Kringle is offered a job as a Macy's toy-department Santa. Supervisor Maureen O'Hara soon begins having second thoughts about hiring Kris: it's bad enough that he is laboring under the delusion that he's the genuine Saint Nick; but when he begins advising customers to shop elsewhere for toys that they can't find at Macy's, he's gone too far! Amazingly, Mr. Macy (Harry Antrim) considers Kris' shopping tips to be an excellent customer-service "gimmick," and insists that the old fellow keep his job. A resident of a Long Island retirement home, Kris agrees to take a room with lawyer John Payne during the Christmas season. It happens that Payne is sweet on O'Hara, and Kris subliminally hopes he can bring the two together. Kris is also desirous of winning over the divorced O'Hara's little daughter Natalie Wood, who in her few years on earth has lost a lot of the Christmas spirit. Complications ensue when Porter Hall, Macy's nasty in-house psychologist, arranges to have Kris locked up in Bellevue as a lunatic. Payne represents Kris at his sanity hearing, rocking the New York judicial system to its foundations by endeavoring to prove in court that Kris is, indeed, the real Santa Claus! We won't tell you how he does it: suffice to say that there's a joyous ending for Payne and O'Hara, as well as a wonderful faith-affirming denouement for little Natalie Wood. 72-year-old Edmund Gwenn won an Oscar for his portrayal of the "jolly old elf" Kringle; the rest of the cast is populated by such never-fail pros as Gene Lockhart (as the beleaguered sanity-hearing judge), William Frawley (as a crafty political boss), and an unbilled Thelma Ritter and Jack Albertson. Based on the novel by Valentine Davies, Miracle on 34th Street was remade twice: once for TV in 1973, and a second time for a 1994 theatrical release, with Richard Attenborough as Kris Kringle. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Maureen O'Hara - Doris Walker
John Payne - Fred Gailey
Edmund Gwenn - Kris Kringle
Natalie Wood - Susan Walker
Harry Antrim - R.H. Macy
Jerome Cowan - D.A. Thomas Mara
William Forrest - Dr. Rogers
Herbert Heyes - Mr. Gimbel
Gene Lockhart - Judge Henry X. Harper

At the time of its release, everyone thought of Miracle on 34th Street was a potential disaster in the making. Apart from being extremely expensive to film -- having been shot partly on location in New York -- and being built around a fantasy tale (always a tough sell), the studio decided to open the movie in the spring of 1947. Yet the gamble paid off, and the picture was still running in December of that year, one of the most successful fantasy movies and one of the most popular Christmas films in the history of Hollywood. In the decades since, the story of the bearded old man (Edmund Gwenn who proves to be something more than an actor playing Santa Claus at Macy's has become virtually a modern-day fable, remade twice by the studio (in the 1970's and the 1990's). The 1947 film has a special charm and vitality, however, most obviously due to the vibrancy of the performances -- Edmund Gwenn was at his most charming as Kris Kringle, the geriatric claimant to the name of Santa Claus, and Maureen O'Hara, John Payne, and Natalie Wood are perfect in their parts as three of the people swept into Gwenn's magical orbit. Moreover, and more subtly, the movie captured the mood of hope, tinged by uncertainty, that characterized the postwar United States (especially New York). The DVD is as perfect a presentation of the movie as this reviewer has ever seen, and runs circles around the laserdisc editions of previous years (one of which, at least, was colorized), as well as the various videocassette versions. The source print itself is flawless, and the transfer ideal. The 21 chapters are just adequate to break down the movie's highlights but their paucity is more than made up for by the presence of the original trailer -- one of the most effective promotional pieces ever to come out of a Hollywood studio, it doesn't show anything from the movie, yet it conveys the movie's richness of plot perfectly and cleverly, making it seem an irresistible attraction (which it proved to be). The disc is programmed to go to the menu before starting the movie, which gives the viewer a chance to see that delightful trailer first. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide