This is a fascinating, totally unexpected treat. It came to my attention when I was scrolling through YouTube and came across something marked The Miracle on 34th Street, which said it starred Thomas Mitchell. Mitchell was a long-time character actor who’s best-known for playing ‘Uncle Billy’ in It’s a Wonderful Life. (Fun Fact: he also was the first actor to ever play ‘Lt. Columbo.’ The character was created when Richard Levinson and William Link wrote a stageplay, Prescription: Murder – and Thomas Mitchell played the role. They later adapted the play for a movie special for NBC, which did so well that the network ordered another TV movie. And then…well, you know the rest.)
I was intrigued, and figured that this was a radio adaptation, something that was often regularly at the time, often with the original movie’s cast, though not always. So, I clicked on the link to listen to it. At first, though, I was a bit surprised, since the video of the 1947 movie was play – though it was only 47 minutes long. What I figured is that whoever posted the radio production edited it together with footage from overlapping scenes of the original movie, so that listeners would have something to watch and keep their attention.
But then something else struck me as odd. The dialogue was perfectly synched to the actors, so it couldn’t be a radio broadcast playing in the background. For some reason, it appeared to be a 47-minute edited-down version of the movie classic, and mis-labeled. But then I watched closer. And though the little girl looked a bit like Natalie Wood, and the mother looked somewhat like Maureen O’Hara, but not exactly, and while the leading man had a similarity to John Payne though not the same, that did look like Edmund Gwen as Santa, until I looked even closer…and it was Thomas Mitchell! So…what gives?
I scrolled back to the opening credits, saw all different names, and then did some research. And it all fit.
It turns out that in the early days of television, they carried over that radio tradition of doing short adaptations of movies. And this was from an anthology series, The Twentieth-Century Fox Hour. And it was that show’s 1955 version of the original. And the thing is, it wasn’t a cheap-looking, low-budget quickie production. It had the full production values of a movie, and absolutely wonderful pedigree in its cast and crew.
In addition to Thomas Mitchell, the role of ‘Doris, the skeptical mother was played by the legendary Teresa Wright – the only actor to be nominated for an Oscar in her first three movies: Little Foxes, winning for Supporting actress in Mrs. Miniver, and nominated again for Pride of the Yankees. Among her many other movies were The Best Years of Our Lives and Hitchcock’s, Shadow of a Doubt. And as ‘Fred,’ the lawyer who defends ‘Kris’, it was played by Macdonald Carey who had a long career in film and TV, but is most famous for playing the central character of ‘Dr. Tom Horton, in the soap opera Days of Our Lives, for almost 30 years.
(Two other roles of note in the TV production are played by Hans Conried and Ray Collins who plays the judge here and will be best-known to people as ‘Lt. Tragg’ in Perry Mason for 241 episodes.)
But behind-the-camera, the credentials are notable. The adaptation was written by John Monks, Jr., whose screenwriting career including two WWII classics, 13 Rue Madeleine with James Cagney and The House on 92nd Street. And it was directed by Robert Stevenson, who had a long career with Walt Disney – most famously directing Mary Poppins, but also The Love Bug, Bedknobs and Broomsticks, The Absent-Minded Professor, Old Yeller and many more Disney classics – but also the feature films Jane Eyre and the original 1937 version of King Solomon’s Mines.
It shouldn’t be surprising then that this short, TV adaptation of The Miracle on 34th Street is very well-done and enjoyable. Though the script is adapted from the movie and hews fairly close to it (with a few changes), the tone is a bit different. It’s more straight-forward and dramatic, than whimsical with a sense of elfish fantasy.
By the way, one of the changes is notable since it predates the women’s movement by about a decade. Without giving anything away, a big plot point is shifted from lawyer Fred to Doris the mother. The change works fine, and expands her character, while his character is able to build on the revision.
None of this is to say one production is better than the other – it’s hard not to love the original film the most for all its immense charm and the time it takes to tell the story in full – but there’s much to say for the short TV adaptation. In fact, there’s a brief write-up about it on Wikipedia, and a line there says “One reviewer claimed this version was an improvement over the original movie, stating “shortening the tale has made it brighter and less saccharine.” Whether it’s better or not is moot, and personal taste. But it’s fascinating to see, since it’s so richly done.
Ultimately, I think it’s worth watching to full thing – it’s only 47 minutes, after all – because the pedigree is impressive. But even just watching a few minutes will allow you to make comparisons and see how well they did it.
I was intrigued, and figured that this was a radio adaptation, something that was often regularly at the time, often with the original movie’s cast, though not always. So, I clicked on the link to listen to it. At first, though, I was a bit surprised, since the video of the 1947 movie was play – though it was only 47 minutes long. What I figured is that whoever posted the radio production edited it together with footage from overlapping scenes of the original movie, so that listeners would have something to watch and keep their attention.
But then something else struck me as odd. The dialogue was perfectly synched to the actors, so it couldn’t be a radio broadcast playing in the background. For some reason, it appeared to be a 47-minute edited-down version of the movie classic, and mis-labeled. But then I watched closer. And though the little girl looked a bit like Natalie Wood, and the mother looked somewhat like Maureen O’Hara, but not exactly, and while the leading man had a similarity to John Payne though not the same, that did look like Edmund Gwen as Santa, until I looked even closer…and it was Thomas Mitchell! So…what gives?
I scrolled back to the opening credits, saw all different names, and then did some research. And it all fit.
It turns out that in the early days of television, they carried over that radio tradition of doing short adaptations of movies. And this was from an anthology series, The Twentieth-Century Fox Hour. And it was that show’s 1955 version of the original. And the thing is, it wasn’t a cheap-looking, low-budget quickie production. It had the full production values of a movie, and absolutely wonderful pedigree in its cast and crew.
In addition to Thomas Mitchell, the role of ‘Doris, the skeptical mother was played by the legendary Teresa Wright – the only actor to be nominated for an Oscar in her first three movies: Little Foxes, winning for Supporting actress in Mrs. Miniver, and nominated again for Pride of the Yankees. Among her many other movies were The Best Years of Our Lives and Hitchcock’s, Shadow of a Doubt. And as ‘Fred,’ the lawyer who defends ‘Kris’, it was played by Macdonald Carey who had a long career in film and TV, but is most famous for playing the central character of ‘Dr. Tom Horton, in the soap opera Days of Our Lives, for almost 30 years.
(Two other roles of note in the TV production are played by Hans Conried and Ray Collins who plays the judge here and will be best-known to people as ‘Lt. Tragg’ in Perry Mason for 241 episodes.)
But behind-the-camera, the credentials are notable. The adaptation was written by John Monks, Jr., whose screenwriting career including two WWII classics, 13 Rue Madeleine with James Cagney and The House on 92nd Street. And it was directed by Robert Stevenson, who had a long career with Walt Disney – most famously directing Mary Poppins, but also The Love Bug, Bedknobs and Broomsticks, The Absent-Minded Professor, Old Yeller and many more Disney classics – but also the feature films Jane Eyre and the original 1937 version of King Solomon’s Mines.
It shouldn’t be surprising then that this short, TV adaptation of The Miracle on 34th Street is very well-done and enjoyable. Though the script is adapted from the movie and hews fairly close to it (with a few changes), the tone is a bit different. It’s more straight-forward and dramatic, than whimsical with a sense of elfish fantasy.
By the way, one of the changes is notable since it predates the women’s movement by about a decade. Without giving anything away, a big plot point is shifted from lawyer Fred to Doris the mother. The change works fine, and expands her character, while his character is able to build on the revision.
None of this is to say one production is better than the other – it’s hard not to love the original film the most for all its immense charm and the time it takes to tell the story in full – but there’s much to say for the short TV adaptation. In fact, there’s a brief write-up about it on Wikipedia, and a line there says “One reviewer claimed this version was an improvement over the original movie, stating “shortening the tale has made it brighter and less saccharine.” Whether it’s better or not is moot, and personal taste. But it’s fascinating to see, since it’s so richly done.
Ultimately, I think it’s worth watching to full thing – it’s only 47 minutes, after all – because the pedigree is impressive. But even just watching a few minutes will allow you to make comparisons and see how well they did it.
#Holiday #Fest
