The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

The movie really just wants to entertain people.

The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

When Santa falls down drunk in the Thanksgiving Day Parade, reluctant Macy's supervisor Doris Walker (Maureen O'Hara) offers the job to a bearded Kris Kringle (Edmund Gwenn, who won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar) purporting to be the real Santa! During the Christmas season, he shares a flat with Doris's neighbor (John Payne), who has eyes for Doris. Kris hopes to unite the two while winning over Doris's skeptical 6-year-old daughter (Natalie Wood).Many movies and television films have stolen from this film. One movie that stole from the courtroom scenes is the terrible movie "Kidco".This film is well made and is a classic for a reason. "It's Near Perfect"

Hugely bored and depressed by the gloomy french 36 quai des orfevres, that also happens on Christmas eve, i look for something more essential and inspired for 1947 and as soon as i have noticed this one, i knew that was the perfect choice.Maybe Xmas is an universal holiday but i admit that only US understand it right and thus only American movies find this Christmas spirit.Here the story is wonderful: like the Ghostbusters, the real Santa Klaus is sent to Bellevue (NYC mental institution) and only the spirit of justice can save him.It boils with kids joy, human love and there is some great moments: the parade, the store shop, the courtroom.and for sure, the cast is just wonderful with special mention to late Natalie Wood: i left her as a teen in Rebel without a cause and now i found her 10 years before as a kid believing with all her heart in this Holiday!Along Home Alone, it's a really feel good movie that you want to enjoy alone when sad or with your family waiting for the bearded man!

This film is not just a kids' movie. Indeed, much of the dialogue and several subtexts within the film are too advanced for many children younger than ten (and a lot of it would bore a seven year old).The script is very well written which undoubtedly accounts for the fact that it won two Oscars for Best Writing, Original Story and Screenplay. Precise wording and deliberate interruptions (e.g. of characters who are about to do or say something "wrong") are techniques cleverly utilized throughout the picture enabling it to be viewed by children who still believe without upsetting them. It was also nominated for Best Picture but lost to Zanuck's Gentleman's Agreement (1947) (a story about anti-Semitism, ironically). Also notable is the fact that it was originally released in May. It was added to the National Film Registry in 2005. #9 on AFI's 100 Most Inspiring Movies list.Though the basis of the film is belief in Santa Claus, the conflicts (e.g.) from the wannabe psychiatrist, responsible for institutionalizing Kris, and within the judge and district attorney as they try to at once uphold the principles of law and their reputations without alienating voters and their families contribute much (amusingly so) to the story.These story-lines are seamlessly combined with the "love" story between the two main adult characters, parenting philosophy, the theme of faith ("believing when common sense tells you not to"), and the commercialization of Christmas. The plot's only flaw, in my opinion, is the lack of any real on-screen development of the love between the adults (who presumably are married after the film ends).Particularly memorable is young Natalie Wood's character's transformation from "practical", loner child to one that learns for the first time to pretend (to be an animal in a zoo), and the (sanity hearing) courtroom scenes including the DA being completely "disarmed" by his own son and, of course, when postal workers pour 50,000 letters on the judge's desk which prompts his well worded ruling "if a branch of the United States government recognizes this man as the one and only Santa Claus, I'll not dispute it ... case dismissed!".The acting is also superb. Edmund Gwenn won the Best Actor in a Supporting Role Award, probably in part because it was more of a Best Actor role given his screen time.Maureen O'Hara is excellent as always but I think John Payne's (underrated?, certainly under appreciated) "Fred Gailey" is what holds the film together.The incredibly talented supporting cast of character actors includes:Porter Hall (who also played memorable bits in Preston Sturges' films) as the "psychiatrist"William Frawley (Fred in I Love Lucy; Bub in My Three Sons) as the judge's campaign managerveteran actor Gene Lockhart as judgeThelma Ritter's debut film as the skeptical motherand even Jack Albertson as the postal sorterI think that, compared to other more recently released comedy- fantasy "kids" movies also made for adults, it stands up quite well today.

This movie is more than feel-good entertainment; it serves as social and political commentary as well. The story is about how a woman in charge of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade hires a bearded man to play Santa Claus at the very last moment when the existing one turns out to be intoxicated. The man proves popular with the children, and is also popular with them when he plays Santa Claus in the Macy's store itself. The woman is taken aback, however, when she finds that he calls himself Kris Kringle for real.The story not only deals with whether this man might be the real Santa Claus or just a "nice old man with a beard". The story talks about mental illness and how society treats it, about how Christmas has become too commercialized and kindness and goodwill forgotten; about how the woman and her daughter have been trained to reject any form of pretending, fantasy, or faith, and why that is not necessarily a good thing. The movie is old-fashioned but not by any means outdated.