1947
Comedy, Drama, Family, Fantasy
George Seaton
George Seaton, Valentine Davies
Maureen O'Hara, John Payne, Edmund Gwenn, Gene Lockhart, Natalie Wood, Porter Hall, William Frawley, Jerome Cowan, Philip Tonge
At the Macy's Department Store Thanksgiving Day parade, the actor playing Santa is discovered to be drunk by a whiskered old man. Doris Walker, the no nonsense special events director, persuades the old man to take his place. The old man proves to be a sensation and is quickly recruited to be the store Santa at the main Macy's outlet. While he is successful, Ms. Walker learns that he calls himself Kris Kringle and he claims to be the actual Santa Claus. Despite reassurances by Kringle's doctor that he is harmless, Doris still has misgivings, especially when she has cynically trained herself, and especially her daughter, Susan, to reject all notions of belief and fantasy. And yet, people, especially Susan, begin to notice there is something special about Kris and his determination to advance the true spirit of Christmas amidst the rampant commercialism around him and succeeding in improbable ways. When a raucous conflict with the store's cruelly incompetent psychologist erupts, Kris finds himself held at Bellevue where, in despair, he deliberates fails a mental examination to ensure his commitment. All seems lost until Doris' friend, Fred Gaily, reassure Kris of his worth and agrees to represent him in the fight to secure his release. To achieve that, Fred arranges a formal hearing in which he argues that Kris is sane because he is in fact Santa Claus. What ensues is a bizarre hearing in which people's beliefs are reexamined and put to the test, but even so, it's going to take a miracle for Kris to win. ------- Doris Walker a no-nonsense Macy's executive, desperately searches for a new store Santa. She hires Kris Kringle who insists that he's the real Santa Claus. But, he has many skeptics like Doris and her six year old daughter, Susan. So Kris goes to court to try and prove it. Is he the real Santa Claus? ------- When Doris Walker frantically recruits a last minute replacement for a drunken Santa for Macy's Christmas parade, he seems just ideal for he job and perhaps for good reason - he says his name is Kris Kringle and that he's the real Santa Claus. She pays him no mind and at the department store, he's proving be popular as well. He seems to be able to speak many languages and knows just what kids would like to have and creates a bit of a sensation when he refers shoppers to other stores rather than Macy's. When Kris has a run-in with the Department store's psychological tester, the man tries to have him committed leading to a court case where Doris' lawyer neighbor Fred Gailey tries to prove in court that Kris is the real Santa Claus. More important to Kris throughout all of this is to get Doris and her daughter Susan to believe in him.
211 minutes (at 23.97 frames per second)
1259 MB
DivX 5 - resolution: 640x352