On to the second of the three versions of this film. For today's version, we jump forward about twenty-five years and we are also making the switch from the silver screen to the TV. Yes, ladies and gents ‘Miracle on 34th Street’ (1973) is a made for TV film. It would be unfair of me to assume that that would automatically make this version of the film sub-par, but it isn’t a train of thought that isn’t backed up by evidence. But still, we go into this film with broad minds and Christmas spirit aplenty. Let’s see what it has to offer. The film unsurprisingly has the same story as the other versions of the film. A department store Santa is taken to court to prove whether he is in fact the real Santa or not. You know it, you love it, let’s crack on.
This film killed my Christmas spirit. Okay, I didn’t really have any to begin with (I’ve already watched so much crap) and I said it more for the impact it would have in my introduction, but the film still really sucks. I will start with the positives. The narrative remains solid seeing as it is the same as the classic film, and I do like Sebastian Cabot as Kris Kringle. The performance isn’t as strong as Edmund Gwenn’s in the 1947 version, but it is still a strong performance and easily the most likeable part of the film. I think I am done with the positives. I am going to spend the second half of this paragraph backing up what I said in my introduction about made for TV films being worse. Just by looking at this film, you can tell it is made for TV. Everything about it seems cheap on a technical level. The version I watched is clearly still at the quality it would have been at in the 1970s and so it has this grain over it which reduces the visual quality of the film (although I will say it is kind of charming). It also is shot pretty horribly. A lot of the time it is fine, but then it has these weird moments where it will have a long shot of basically nothing and we just wait for characters to come into the foreground, and we also apparently have proximity chat on because the sound quality seems to get much better the closer characters are to the camera. Finally, the film seems to have a documentary feel to it with some of its camera work, especially in outdoor settings. I feel like this is more because they had to film these on location surrounded by real people rather than a style choice, and it means you get a load of people looking at the camera and seeming confused. It is funny when it isn’t completely breaking your immersion.
The main problem I had with the film is just how bloody boring it is. It is hard to understand why that is the case seeing as it has the same narrative as the original which is a classic. But somehow this film took that narrative and made it painful to sit through. I think the visual style of the film doesn’t help its cause. It is just so bland in its mise en scene, shot composition, costuming, etc, and seeing as the film is a particularly visual medium this does not help the film at all. But all the performances are hugely bland as well. The original film was a little melodramatic, but it worked in the film's favour, making each character fun and memorable. This version has none of that and each character is just the most meh of meh. David Hartman who plays Bill Schaffner is the king of bland in this film. He is basically white bread. Just a handsome man with no personality at all. At least he puts in a decent performance which can’t be said for everyone. There are a couple of performances in the film that are terrible. Roddy McDowell is the main culprit of this, and to be honest I don’t think it is entirely his fault. The film doesn’t have the melodramatic feel of the original, but McDowell is acting as though it does and so his performance sticks out like a sore thumb. At least it is memorable, but not for the reasons he may have wanted.
Thinking about this film again has made me want to sleep. I actually ended up watching it in two sittings because I was struggling with it. The way I am going on about it you would think it is the worst thing ever put on this earth, which is definitely not the case. But it is so unbelievably boring, and it makes its just over ninety-minute runtime feel like a lifetime. Don’t even begin to waste your time with it, especially as there are several other versions of this film you could be watching instead.
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