A HALF DOZEN MIRACLES

 

The Christmas season is underway.  Here are some things nobody ever told you about a Christmas classic.

We all know and love the 1947 film MIRACLE ON 34th STREET with Maureen O'Hara, John Payne, a very young Natalie Wood, and Edmund Gwenn as Kris Kringle, written and directed by George Seaton and based on a story by Valentine Davies.  It is on everyone’s list of Top 5 Christmas movies, along with IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE and WHITE CHRISTMAS.

Of course, 34th Street in the title refers to Macy’s Department Store, located on 34th Street at Herald Square in New York City.

It was remade in 1994 with Elizabeth Perkins, Dylan McDermott, Mara Wilson, and Richard Attenborough as KK, written and produced by John Hughes and directed by Les Mayfield.  There were two major differences in the remake - Macy's department store declined involvement with the remake, so the fictitious "Cole's" was used instead of Macy’s, and the final court decision in the remake is based on a different reasoning than in the original film.

I remember the 1973 television version with Jane Alexander, David Hartman, Susan Davidson, and Sebastian Cabot.  The store was still Macy’s and the basis of the court decision was the same as the original movie.

There had been two previous tv versions.  A 1955 one-hour television adaptation, originally aired as an episode of “The 20th Century Fox Hour”, starred Teresa Wright, Macdonald Carey (who starred as Dr Tom Horton for almost three decades on tv soap “Days of Our Lives”), Sandy Descher, and Thomas Mitchell.  Ed Wynn played Kris in a 1959 adaptation broadcast live and in color on NBC the day after Thanksgiving.  It also featured Orson Bean.

But did you know that there was a Broadway musical version?     HERE’S LOVE, with book, music, and lyrics by Meredith Wilson, best known for writing the book, music and lyrics for THE MUSIC MAN (the first Broadway musical I saw as a child – at age 5), opened on October 3, 1963 at the Shubert Theatre, and closed on July 25, 1964 after 334 performances and 2 previews.  I was in the audience for one of the 334 performances. 

HERE’S LOVE was directed by Stuart Ostrow and choreographed by Michael Kidd.  The cast included Janis Paige, Craig Stevens (aka tv’s Peter Gunn), Valerie Lee, and Laurence Naismith as Kris.  The classic song "It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas" written by Willson in the early 1950s, was used in the show.

BTW – according to Wikepedia - “Lux Radio Theater broadcast an adaptation in 1947 which starred the original cast including Natalie Wood. In 1948 it was done again on Lux, without Natalie Wood's participation, and it was adapted as a half-hour radio play on two broadcasts of Screen Director's Playhouse, all featuring Edmund Gwenn in his screen role”.  

TAFN