(Image: The Margaret Herrick Library at the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences.) (That’s Davies, above and right, with Seaton.) “Just a … little extra picture”Īfter winning the Oscar for Writing (Motion Picture Story), Valentine Davies (right) takes a moment backstage with presenter George Murphy (center) and future bestselling novelist Sidney Sheldon. Seaton got to work on a script.īefore long, the two writers were collaborating on a Hollywood film set. Davies said: See what you can do with this. What would happen if Santa Claus - the real Santa Claus - found himself stranded in an iconic department store amid the commercialized chaos of an American Christmas? What if he got a close look at the rapacious retailers, the sloganeers and price-gougers, as they hid their greed under hypocritical claptrap about “goodwill toward all men”?ĭavies scribbled a summary of characters and how the story might take shape - a charming old gentleman who claims his name is “Kris Kringle” a chance encounter with a department-store manager who needs a substitute Santa in a pinch a cynical little girl who’s been taught that Claus is merely a myth … and so on.ĭavies brought his notes to a good friend he’d made back in Ann Arbor, George Seaton, an actor-turned-screenwriter/director. Midway through the war - Christmastime 1943 - he got an idea for a story. (Harcourt Brace and Company, Inc., 1947.)ĭuring World War II, a young writer named Valentine Davies, BA ’27, served stateside in the U.S. Valentine Davies wrote the story that would inspire the screenplay for ‘Miracle on 34th Street.’ Then he wrote a short novel to cross-promote the picture.
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