Tag Archives: Miracle on 34th Street (1947)

A Legal “Miracle” or How US Law Saved Kris Kringle

December 19, 2014 Doug Krentzlin Leave a comment

20th Century Fox’s 1947 Academy Award-winning comedy Miracle on 34th Street (directed and written by George Seaton from an original story by Valentine Davies) is justifiably regarded by film connoisseurs as one of the two most beloved of Hollywood Christmas classics. (The other one is, of course, Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life. In fact, Miracle on 34th Street is often referred to as “the best Capra picture Capra never made.”)

As just about everybody knows thanks to the numerous obligatory television presentations this time of year, Miracle on 34th Street tells the story of Kris Kringle (character actor Edmund Gwenn in the performance that won him the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor), a kindly old man who’s hired to play Santa Claus at Macy’s Department Store for the holiday season. Kris turns out to not only be an outstandingly convincing Santa, he also insists that he’s the real article. As a result, he eventually winds up in court for a hearing to determine if he’s mentally unsound and should be committed to the mental ward of New York’s Bellevue Hospital. Representing Kris is idealistic young lawyer, Fred Gailey, played by John Payne. (More about Fred and the other characters later.)

Over the years, Miracle on 34th Street has received much well-deserved praise for its colorful characters, iconic performances, witty script, and the heartwarming sentimentality that delicately avoids becoming maudlin or treacly. But there’s one unlikely aspect of Miracle on 34th Street that has yet to receive much attention: the accuracy of its depiction of the use and interpretation of law in legal proceedings. Fred, the romantic lead, is, after all, an attorney, but given Hollywood’s track record on courtroom movies, that in itself was hardly a guarantee of authenticity. Indeed, the laughable amount of inaccuracies in Hollywood’s depictions of lawyers and their work makes it seem as though screenwriters consider it a badge of honor to avoid any research on the subject whatsoever and just make up their own approaches to interpreting the law out of whole cloth. (And don’t even get me started on David Mamet’s courtroom scenes in The Verdict and The Untouchables!)

John Payne, Edmund Gwenn

The climatic courtroom sequences of Miracle on 34th Street were undoubtedly inspired and patterned after the equivalent scenes in Frank Capra’s Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1935). In both films, a beloved saintly character winds up in a New York court proceeding in order to determine his mental competency. (Longfellow Deeds wants to give his vast fortune away to the poor, much to the dismay of his relatives, lawyers, financial advisors, and various other “moochers.”) But Capra and his screenwriter Robert Riskin eschewed the mechanics of the law in allowing their hero to avoid commitment and relied more on crowd-pleasing sentimentality. Deeds, who’s rejected legal advice and represents himself, simply makes a speech explaining his reasoning for wanting to give his riches away, which is convincing enough for the judge to declare him “the sanest man who ever walked into this courtroom.”

James Seay

Seaton, on the other hand, opted for a legally valid way for Fred to get a judgment in favor of his client. Interestingly, Fred initially attempts to make an argument on sentimental grounds that reflect Capra’s approach. He calls Dr. Pierce (James Seay), who works at the nursing home Kris resides at, to the stand to testify that Kris is no threat to himself or others, and that his insistence of being Santa Claus is a harmless delusion not unlike the case of a well-known Hollywood restaurateur. (For the edification of those less than half a century old, this was an obvious reference to “Prince” Michael Romanoff, celebrated owner of Romanoff’s in Los Angeles, who had a running joke with his friends and customers in which he claimed to be a member of the Royal Family of Russia.)

Gene Lockhart

This line of questioning is quickly shot down by District Attorney Thomas Mara (Jerome Cowan as a caricature of real-life New York DA Thomas Dewey) who points out that there’s a difference between pretending to be someone you’re not and pretending to be someone who’s an imaginary figure. He then asks Judge Henry X. Harper (Gene Lockhart) for an immediate ruling as to the existence of Santa Claus. Of course, the judge (who also has gubernatorial ambitions) can’t possibly rule there’s a Santa Claus without becoming a national laughing stock, but before he can even address the issue, he’s called into conference by his political advisor, NY Democratic Party boss Charlie Halloran (William Frawley). Halloran tells Harper with clear, unsentimental logic why he can’t rule against the existence of Santa Claus in a speech beautifully delivered with withering sarcasm by Frawley in his greatest pre-I Love Lucy moment of glory:

“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. 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!”

William Frawley

As a punch line, the judge responds by meekly pointing out that the DA’s a Republican. Returning to the courtroom, Harper sidesteps the issue by declaring that whether Santa Claus actually exists is irrelevant; the defense’s obligation to affirm his client’s sanity is to prove that Kris is “the one and only Santa Claus.” This seemingly raises the bar to an impossible level for Fred, but Seaton has cleverly set the stage for a solution to Fred’s winning Kris’ case that adheres to legal procedure.

A slight digression now as we turn our attention to the two major characters I have yet to mention: the Macy’s employee who first hired Kris, single mother Doris Walker (Maureen O’Hara), and her daughter Susan (wonderfully played by an eight-year-old Natalie Wood). Disillusioned by the failure of her marriage, Doris has forbidden Susan from believing in “fairy-tale” characters, including Santa Claus. Which is why, despite her considerable affection for Kris, Susan tells him that, to her, he’s “just a kind old man with whiskers.” After Judge Harper’s ruling, Susan comes to a crucial decision to cheer up Kris by writing him a letter stating that she’s changed her mind and now is willing to believe he’s Santa Claus, after all. (Unbeknownst to Susan, Doris adds a post-script telling Kris that she believes in him, too.) Then, Susan addresses the envelope to “Kris Kringle, New York County Courthouse.” Which brings us to…

The “miracle” of the title. That night (past midnight, so it’s now officially Christmas Eve), a post office mail sorter on the graveyard shift (an unbilled Jack Albertson) notices the letter’s address and has an inspiration. If “Santa Claus” can be found at the courthouse, why not get rid of all those thousands of “Dear Santa” missives taking up space in the dead letter department by sending them to the courthouse as well? Management agrees and this unnamed postal worker’s practical joke unwittingly turns out to be the miracle that makes it possible for Fred to have Kris recognized as Santa Claus in a way that holds water legally.

Jack Albertson

Upon receiving notice that there are several bags of mail awaiting delivery to his client, Fred does some quick research on postal law. As Fred recites to the court when he returns, “United States postal laws and regulations make it a criminal offense to willfully misdirect mail or intentionally deliver it to the wrong party.” (Not surprisingly, the actual wording of the law around that time was much drier and more technical: “For a person employed under the Post Office. To steal, or for any purpose whatever embezzle, secrete, or destroy a post letter, is a felony, punishable by penal servitude not exceeding seven years, or imprisonment not exceeding two years.” However, I think some artistic license can be granted to Seaton for wording the law in terms that would be more accessible to general audiences. And you have to give him props for making the language sound like authentic legalese.)

John Payne, Edmund Gwenn

After he finishes reciting the law, Fred produces three letters addressed only “to Santa Claus” that were directly delivered to Kris and asks that they be entered as evidence. When the DA objects that “three letters are hardly proof positive,” Fred responds, “I have further exhibits, but I hesitate to produce them.” At this point, the judge insists that all of the exhibits be produced and placed upon his desk, which is the set-up for the movie’s single most memorable sight gag as a seemingly unending line of court officers parade into the courtroom and dump the contents of several mail bags onto the bench, the enormous pile eventually hiding the judge completely from view. (This bit of visual comedy is perhaps the film’s most Capraesque touch of all.)

John Payne, Gene Lockhart

Having introduced his evidence, Fred delivers his legal coup de grâce: “Your Honor, every one of these letters is addressed to Santa Claus. The Post Office has delivered them. Therefore, the Post Office, a branch of the federal government, recognizes this man, Kris Kringle, to be the one and only Santa Claus!” The judge parts the sea of envelopes before him and, rather than sentimentally declaring Kris to be “the sanest man who ever walked into this courtroom,” simply dismisses the case with, “Since the United States government declares this man to be Santa Claus, this court will not dispute it.” Thus, the judge has been given a legally acceptable way of getting out of a case he never wanted to preside over in the first place without alienating the voters or his grandchildren (who have been snubbing him for being mean to Santa Claus).

Edmund Gwenn

With the case dismissed and Kris granted his freedom, there are still some important (and poignant) plot threads to be tied up, but this finishes things as far as the subject of this article is concerned. The point here is not that Miracle on 34th Street is a precisely detailed examination of US law, but rather that the attention to legal detail is pleasantly unexpected for a comedy. (And the fact that it still remains an extraordinarily amusing and entertaining movie that ranks with the best films of Capra and Preston Sturges doesn’t hurt it, either.) Another comedy that shows unusual legal acumen on the part of the filmmaker is Billy Wilder’s 1966 satire on tort law The Fortune Cookie, but that’s gist for another article…

Doug Krentzlin used to be a legal assistant in another existence.

Reviews

DVD Review: “The Bigamist” (1953)

March 28, 2014 Doug Krentzlin Leave a comment

Seeing how much the movie industry and the media outlets covering it love to pay lipservice to women in film, it’s a mystery why they actually give so little coverage to pioneering female filmmakers, particularly Ida Lupino. Lupino was Hollywood’s first female producer-director, and she even co-wrote some of her films as well. (Director Dorothy Arzner preceded Lupino, but Arzner wasn’t a producer.) And, more to the point, Lupino was a damn good filmmaker whose work in movies and television has stood the test of time very well. And now, one of her best films The Bigamist (1953) has been remastered by Film Chest and is being released on DVD.

Outside of a 2010 Museum of Modern Art retrospective, Lupino’s achievements behind the camera have largely been ignored in favor of her work as an actress, particularly her performances at Warner Bros. in the 1940s as tough, hard-boiled dames in melodramas like They Drive by Night, High Sierra, The Hard Way, and The Man I Love. (Occasionally, Warners cast her in more conventional ingénue roles in films such as The Sea Wolf, Out of the Fog, and Deep Valley, her last for the studio.) “The poor man’s Bette Davis” was Lupino’s own self-depreciating description of her standing at Warners. (Her first film for the studio, They Drive by Night, was a semi-remake of Bordertown, with Lupino in the role that Davis played in the original.)

When her contract at Warners ran out in the late 40s, rather than renewing it, Lupino decided to try freelancing, like so many other actors did at a time when the “studio system” first began to unravel. Lupino had spent a great deal of her time at Warners on “suspension,” the studio’s notorious punishment for “rebellious” actors, something she had in common with Davis, James Cagney, and Olivia de Havilland. (It was de Havilland who successfully sued Warners over the practice, with the Supreme Court of California ruling it to be illegal, the first nail in the coffin of the aforementioned studio system. The US Supreme Court’s anti-trust ruling forcing the studios to divest themselves of their theater chains and the growing popularity of television were the next two major setbacks to the studios.) It was during these “suspension” periods that Lupino first became interested in the behind-the-scenes aspects of filmmaking, hanging out with directors and writers and learning the tricks of the trade from them. She was also motivated by wanting to have total control over her film work.

As a result, in addition to acting in other studios’ movies, Lupino and her second husband Collier Young formed an independent production company called The Filmakers, after first producing Not Wanted (1949), in which Lupino made her directorial debut unintentionally. Elmer Clifton, the director contracted for Not Wanted (about an out-of-wedlock pregnancy) suffered a heart attack before filming began and Lupino took over (uncredited). Lupino’s subsequent directorial efforts for the Filmakers included Never Fear, Outrage (dealing with rape, another feminist-oriented subject that was considered taboo by the Production Code), and Hard, Fast and Beautiful. In 1953, Lupino made her two most notable directing efforts, The Hitch-Hiker (her only out-and-out film noir) and The Bigamist. At this point in her career, Lupino amended her self-description to “the poor man’s Don Siegel.” (A filmmaker who could work wonders on meager budgets, Siegel directed The Filmakers’ 1954 production of Private Hell 36.) After The Bigamist, Lupino’s directing career continued mainly on television, with the exception of the last theatrical film (and only comedy) she ever directed The Trouble with Angels in 1966. (Much of Lupino’s work for the small screen also revealed a flair for the macabre, particularly in the episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Thriller, and The Twilight Zone that she directed.)

As the title makes obvious, The Bigamist dealt with another taboo subject. Originally, as was the case with Not Wanted, Lupino was not supposed to direct The Bigamist; she was only going to act in the film, which was co-produced (with Robert Eggenweiler) and co-written (with Larry Marcus) by Lupino’s then ex-husband Young. (Soon after the divorce, both Lupino and Young had remarried, she to Howard Duff and he to Joan Fontaine.) That game plan changed when Jane Greer, who was set to play the other female lead, dropped out. Fontaine offered to take Greer’s place, but only if Lupino would direct The Bigamist as well. Lupino never wanted to direct herself, but she agreed in order to get the film underway. Which is how the two Mrs. Youngs ending up playing the two wives of the title character Harry Graham (Edmond O’Brien, previously the lead in The Hitch-Hiker), a San Francisco-based small business owner who doubles as his own traveling salesman.

We first meet Harry and Wife #1, Eve (Fontaine), when they’re being interviewed by kindly child welfare official Mr. Jordan (Edmund Gwenn) as part of their adoption application. (Eve is unable to have a child.) For the most part, the interview goes well… until Harry betrays a momentary discomfort at signing the required form that gives Jordan permission to investigate their backgrounds to determine their suitability as adoptive parents, a hesitation that does not go unnoticed by Jordan. After the Grahams leave, Jordan expresses his doubts for the record in the Dictaphone recording of his notes: “From a preliminary interview, in my opinion, they would make fit parents, but something bothers me about Mr. Graham. He seemed impatient during the interview, a chip-on-the-shoulder sort of attitude. He… he behaved rather strangely when signing the… the permission to investigate form. Perhaps it is my imagination. I’ll report further when I visit the Grahams’ home for the customary inspection next week.”

From this point, The Bigamist follows a traditional “three-act” structure of storytelling. Act One is in the form of a miniature mystery in which Jordan acts as a sleuth determined to unearth Harry’s secret, even to the extent of trailing him to Los Angeles, where he conducts most of his out-of-town business. Eventually, Jordan stumbles onto the fact that, rather than staying in a hotel, Graham owns a home in the LA suburbs. Turning up on Harry’s doorstep one night, Jordan discovers what the audience already knows, thanks to the film’s title and advertising, that there’s a second Mrs. Graham. Not only that, but Harry and Wife #2, Phyllis (Lupino), have an infant son as well.

Act Two is a lengthy flashback that takes up about half the movie as Harry tells Jordan the story of how he came to have two households. It seems that Harry and Phyllis “met cute” (to use the old screenwriters’ term) when, out of sheer boredom, Harry took an LA bus tour of the stars’ homes and struck up a conversation with Phyllis, a waitress in a Chinese restaurant. They had a one-night stand that resulted in Phyllis’ pregnancy. Too weak-willed to divorce Eve (who’s also his business partner), but wanting to do the right thing by Phyllis, Harry proposed marriage to Phyllis and started the family that Eve couldn’t give him.

The sequences dealing with Harry and Phyllis’ brief fling and her subsequent pregnancy are a prime example of the absurdities imposed by the then-weakened but still enforced Code. Thanks to the Code’s infantile restrictions, there’s no hint of Harry and Phyllis enjoying a night of intimacy, nor is the word “pregnant” ever uttered in the scene where Harry learns that Phyllis is carrying his child, which is couched in the most evasively suggested terms possible. The Code was also responsible for the abrupt, unsatisfying resolution of the film’s third act, which conformed to the demand that all lawbreakers must face legal retribution.

The Bigamist’s script, Lupino’s direction, Leith Stevens’s music score, and George Diskant’s black-and-white cinematography waver between domestic drama and noir (particularly in the first two acts) before settling on the former. (Although the seedy restaurant Phyllis works in and the scarred, scowling face of its owner seemingly promise that noir will be the film’s dominant mood.) Despite the somberness of the subject matter and the sober approach taken to the material, the script does indulge in some playful Hollywood in-jokes. There are not one but two references to Gwenn’s most famous role, his Oscar-winning performance as Kris Kringle in Miracle on 34th Street. Eve tells Harry that she thinks Jordan “looks like Santa Claus.” And during the bus tour, the driver/guide points out Gwenn’s home, referring to the actor as “the little man who is Santa Claus to the whole world.” The homes of Lupino’s former Warners colleagues Barbara Stanwyck and Jane Wyman are also name-checked in this scene.

As she always did, Lupino got excellent performances from her cast, including herself. She and Fontaine both contribute subtle, understated acting turns as the two Mrs. Grahams. Gwenn gives a charming, low-key performance as a dedicated public servant who is torn between duty and pity when confronting Harry about his deceit. O’Brien manages to make Harry an ultimately sympathetic (and rather pathetic) character, while still imbuing him with the sweaty neuroticism that was typical of his roles in the late 40s and early 50s.

Although Film Chest’s press release says that this version of The Bigamist was “restored from original 35mm materials,” the state of those materials obviously were not as well preserved as Film Chest’s previous remastered film release Hollow Triumph. For most of the film, the visual quality of Film Chest’s The Bigamist DVD is sharp and crisp, but noticeable scratching appears periodically and there is a little jumpiness in the opening credits. Still, the overall quality of this version of The Bigamist is light years ahead of Alpha Video’s earlier DVD version with its murky print and muddy soundtrack.

World Cinema Paradise

Tag Archives: Miracle on 34th Street (1947)

DVD Review: “The Bigamist” (1953)

An Oasis of Cinema Scholarship and Reviewing.