Anniversary of the Miracle on 34th Street
On June 4, 1947, George Seaton's "Miracle on 34th Street" premiered at the Roxy Theater in New York City, which has almost 6,000 seats.
The idea for the plot of the picture came to Valentine Davies when he was trying to buy a gift for his wife at the end of 1944 in the midst of the Christmas sale. Making his way to the counter through a crowd of excited customers, he began to dream about how great it would be if Santa Claus just gave all the people gifts that would make them happy. From these dreams, a story was born, which Davies offered to his friend from the 20s, George Seaton (real name - Stenius). George Seaton, then an aspiring director, but already an experienced and successful screenwriter working for the Twentieth Century-Fox film company, wrote a screenplay based on the story and received permission from the film company to shoot a film based on this script.
A feature of the production of this film was the maximum approximation to real conditions. Filming was done in real Macy's and Gimble stores. The Thanksgiving Day parade was a real one, taking place in November 1946. Due to the need to shoot an authentic parade, actress Maureen O'Hara even had to urgently return from Ireland, where she had just arrived to meet her family after a seven-year (due to World War II) separation.
Simultaneously with the work on the film “Miracle on 34th Street”, 8-year-old Natalie Wood starred in the film “Skudda-u! Scudda-hey!" and "The Ghost and Mrs. Muir". At the same time, she was absolutely sure that she was filming with the real Santa Claus. When Natalie Wood's daughter was 8 years old, she and her mother were invited to star in a remake of the picture. Natalie Wood categorically refused because she did not want her daughter to immerse herself in the world of cinema at such an early age.
The day after the premiere, Bosley Crowther, the usually skeptical and even scathing film critic of The New York Times, published a rave review in his newspaper, beginning with the following words:
«For all those blasé skeptics who do not believe in Santa Claus—and likewise for all those natives who have grown cynical about New York—but most especially for all those patrons who have grown weary of the monotonies of the screen, let us heartily recommend the Roxy's new picture, "Miracle on 34th Street."...It is the freshest little picture in a long time, and maybe even the best comedy of this year.If that sounds like wild enthusiasm for a picture devoid of mighty stars and presented without the usual red-velvet-carpet ballyhoo, let us happily note that it is largely because this job isn't loaded to the hubs with all the commercial gimmicks that it is such a delightful surprise.» - The New York Times, June 5, 1947
And, after all, as if he was looking into the water: it would seem that it is a children's film, there are practically no movie stars in it (Maureen O'Hara will receive the status of a movie star in 10 years, just like Natalie Wood). The budget, accordingly, is not very high - 630 thousand dollars (the equivalent of the current $ 9 million - just a penny by modern standards). And in its first year only, and in North America only, the film grossed $2.650 million! And this is despite the fact that, at the request of the Catholic organization of guardians of morality, age restrictions were set for this film at the box office. Allegedly, the children were not supposed to see a divorced woman as the main character of the picture.
However, there is a version that representatives of religious organizations saw in the film an attempt to bring the image of Santa Claus closer to the image of Christ, and this was the reason for imposing age restrictions. May be so. And, perhaps, for this reason, the film did not hit the screens of cinemas in the Soviet Union.
In early 1948, George Seaton's "Miracle on 34th Street" received two Golden Globe nominations and won both: Best Screenplay (George Seaton) and Best Supporting Actor (Edmund Gwenn). The film went on to receive 4 Academy Award nominations and won three of them. Oscars went to George Seaton, Valentine Davies and Edmund Gwenn. But the nomination for the Best Picture film "Miracle on 34th Street" lost to Elia Kazan's film "Gentlemen's Agreement". Few people remember Kazan's picture today, but Seaton's film is remembered and loved to this day. This is confirmed by the ratings of this film by the modern audience: 65% of IMDB and Kinopoisk users assigned this film ratings from 8 to 10.
Considering the film's success rates above, it has a FilmGourmand's rating of 7,889, placing it at No. 863 in the Golden Thousand.
