The Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade and "Miracle on 34th Street" (1947)

The 1946 Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade was special for two reasons: It was the first year the parade was televised locally (it would go national in 1947) and it appeared in a movie that was destined to become a perennial Christmas classic - Miracle on 34th Street (1947).

That's right! The crew filmed the actual 1946 parade and Edmund Gwenn actually played Santa Claus. Of the two million live spectators that year, I wonder how many people watching recognized the movie star or realized it was being filmed for a movie that would be coming to theaters the following summer!

The History of Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade

Everything You Didn't Know about the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade

Natalie Wood and John Payne looking at the baseball player balloon.

 

Here's an interesting video (with some familiar movie blogger faces!) about the filming locations in NYC.

Directors of Christmas Movies

                  

We watch them every year but aside from Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life (and probably Michael Curtiz's White Chirstmas and Ernst Lubitsch's The Shop Around the Corner), you may not notice or recognize the director of your favorite Christmas films. In this post I am going to tell you who directed each of the most famous Christmas films and what other major films they directed. *This is not a complete list of Christmas films, just some of the better known or my personal favorites.

As I already mentioned, Capra and Curtiz need no introduction, but did you know the director of Christmas in Connecticut (1945) was Peter Godfrey? I certainly didn't recognize his name. I looked him up and discovered he was London born and directed two other great Stanwyck films (which I will be looking at for the Barbara Stanwyck Blogathon later this month) The Two Mrs. Carrolls (1947)and Cry Wolf (1947).

 

George Seaton directed the much loved Miracle on 34th Street (1947) but did you know he also directed The Country Girl (1954)? He also directed 36 Hours (1964), a James Garner film I discovered this year.

The director of The Bishop's Wife (1947) was Henry Koster, born in Berlin. He directed many well-known films, including The Inspector General (1949), Harvey (1950), and The Robe (1953), to name a few.

Holiday Affair (1949) is one of the lesser known holiday films starring Robert Mitchum and Janet Leigh. It was directed by Don Hartman. He only directed five films total, but was the writer of many popular films, including quite a few for Bob Hope.

Remember the Night (1940), another Stanwyck film, was written by Preston Sturges but directed by Mitchell Leisen. His 50 credits include a couple Lombard films, Midnight (1939), and many other romantic comedies.

Bachelor Mother (1939) was directed by Garson Kanin, who directed My Favorite Wife (1940) and who wrote the Tracy/Hepburn films Adam's Rib (1949) and Pat and Mike (1952).

Lastly, Holiday Inn (1942), which introduced perhaps the most popular Christmas song of all time, "White Christmas," was directed by Mark Sandrich, who has 76 credits beginning in 1926 and ending in 1946 (his death). His name will be familiar to all who love the Astaire/Rogers films.

Remembering Maureen O'Hara

Photograph by Erin Finn, Hollywood Glamour.

I was deeply saddened to learn that Maureen O'Hara passed away this morning in Idaho at the age of 95. I knew this day would come one day but I had hoped it wouldn't come for a few years more. Almost one year after receiving an honorary Oscar, that fiery red-haired Irish woman, the "Queen of Technicolor," has left this world forever. However, she will never be forgotten and will live on in her films, in the films she made with John Wayne, and in the Christmas classic Miracle on 34th Street.

With two of her sisters: Margot (left) and Florrie.

She was born Maureen FitzSimons in Ranelagh, Dublin, Ireland on 17 Aug 1920. She was the second child in a family of six. As a child she excelled at sports, which enabled her to perform the majority of her own stunts in her films. When she was 14 she was accepted to the Abbey Theater where she studied operatic singing in addition to acting.

With her brother, James. You may recognize him as Fr. Paul in The Quiet Man.

Her brother, Charles, was also in the film as the man who gives the toast at the wedding.

Her big debut into film, after playing in two small roles under her own name, and for the first time as Maureen O'Hara, was in Alfred Hitchcock's Jamaica Inn (1939) alongside Charles Laughton, who discovered her. The Irish beauty was only 19 years old. Her next film was also with Laughton, the famous Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939). Maureen played the gypsy girl, Esmeralda.

After starring in three more films (A Bill of Divorcement; Dance Girl, Dance; and They Met in Argentina), Maureen began her long friendship with director John Ford in How Green Was My Valley (1941). She played the tragic character Angharad, the older sister of Roddy McDowell and daughter of Donald Crisp, who marries a man she doesn't love but who can afford to take her away from the horrors of a mining town.

Her next film, To the Shores of Tripoli (1942), was her first with actor John Payne, whom she would star again with in Sentimental Journey (1946) and Miracle on 34th Street (1947).

Sentimental Journey

That same year, Maureen took on the role of Lady Margaret Denby in the swashbuckling pirate film The Black Swan (1942). She took roles in several other historical films, including Against All Flags (1952) with Errol Flynn.

            

Miracle on 34th Street is probably the film most well known because of it's status of Christmas Classic (Maureen was the last cast member alive). Maureen plays Doris Walker, an employee of Macy's in charge of the famous annual Thanksgiving Day Parade. At the last minute she has to hire a new Santa Claus, who insists that he really is Kris Kringle. John Payne is the dashing young lawyer who takes Kris's case when Kris is sent to an institution. It's one of my favorite holiday movies and a "can't miss."

With Natalie Wood.

Rio Grande (1950) brought Maureen O'Hara and John Wayne together for the first time. This was followed by The Quiet Man (1952) - set and filmed in Maureen's beloved Ireland, The Wings of Eagles (1957), McLintock! (1963), and Big Jake (1971).

What girl doesn't want to be kissed like that?

Other well known films include The Parent Trap (1961) alongside Haley Mills and Brian Keith, Mr. Hobbs Takes a Vacation (1962) and The Rare Breed (1966) with James Stewart, and Spencer's Mountain (1963) with Henry Fonda.

With her daughter, Bronwyn. The other lady is clearly related as well (one of her sisters?).

Maureen retired from the movies in 1971 but returned from 1991 to 2000 making one film and three TV movies. (For a complete list of Maureen's films, click here.)

Maureen O'Hara singing on YouTube.

The thing Maureen O'Hara was the most proud of was being Irish and she loved that she was the most well known Irish woman in the world.

The Hollywood Reporter Article
Hail and Farewell to Maureen O'Hara - Cowboys & Indians Magazine
Maureen O'Hara's Secret to her Longevity
Funeral Held for Irish Actress Maureen O'Hara at Arlington National Cemetery

All images found via Pinterest