Miracle on 34th Street

BEWARE OF FALSE REVIEWS & REVIEWERS. SOME REVIEWERS HAVE ONLY ONE REVIEW TO THEIR NAME. NOW WHEN ITS A POSITIVE REVIEW THAT TELLS ME THEY WERE INVOLVED WITH THE MOVIE. IF ITS A NEGATIVE REVIEW THEN THEY MIGHT HAVE A GRUDGE AGAINST THE FILM . NOW I HAVE REVIEWED OVER 300 HOLIDAY FILMS & SPECIALS. I HAVE NO AGENDA.

A department store Santa (Sebastian Cabot) hired by divorced mother Karen (Jane Alexander) tells Karen's daughter, Susan (Suzanne Davidson), that he is the real Kris Kringle. He also sends children to the store's competitors for lower prices. When a psychiatrist (Roddy McDowall) employed by the store questions Kringle's sanity and ends up committing him to an asylum, Karen's attorney friend Bill (David Hartman) seeks to free Kringle by proving in the courtroom that he's really Santa Claus.

This is nice production of the often told tale. There has been it least 3 television productions and 2 theatrical films that I am aware of. This production is good but the treat is seeing all the old familiar faces. The casting of this film makes the whole film worth watching!

With all of the comments about this version not being the original acknowledged, this one is still my favorite version of the story.

Maybe its because I grew up with David Hartman on Good Morning America and in all those sappy commercials....or maybe its because I have always been a fan of Sebastian Cabot.

Regardless, the update did a good job of bringing the story into the '70s and, even 30 years later, I find it comforting on the very rare occasion that it is shown during the Christmas season....Sebastian Cabot is fine throughout, and the updated setting, while not outshining the original, at least makes us feel like we could have been there.

So, I wouldn't place it in my "top 10" list of movies, or even consider it any kind of competition with the original.

But it does have its own, somewhat subdued, charm, and its always a pleasure to see Cabot in one of his later roles.

Mirricle is my favorite Christmas movie, the 1974 version i think is my least favorite but i have only seen it once a very long time ago. I just wish there was a set I could buy with all the versions on it, because sometimes I wish I could watch them all back to back. Just a thought corporate America PUT OUT A BOXED SET!!!!!!!! All of the versions have their strong suits. The original is the most widely recognized and beautifully written and I believe most everyones favorite, but I have never even seen the fifties TV version, and I would like that opportunity. The 74 version has some nostalgia for the people who saw it when they were little, and the most recent version is easier for small children to identify with. It would even be nice if they could have a version of the Broadway play but I doubt there are any copies of it running around.

It has been many years since I saw either of the most familiar versions of this movie in their entirety. I did see a few minutes of the Edmund Gwenn version while rewinding a tape on Thanksgiving, and a clip from that movie in a TV special, but that's as close as I've come to remembering how good that movie was.

There's not much point in comparing this movie to the others for that reason. I'm sure Edmund Gwenn's was better. But I saw this version because so many actors whose names I know appeared in it. Tom Bosley, David Doyle, Jim Backus, James Gregory, and Conrad Janis, to name a few. I enjoyed seeing these people and thought they all did a good job.

Sebastian Cabot is familiar to me from the original "Family Affair", but I would never have known him. Giles French was such a curmudgeon, though over the years he probably came to love children. I just don't have a clear memory of that. And yet he just seemed so natural as the Macy's Santa Claus. Could Edmund Gwenn have done any better? Probably. And yet without comparing the two, I can say Sebastian Cabot WAS Kris Kringle. Such a loving, caring man, everything Christmas is supposed to be about. A man who truly cares about children. Yes, he could get angry. But for all the right reasons.

The scenes involving the judge and the efforts to have Kris Kringle put away were really well-written. One would never know it was a kids' movie.

Suzanne Davidson was so cute. I won't say she did a consistently good job, but she had some really good scenes.

I can't remember his name now, but the other Santa Claus in the movie, the young store employee who was taught his craft by Kris, was really likable. Perhaps he could have been worthy of the job of Macy's Santa after some experience.

I am aware David Hartman was an actor before "Good Morning America". And yet he came across like the "Good Morning America" co-host deciding to try acting. Still, he had some really good scenes, mostly in the courtroom.

I genuinely despised Roddy McDowall's character. I can't even really say whether he did a good job, but the psychiatrist who wants Kris Kringle declared insane just didn't do anything for me, and I wonder if the character could have been written better.

It was a real feel-good movie. I'm glad I saw this version.

I thought the Thomas Mitchell version as OK as we'll, while Richard Attenborough's left a bitter taste in my mouth. What stood out was that it's set up blended so well into the 70's era. I confess, I always thought of David Hartman as a newsman, but here I realize he wasn't a bad actor at all. Cabot's Santa? Loved him! Convincingly kind and gentle, and showed brilliant Santa magic.

In some ways it does feel like you'd get lost following this if you didn't already know the story, because you don't get a lot to tell you just what the characters as set up are all about, and you don't get hardly any exposition of Karen Walker as an unbeliever, but familiarity saves it. As well, I feel like i wouldn't like it as much if not for wanting some reprieve from the forced resolution I got out of the Attenborough version. The Post Office miracle doesn't feel as brilliant, but still different enough to feel fresh, a nd believable enough to appreciate as a miracle.

I won't put as much diligence into making this a Christmas season must-see, but I'll definitely get to a point where it feels like another go is in order. Not a bad version at all.