Movie Review: The Miracle on 34th Street: The 20th Century-Fox Hour (1955)

This was a remake of the 1947 original with Natalie Wood and Maureen O'Hara.  I really enjoyed this remake.  It cut out some of the fluff, like the broojaja with the drunk Santa.  Kris Kringle had already been hired as the Macy's Santa in this version.  Santa was showing himself to see if he could regenerate the Christmas spirit which he felt was becoming too commercial.  He took on as his test case Susan (Sandy Descher) and her mother, the Macy's executive Doris Walker (Teresa Wright).  The other principle characters are Thomas Mitchell as Kris Kringle and Macdonald Carey as Fred, the lawyer friend.  The story is very much the same as the original, but is presented in only 50 minutes, so they had to cut some out.  This left Kris Kringle attacking a psychologist without much provocation.  Consequently if he had not been found incompetent for mental reasons he probably would have gone to jail.  As it was, the lawyer got him off using the U.S. Post Office letters and Santa was able to complete his duties Christmas Eve.  I just wonder what would have happened had he not gotten out.