"Lux Radio Theater" broadcast a 60 minute radio adaptation of the movie on
December 20, 1948 with John Payne, Maureen O'Hara and Edmund Gwenn again reprising their film roles.
"Lux Radio Theater" broadcast a 60 minute radio adaptation of the movie on
December 21, 1954 with Edmund Gwenn again reprising his film role.
"Lux Radio Theater" broadcast a 60 minute radio adaptation of the movie on
December 22, 1947 with Maureen O'Hara, Edmund Gwenn, John Payne and Natalie Wood reprising their film roles.
"Screen Director's Playhouse" broadcast a 30 minute radio adaptation of the movie on December 23, 1949 with Edmund Gwenn reprising his film role.
"Screen Director's Playhouse" broadcast a 60 minute radio adaptation of the movie on December 21, 1950 with Edmund Gwenn again reprising his film role.
Thelma Ritter's screen debut.
Maureen O'Hara (Doris Walker) is the last surviving cast member.
Maureen O'Hara was ultimately forced into her role against her will, as she had just returned to Ireland before being called back to America for the film. However, she immediately changed her sentiments upon reading the script.
Natalie Wood was eight years old when she made this film.
2006: Ranked #9 on the American Film Institute's 100 Most Inspiring Movies of All Time.
20th Century-Fox studio head Darryl F. Zanuck was very much against making this film because he thought it too corny to succeed. He finally agreed to a medium-sized budget provided writer/director George Seaton would accept his next three assignments unconditionally. Seaton, who desperately wanted to get the picture made, agreed.
According to Hedda Hopper's "Looking at Hollywood" newspaper column of May 3, 1947 "when the picture opens at the Roxy, Macy's will close for half a day so it's 12,000 employees can see the first showing."
Both the actual Macy's and Gimbels department stores were approached by the producers for permission to have them depicted in the film. Both stores wanted to see the finished film first before they gave approval. If either store had refused, the film would have had to been extensively edited and reshot to eliminate the references. Fortunately at the test viewing, both businesses were pleased with the film and gave their permission.
Cinematographer Charles G. Clarke was taken off the picture and sent to Mexico to finish principal photography on the troubled production of Captain from Castile. Lloyd Ahern replaced him.
Despite the fact that the film is set during Christmas, studio head Darryl F. Zanuck insisted that it be released in May because he argued that more people went to the movies during the summer. So the studio began scrambling to promote it while keeping the fact that it was a Christmas movie a secret.
In a separately filmed promotional trailer, Rex Harrison, Anne Baxter, Peggy Ann Garner and Dick Haymes, all of whom were appearing in other Twentieth Century-Fox productions at the time, but not in this one, discuss the merits of the film.
In a separately filmed promotional trailer, actor Charles Tannen plays studio head Ed Schaeffer, a thinly disguised impersonation of Darryl F. Zanuck, and George E. Stone, Gene Nelson, and Harry Seymour play other studio executives at a mock screening of what was to be the original trailer for the film.
In the untranslated dialogue with the Dutch girl, Santa Claus asks the child what she wants for Christmas the girl says she wants nothing, telling Santa she got her gift by being adopted by her new mother.
Ranked #5 on the American Film Institute's list of the 10 greatest films in the genre "Fantasy" in June 2008.
Received a 'B' rating (morally objectionable in part) from the highly influential Legion of Decency because Maureen O'Hara played a divorcée.