Miracle on 34th Street

"Miracle on 34th Street" is one of the very best Christmas movies ever made. Yet, despite being practically perfect in every way, there have been at least four remakes...three made for TV and one for theaters. To me, this is like trying to remake the Mona Lisa or the Venus de Milo...why bother when the original is so perfect?!

Apparently, this version of the story was played LIVE and in color. Many TV shows were live in the 50s...and you can tell in this one when Ed Wynn flubs his lines in Dutch. While there is no color copy, a black & white copy was recently discovered. This is one of the wonderful things about the internet...as thousands and thousands of supposedly lost TV shows and movies have been recently discovered because collectors all over the globe have been able to share their finds. In this case, YouTube has a copy you can watch for free.

As for the film, it's good...though it's much shorter since it was made for a one hour time slot. Because of this, it feels sped up and many of the lovely touches from the original film are missing. Still, it's not bad at all...just not as perfect as the 1947 movie.

My feeling is that for the average person, this 1959 version is not necessary to watch. But for the curious and unusual viewer, it's a nice little film.

This takes a 97 minute movie and squeezes it down to 45 minutes. That's the problem. It tries to condense a classic movie for the sake of a 1 hour TV show.

While is this is entertaining, it begs the question: Why a 1 hour version of a classic movie? Would you do a 1 hour:

*Citizen Kane?

*2001: A Space Odyssey?

*It's A Wonderful Life?

*The Godfather?

*The Sound of Music?

Probably not! This is a good adaptation of Miracle, but not the best-for that very reason.

PS, Alfred from the original 1947 classic is NOT in this adaptation.

This film was a blatant 45 minute Macy's advertisement. Ok to play in the background, but this is no classic, sorry.

I just found and watched this movie (the one that corresponds to the picture, not the info given), on a ROKU app. I tried to find it here because I recognized one of the actor's voices (Hans Conried-voice of Captain Hook in Disney's original Peter Pan). I was disappointed to not find the version I watched credited here. The picture is for the 1955 20th Century-Fox Hour TV movie, not the 1959 version.

I forgot to bring my DVD of this wonderful holiday favorite to my familys thanksgiving. Its a tradition we watch this after the parade. I found that Tubi had it.

Their version is 45 minutes. It is horribly cut and speed up. The actors voices sound more like The Chipmonks than people. I will never live down the humiliation of subjecting my family to this butchered version of our favorite holiday movie.