As I have mentioned on this blog before, the first movie my family traditionally watches after Thanksgiving is Miracle on 34th Street, which made it an obvious choice to fill one of the six “bonus” Drink & a Movie slots I need to get me to my goal of 54 total posts. The beverage we’re pairing it with is from Sarah Baird’s Flask book and it would surely be just as effective at keeping the intoxicated Santa Claus (Percy Helton) Macy’s originally hired to star in their annual holiday parade warm as whatever is in this bottle:
I’ll bet it tastes better, too! The recipe is a creation by New York-based bartender Sother Teague, who writes that it was inspired by shots of Rittenhouse rye that a friend of his used to serve with 14 dashes of Angostura bitters added to them, which turned it dark like the bread that the drink is named after. Here’s how you make Teague’s version, which Baird describes as “the perfect flask cocktail to sip after a long Thanksgiving of listening to relatives argue about politics, television, and who makes the best green bean casserole”:
3 ozs. 100-proof rye (Rittenhouse)
1 1/2 ozs. Ramazzoti amaro
1 oz. Punt e Mes
14 dashes Angostura bitters
Lemon twist
Stir all liquid ingredients with ice, express the lemon twist over them, and funnel into a flask.
This is a seriously bitter drink, but it’s also delicious, and to me this makes it ideal for slowly consuming over the course of an entire evening via very small sips. The Ramazzoti tastes to my palate like a milder version of one of my favorite amaros for Manhattan variations, Amaro Montenegro, and it works beautifully here in combination with Punt e Mes as a counterpoint to the Angostura. Rittenhouse is my go-to rye for cocktails, and while it isn’t necessary in this drink per se, you definitely want something high ABV.
Our 20th Century DVD Fox DVD copy of Miracle comes packaged with the colorized version of the film created in the 80s, but I don’t think anyone has ever watched it all the way through, because why would they? Here’s a picture of the case:
The film is also available on Disney+ with a subscription or via a number of other platforms for a rental fee. Ostensibly a film about whether or not Santa Claus really exists, Miracle stars (Best Actor in a Supporting Role Oscar notwithstanding) Edmund Gwenn as a man named Kris Kringle who we first meet attempting to correct the reindeer work of a window dresser (Robert Gist) which inspired this month’s drink photo:
When he proves to be a great success at replacing the aforementioned drunk Santa in their parade, Macy’s employees Doris Walker (Maureen O’Hara) and Julian Shellhammer (Philip Tonge) ask him to continue playing the role for the duration of the holiday season. Needing to find him a place to stay when he isn’t at the store, their highly questionable original plan is for Shellhammer to ply his wife (Lela Bliss) with “triple-strength” martinis as a preface to asking her if Kris can use their spare bedroom.
It works, but by that time lawyer Fred Gailey (John Payne) has already leaped at the excuse to see single mother Doris, his neighbor, more often by offering up his extra bed. Kris is a hit with Macy’s customers and although Fred annoys Doris by taking her daughter Susan (Natalie Wood) to see him while he’s working (“We should be realistic and completely truthful with our children and not have them growing up believing in a lot of legends and myths,” she tells him), everything seems to be going well otherwise–until she finds out that Kris openly identifies himself as the genuine article:
Leading her to worry that he may be insane. This ultimately results in a petty and vindictive store psychologist named Granville Sawyer (Porter Hall) who Kris bops on the head (which, to be fair, is assault) getting him committed:
And it’s up Fred to get him released by successfully executing the unorthodox strategy of proving in court that Kris really is who he says. What’s interesting about Miracle is it’s clear that no one in the movie over the age of ten actually has any doubts on the matter, and they divide not along lines of believers and non-believers but rather those who think Kris’s delusions are harmless or even valuable and those who consider them dangerous. Hall of Fame character actor Thelma Ritter, in her first (uncredited) screen role, is unequivocally in the former camp:
While Mr. Sawyer is the champion of the latter. Doris and Mr. Shellhammer aren’t sure at first, but when Mr. Macy himself concludes that Kris’s insistence on sending parents to other stores to get the toy their children want if that’s where the best price can be found is good for his bottom line (“we’ll be known as the helpful store, the friendly store, the store with a heart, the store that places public service ahead of profits–and, consequently, we’ll make more profits than ever before!”), they quickly come around. The real drama, though, accompanies Fred’s attempts to convince Judge Henry X. Harper (Gene Lockhart), who has to balance his apparently sincere desire to faithfully discharge his public duty with the need to appease the electorate who gets to decide if he will continue in his role. Score is kept by the number of approving or concerned looks his political advisor (William Frawley) shoots him every time the hearing takes an unexpected turn:
Meanwhile Kris, far from being a mere pawn in the games of others, has been pursuing an agenda of his own the whole time. “Christmas isn’t just a day,” he tells Doris, “it’s a frame of mind, and that’s what’s been changing. That’s why I’m glad I’m here–maybe I can do something about it. And I’m glad I met you and your daughter: you two are a test case for me.” She’s obviously confused, so he continues, “yes–you’re sort of the whole thing in miniature. If I can win you over, then there’s still hope.”
It isn’t just Mr. Macy’s approval that makes up Doris’s mind, but also witnessing the ripple effects of his altruism. His practice of referring customers elsewhere instead of pushing overstock on them is soon adopted as official store policy, then co-opted by rival department store Gimbel’s, then rolled out to all of each of their branch locations resulting in the following photo op:
And a promise to procure a much-needed expensive new x-ray machine for a doctor (James Seay) Kris knows:
Kris sets the stage for Susan’s conversion by teaching her the joys of imaginative play by showing her how to be a monkey:
And after much prodding she finally tells him what she really wants for Christmas:
No, not a doll’s house: a real one. Interestingly, this dream is similar to one harbored by Fred, who confides to Kris that someday he’d like to get a place in Long Island. “Not a big house,” he tells him, “one of those junior-partner deals around Manhasset.” Anyway, just when Kris’s mental competency hearing seems to be definitively heading south, Susan writes him a letter that Doris appends a note of her own to:
And it morphs into a deus ex machina that arrives just in the St. Nick of time when a couple of opportunistic United States Post Office employees named Al (Jack Albertson) and Lou (Guy Thomajan) identify it as a way to finally relieve themselves of thousands of previously undeliverable letters addressed to Santa…
…thus handing Fred the ability to provide Judge Harper with an out in the form of the ability to appeal to a higher legal authority. He has all of the letters that have been delivered to the court house dumped out on Harper’s desk:
Harper makes eye contact with his political adviser one last time:
Then announces that, “since the United States government declares this man to be Santa Claus, this court will not dispute it. Case dismissed!” Miracle ends with Kris providing Doris, Fred, and Susan directions home from a Christmas party they’re all attending which will supposedly help them “miss a lot of traffic.”
As they’re driving along, Susan’s eyes suddenly go wide:
“Stop, Uncle Fred! Stop!” she cries and hurtles herself out of the car.
The camera pans left, and we see that she’s running toward a house that’s a dead ringer for the picture she showed Kris, only this one has a “For Sale” sign in front of it:
Doris and Fred follow her inside, where Doris admonishes her: “you know you shouldn’t run around in other people’s houses!” “But this is my house,” Susan replies, “the one I asked Mr. Kringle for!”
As she runs to see whether or not there’s a swing (“there is one!”), Fred takes Doris in his arms and kisses her. “The sign outside says it’s for sale,” he says, “we can’t let her down.” Then: “it even makes sense to believe in me now. I must be a pretty good lawyer. I take a little old man and legally prove that he’s Santa Claus.” But suddenly he stops mid-sentence, distracted by something offscreen:
“Oh no, it can’t be!” Doris exclaims. “It must have been left here by the people who moved out!” But it certainly does look a lot like the one we saw Kris with earlier, and as “Jingle Bells” plays in the background, Fred replies, “maybe I didn’t do such a wonderful thing after all.”
Nothing here definitively dispels the possibility that Kris is just a guy who knows how to read toy advertisements and real estate listings, but the film’s style and tone has inarguably evolved from its opening credits sequence that features an almost neo-realist following shot of him walking the streets of Manhattan:
To this fantastical conclusion. And yet, to its enormous credit, it does not matter which side we come down on. The important thing is that Susan has discovered (as I recently suggested to my own budding rationalist) that life is more fun when not everything has a strictly logical explanation, and as long as you’re confident that all of your options are good ones, it can occasionally be liberating to take a break from constant decision making and let the universe choose for you. We are a secular family, so for us Jesus isn’t the reason for the Christmas season. This is what the holiday is all about. And that’s why Miracle on 34th Street isn’t only the first Christmas movie we watch each year, but also one of our favorites.
Cheers!
All original photographs in this post are by Marion Penning, aka my loving wife. Links to all of the entries in this series can be found here.
The Prodigal Cinephile 