Since I may be two-thirds of the way through a Christmas miracle, I decided to watch Miracle on 34th Street.
Compare and contrast with our current culture.
The hipsters brought back the long, bushy beard, but they dress like prospectors or lumberjacks. If only they had decided to go for the dapper look with a proper hat.
Doris lived in Manhattan, so maybe it wasn’t unusual to have a nanny/housekeeper/cook, but I can’t imagine what that would cost now. At the time, the assumption was probably that Cleo took the bus from Harlem every morning, and was happy to be working for a nice boss lady like Doris.
Look at the size of that turkey. It’s got to be 18 pounds, and that’s just for Doris and Susan.
Cleo can sew up a turkey and is respectful and all, but she allowed Susan to watch the parade with some guy in the next apartment. Doris hadn’t even met him, but Cleo assures her that Mr. Gailey is so very fond of Susan. I know it’s all fine, but still.
In my life, I’ve never met anyone that dresses as well as Mr. Gailey does when he was lounging around his apartment watching a parade. I don’t mean someone dressed for an event, but dressed that well for mundane activities.
Susan mentions that she’s never met her father because her parents were divorced when she was a baby. Now that’s an odd plot choice. The movie came out in 1947, so Susan’s dad could have been in the military, killed in action.
It’s not clear what that choice signals. In this scene, Susan makes it clear that she isn’t familiar with fairy tales because her mother thinks they are silly. Susan is a killjoy realist. Doris seems to be a secular humanist with no appreciation of romantic or idealistic notions.
Second-hand smoke from a pipe is probably as bad for young lungs as smoking a cigarette.
Mr. Gailey transparently used the little girl to manipulate Doris into inviting him to Thanksgiving Dinner. Everyone is okay with that and views Mr. Gailey as clever and motivated.
After the parade, about a million people are standing around in the street, listening to Santa Claus tell them to come buy some toys. They aren’t going anywhere, just shuffling around. In Cleveland, the Cavs had to win a national championship to get that many people standing around.
This janitor kid is considered to be so fat, that he is the natural choice to play Santa Claus at the YMCA. Their Santa suit doesn’t have any padding, so this is the fattest kid they could find. He’s got a moon-pie face and big head, but he is wearing a smock, sweater and shirt. He can’t weigh more than a buck forty.
This Snidely Whiplash manager is making inappropriate suggestions to Mr. Kringle.
By filling them full of fairy tales, they grow up considering life to be a fantasy instead of a reality. They keep waiting for Prince Charming to come along and when he does, he turns out to be a …
At this point, Mr. Gailey could have saved himself time and effort by just offering Doris money for sex, rather than try to convince her that romance exists. She is a realist who has been burned by romance, so just cut to the chase.
Susan explains that she goes to a Progressive school. That explains it. Kringle clearly has no idea what a Progressive school is.
This is the point where Doris realizes that Kringle really believes that he is Santa Claus. She is so open-minded, that she can’t accept that it could be true. Doris knows the best thing to do for Kringle is to fire him.
When her big boss enthusiastically approves of Kringle’s job, she lies to Kringle and rehires him. To cover her ass, she sends him to the company psychologist. No idea why Macy’s has a staff psychologist. The staff psychologist is a fidgety tight-ass who is unprofessional and unethical.
At this point, everyone starts scheming and manipulating.
Mr. Gailey invites Kringle to bunk with him, so he has a reason to interact with Doris. Kringle is a canny fellow, so is playing his own game. He wants to convince Susan and Doris to believe in the intangible aspects of life.
Snidely Whiplash gets his wife drunk so she agrees to have Kringle stay with them, so Snidely can keep on eye on Kringle and get a promotion at work.
Susan emotionally manipulates Kringle to try to get a house and a yard. She had been certain that Kringle is Santa Claus, but she is prepared to change her mind if Kringle can’t get her out of being the child of a broken home.
So far, Cleo is the only person who doesn’t want to jerk other people around.
Turns out that guy from Human Resources is a malicious contemptible fraud, and playing psychologist to warp young Alfred. Kringle resorts to violence. Eighty years ago, HR was a bunch of dicks. Somethings never change.
Kringle intentionally gets committed to an insane asylum. Gailey comes by to convince him that he can’t give up. Gailey says, that someday, guys like the contemptible HR jerk might be detained while good people like Kringle are free. I hate to tell them that sixty years later, the HR jerks are running everything.
Kringle gets a commitment hearing, and is saved by the postal service and a lawyer. They don’t usually get to be heroes, but there we are.
After the hearing, Doris and Susan gain an appreciation for faith and romantic notions. That’s all we ever wanted. If Doris hadn’t been a cynical corporate climber trying to cover her ass, Kringle could have just done his job, and everyone would have had a merry Christmas.