DECEMBER 2019 • LONGISLANDPRESS.COM 109
REAR VIEW
MIRACLE ON 34TH STREET
THE HOUSE THAT SANTA FOUND
BY ANNIE WILKINSON
Little Suzie Walker’s mother has
raised her to not believe in fairy tales
or fantasy, and especially not in Santa
Claus. As a result, the child is far too
skeptical for her 8 years. But she holds
on to one Christmas wish: a house —
not a dollhouse, but a real house, with
a backyard tree swing — where she
and her divorced mother can live. But
then the little girl befriends a kindly
old department-store Kris Kringle at
Macy’s Herald Square on 34th Street
in Manhattan who claims to be Santa
Claus, and everything changes.
This is the story of Miracle on 34th
Street, the 1947 holiday heartwarmer
that nearly didn’t land on the silver
screen. The project was given a low
budget; it was considered controversial
because it showed a divorced
woman as the lead, Suzie’s no-nonsense
mother, played by Maureen
O’Hara; and shooting the revealing
final scene outside 24 Derby Road in
Port Washington was nearly nixed
when the cameras literally froze that
bitterly cold winter.
That scene shows how Suzie, played
by child actress Natalie Wood, changes
her mind about believing in Santa,
after he makes her wish come true
by finding the house of her dreams.
Miraculously, the film survived the
skeptics, the opposition, and the
weather, and became a beloved blackand
white treasure. And throughout
filming, little Natalie Wood actually
believed that the actor playing Kris
Kringle was the real Santa.
MIRACLE ON DERBY ROAD
During the last scene, when production
was halted so the equipment
could thaw, a woman named Vaughn
Mele who lived across the street invited
the crew into her home to warm
up with hot coffee. That night, O’Hara
took Mele and her husband to dine
at the legendary 21 Club restaurant
in Manhattan, but the Port resident
was too excited to order anything but
a glass of milk.
From the beginning, 20th Century
Fox studio head Darryl F. Zanuck
was not a fan of the film. He gave it a
low $630,000 budget, believing it too
corny to succeed. It was marketed as
a comedy-drama and released in the
summer of 1947; the thinking was
that films did better at the box office
in summertime, so its Christmas angle
was downplayed. Then the film
received a “morally objectionable”
rating from the powerful Catholic
Legion of Decency, which deemed
that certain subjects — homosexuality,
abortion, and divorce — were
considered taboo in motion pictures.
The movie was also ahead of its time
in terms of feminism, because its lead
character was a female corporate
executive.
SKEPTICISM NOT ALLOWED
The studio executives were surprised
when the movie was declared “the
freshest little picture in a long time”
by The New York Times’ Bosley
Crowther, and it won three Oscars,
including best actor in a supporting
role for Edmund Gwenn, who
played Kris Kringle. When Gwenn
received the award, he said, "Now
I know there's a Santa Claus.” Valentine
Davies won for best writing,
original story; Davies had dreamed
up the story while shopping amid
holiday department-store chaos for
a present for his wife and wondering
how Santa would view the rampant
commercialization. The best writing,
screenplay award went to director
George Seaton.
The movie was also nominated for
numerous other awards and went
on to earn $17.32 million (unadjusted
for inflation). Lux Radio Theater
broadcast an adaptation just before
Christmas of 1947 which starred the
original cast; since then, the film has
spawned several sequels. A musical
version plays at the Argyle Theatre in
Babylon Village through December
29.
Ever since the original film’s release
70-odd years ago, people have flocked
to the northwest corner of Port Washington’s
Essex Court in Upper Port to
take selfies and group photos. One of
the home’s owners, Orrie Frutkin,
told the New York Post, “We’re happy
to see people’s eyes light up when we
tell them it’s the house in Miracle on
34th Street, but to us, it’s just a cozy,
comfortable place to live.”
Actress O’Hara wrote in her autobiography
that the film endured
“because of the special relationship
of the cast and crew, the uplifting
story, and its message of hope and
love, which steals hearts all over the
world every year.”
Perhaps the reason for the film’s universal
appeal was best summed up
onscreen by actor John Payne, who
portrays the lawyer at the sanity
hearing for Kris Kringle: “It’s not
just Kris that's on trial, it's everything
he stands for. It's kindness
and joy and love and all the other
intangibles.”
Holiday classic Miracle on 34th Street was partly shot in Port Washington.
“We’re happy to see people’s eyes light up
when we tell them it’s the house in Miracle
on 34th Street, but to us, it’s just a cozy,
comfortable place to live,” said Orrie Frutkin.
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