HOORAY FOR HOLLYWOOD, or not: Don't they make great films anymore?

What is the greatest film ever made?

Oh, you know it but you'd never guess what and why. Well, I'm about to tell you.

With the Golden Globes happening February 28th and the Oscars April 25th, this may be an opportune time to talk about the best picture ever made.

A touch of background: Most listers of the top 10, or the top 100, or whatever. best movies of all time usually start with Citizen Kane, or Casablanca, The Godfather, Grapes of Wrath, Lawrence of Arabia, Gone With The Wind, The Graduate, On the Waterfront, etc. and these are good. They however don't offer what we seem to need most in a movie that tells a story, makes us smile and offers a life lesson. 

There is one though. And don't laugh or think I'm crazy (well, maybe that), but this one offers joy--both overtly and subliminally--in a belief that has been told over and over again but hidden in the ways it braces our spirit with love, hope and redemption seasonally, year after year.

You can start guessing but you'll never get it... until now. Miracle on 34th Street won three Academy Awards in 1948: for Best Story, Best Writing and Best Supporting Actor, Santa Claus/Edmund Gwenn. OK, so it's not Christmas but just live with it, will you?

It was the black and white original version that best told every child's story. It spread a spirit and the hope that prevails at the appropriate time every year* despite the arguments that Santa isn't real. But he is, and the United States Postal Service officially proved it.

Historically, Santa Clause/St. Nicolas, was first 'real' about 300 years after Christ's birth, revered as a kind and generous monk. He was born in where modern day Turkey is on the map, and was admired for his piety and kindness. He was the subject of many legends because he gave away all of his inherited wealth and traveled the countryside helping the poor and sick. There are many supporting stories. Perhaps he was Mother Teresa before she was.

Over the years he became known as the protector of children and sailors. And, as we learned as kids, if
you say 'St. Nicholas' 10 times faster and faster, it turns into 'Santa Claus.'  

Told you so. 

Though you've probably seen Miracle on 34th Street many times, it should be most remembered for what it expresses through the eyes of a child, our tomorrow. 

This was not the first time such irrefutable proof was offered. In 1897, a newspaper writer for The New York Sun was given a task to to make something good happen by answering a little girl's  'Letter to the Editor.'  Who doubts his answer was truth itself.  

That Question:

Dear Editor--

I am 8 years old. Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus. Papa says "If you see it in The Sun, it's so." Please tell me the truth, is there a Santa Claus?

Virginia O'Hanlon

115 West Ninety Fifth Street 

His response, written with all verbosity and lacking some of today's correctness, nonetheless focused on the spirit and goodness of Santa that we all hold childlike within us to recreate annually for our little ones... and all the rest of the world. Remember, this was 134 years ago:

Virginia, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except what they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men's or children's, are little. In this great universe of ours, man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.

Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus! It would be as dreary as if there were no Virginias. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence.

We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The external light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.

Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies. You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas Eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if you did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that's no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.

You tear apart the baby's rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived could tear apart. Only faith, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, Virginia, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.

No Santa Claus! Thank God! He lives and lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay 10 times 10,000 years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.

Believe in Santa or not. But to continue without wonder and awe means there is no magic beyond what we know, experience and see. And that would be very sad indeed, especially for the young whose minds should be filled with the wonder and belief in the magic of good. The world we call 'real' will come soon enough, when we can no longer hear the bells.

*That original version of Miracle on 34th Street, is now only available to stream on Disney+ so you will not see it broadcast at Christmastime, or elsewhere to stream. It can still be purchased for home viewing.