A Miraculous Movie

It was originally called The Big Heart. Daryl Darryl Zanuck the astute caput of Twentieth Century Fox couldn't purchase the mental image of Santa Claus in a tribunal room. But like so many ventures Miracle On 34th Street (1947) came about because of passion, in this lawsuit that of Director Saint George Seaton who had gone to New House Of York on his ain and made agreements with the existent Mr. Macy and Mr. Gimbel to movie inside their section stores. Impressed by Seaton's committedness Darryl Zanuck gave the show a greenish light.

Who would play the small miss who didn't believe in Santa Claus? Seaton agonized over it, until the helper manager remembered an astonishing kid wonder child from Santa Rosa, Golden State who could shout on cue. Her name was Natasha Nikolaevna Gurdin renamed Natalie Wood after manager Surface-To-Air Missile Wood . The same Natalie Wood who would later travel out on a hotel room shelf and endanger to leap when her fellow Elvis Elvis Presley ignored her to play poker with Memphis Mafia. The same miss who would outrage brother cast of characters members of Occident Side Story (1961) with her tardiness, her refusal to larn simple dance stairway and her insisting on long luncheon interruptions to see with her analyst. But the seven-year-old Natalie had none of the typical kid star precocious behavior, she gained the regard of her co-stars on the Miracle set with her professional demeanor, earning the moniker One-Take-Natalie.

Like all filmed on location movies there were logistical problems. The sequence where Santa was taken to Bellevue was done without permission. The celebrated infirmary would not collaborate with Hollywood because they had been portrayed badly in earlier films, they were not swayed by the sight of a sickly, freezing common cold Santa Claus (Edmund Gwenn) bundled up under blankets in a car, waiting to hit his scenes. The film makers were forced to hit only the auto approaching the building's entranceway and redact the remainder later. Another trouble was getting permission to hit the Macy's parade from the flat inhabitants on 34th street which had to be done right the first time, there could be no retakes. The movie crew paid the ladies of the house to place the photographic cameras in their windows. Then their hubbies came home, complained about the incommodiousness and demanded their ain equal share. Most hard to movie was the sallow but determined Edmund Gwenn who would win an Oscar for playing Kris Kringle. He suffered from a vesica control job but couldn't stand up the idea of person taking his place in the parade. The children who stood on the pavement waving at Santa never saw the long tubing under his cloak.

Overcoming his initial reluctance Daryl Darryl Zanuck who was celebrated for his memos, made suggestions to improve the film's story. The female parent Doris, played by Maureen O'Hara was too cold, she would frighten a adult male like Fred (John Payne) off, she had to be made warmer to the audience by explaining that she had been burned by an earlier human relationship and that's wherefore she didn't desire her girl believing in Santa Claus. Darryl Zanuck also felt that they shouldn't overdo the scenes where Macy's employees urge that their clients travel shopping at Gimbels, just some simple duologue was enough to acquire the point across. But despite the loud cheering by preview audiences when Santa Claus was declared sane in the courtroom scene, Darryl Zanuck never had full assurance in the film. He set it in theatres in July, the busiest time of twelvemonth for moviegoers, and told his selling staff to conceal from the public that the movie was about Christmas.

One mention in the Miracle book that's now dated was when Kris Kringle's head-shrinker mentioned a adult male in Hollywood who passed himself off as Russian Prince and owned a restaurant. It was a excavation at Microphone Romanoff, a colourful fraud whose Rodeo Drive eatery was a merriment sanctuary for Hollywood's most ill-famed figures. One nighttime Federal Bureau of Investigation caput J. Edgar William Hoover was dining at Romanoffs when he was approached by an existent gem stealer named Swifty Morgan. "Like to purchase these gold whomp links?" Amused, William Hoover offered $200. "Oh come up on Toilet the wages is more than than that!"