Yow. Third Cafe Society thread today. Really rollin’.
So they were playing 1947’s Miracle on 34th Street over and over on American Movie Classics, and early in the film it is revealed that the nice guy lawyer romantic lead:
A) Is not personally known to little Susie’s mother.
B) Took little Susie (and the Mom’s maid) to the zoo in the indefinite past.
C) Is watching the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade alone with little Susie in his apartment before Mom comes and introduces herself to him.
Now I know there wasn’t the pedophile hysteria back in 1947 like there is today, but still, this didn’t raise an eyebrow? Did folks normally let people they didn’t even know babysit their children away from their homes?
I made note of the maid in the above because the first time I noticed this, I thought it was just little Susie that Mr. Nice Guy took to the zoo. I actually watched the movie again on the repeat just so I could make sure I heard right. Then I realized the Mom’s maid was also along on the trip. Still, with an unknown guy? Ick.
Just to put the icing on the cake, Mr. Nice Guy confesses to the Mom in the same scene that he’s being nice to Susie so he can get to know the Mom. Uh, yeah. Get little Susie, and back away sloowwly…
Yeah, different times, and the Hays Code wouldn’t allow anything like what I’m suggesting. But still…
They haven’t met, but Mom is aware of him. He’s a successful attorney living on Central Park West and the maid has assessed his character. Little Susie is certainly intelligent enough to be aware of boundaries and is right across the hall.
Different times. What about the scene where Kris sits on little Susie’s bed in her room alone when she shows him the picture of the house she wants? Different times.
The remake with Richard Attenborough was on here the other day, and why-oh-why did they change the ending for the remake? Of all the things to change they changed the one thing that actually made a little sense and replaced it with some nebulous “in God we trust” rubbish?
The original idea with the post office worked well I thought, why on earth did they change it?
I’ve never watched the Attenborough one… you mean that didn’t have the postal workers dump all that mail on the judge’s desk? That was the best moment in the whole dang movie! Now I know I will never watch the new version.
Yeah, they cut out the post office bit. In the remake, the judge doesn’t want to convict but cant see any way out. So the lawyer gives him a dollar bill with the “In god we trust” bit highlighted, and the judge goes off on some rant about faith or something, and then says that Attenborough is actually Santa Clause.
I really cannot see what directorial reason there was to change the ending, it worked perfectly before. The Post Office see a chance to dump all the letters onto this guy, get them off their hands. The judge sees this and jumps at the chance, “If they think he is Santa who am I to argue”. It worked!
I watched the original a week or so ago and remember thinking along with the OP. Never would happen today. On the other hand, I have a lot of family that grew up in apartment buildings in NYC and I remember being 5 or 6 and running around the lobby of my grandparents’ building in the Bronx (1973 or so) with my brother (18 months older) without supervision. We knew almost all of the tenants and they would give us cookies and such. That probably wouldn’t happen today either. There was more of a “looking out for your neighbors” environment then, rather than “beware of your neighbors.”
Yeah, don’t get me wrong. Miracle on 34th Street is a great movie, and I like it enough that I’ve watched it several times. It wasn’t until this last time that this “creepy” bit jumped out at me.
Remake was okay. I don’t know why they changed the ending.
It’s a sad comment on our times that Miracle would evoke thoughts of pedophilia at all.
We’re better off today than ever before? I don’t think so. I wish to hell I’d been born at least fifty years earlier. The world started going downhill around 1967 and hasn’t stopped since.
You, of course, are probably white. Bet you don’t wish you’d been born 50 years earlier if you were black. See how that works? Not everything is black and white.
I, too, only watch the b/w 1947 version. Colorization is just wrong.
No, the original. I’m not commenting on the quality of the film, but on what the OP is discussing.
IIRC, the alien (Klaatu) lands, goes out amongst the humans, and gets a room at a boarding house. A widowed mom lives there with her young son. She wants to go on a date, but there’s no one to watch the boy. Klaatu, who just arrived at the boarding house, eagerly offers to watch her son. Being a wonderful mother, she agrees to let the stranger/alien whom she just met babysit her son, and goes and gets her groove on with her boyfriend. The alien leaves earth after trying to get the world to stop nuking shit, the boy went on to work for the Penn State football program.
I have to add that Lucy Van Pelt must really envy Susie. Lucy never gets what she really wants for Christmas “Real Estate” - and that’s exactly what Susie got (a nice house on a large piece of property).
Yes, aside from the Penn State snark, I don’t think I am enhancing or exaggerating all too much. Even for the era I found it a bit off. Klaatu was a good alien, but the mom didn’t sense anything was off about this character, when in reality, he wasn’t even human!
