Award Category Fraud: Kris Kringle is the story's central character and the one with the most screentime, and yet Edmund Gwenn was nominated for and won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.
Billing Displacement: While Kris Kringle is definitely the story's central character, Edmund Gwenn was billed third behind Maureen O'Hara and John Payne in the original film. This wound up paying off for Gwenn, who was nominated for (and won) the Best Supporting Actor Oscar, in a case of Award Category Fraud.
Colbert Bump: This film gave the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade (which was just recovering from its two-year absence during World War II) a huge boost in popularity, as pointed out in the parade's 85th anniversary special.
Executive Meddling: The film was originally released in May despite its Christmas theme, due to 20th Century Fox head Darryl F. Zanuck believing that people were more willing to go to the movies in the summer. This famously led to a marketing campaign that hid the movie's Christmas themes, including a trailer which, rather than showing scenes from the film itself, depicted a fictional Fox producer trying to figure out how to sell it to the public while several contemporary stars (including Rex Harrison, Anne Baxter, and Peggy Ann Garner) accosted him on the studio lot to rave about it. Fortunately, the film turned out to be a massive success anyway and actually ran long enough that it was still in theaters when Christmas actually rolled around.
Friendship on the Set: Maureen O'Hara and Natalie Wood formed a close relationship while making the film. O'Hara would later state in her biography that she considered Wood her favorite out of all the child actors she worked with during her film career and she was devastated when she learned of Wood's death in 1981.
Keep Circulating the Tapes: The first colorized version, which happened to be the first color conversion job by Color Systems Technology, was only used for early television broadcasts and has never surfaced on home video.
Out of Holiday Episode: Despite taking place at Christmas and centering around a man who may or may not be Santa Claus, the film was originally released in May. This was because summer was seen as a more profitable time of year for new releases, and resulted in the marketing focusing on the romance sub-plot rather than the primary but off-season festive story.
The Red Stapler: In the wake of this film, department stores like Macy's and Gimbels really did start the goodwill efforts of referring customers to their rivals during Christmas shopping season, a practice that lasted until online shopping mostly displaced department stores.
Self-Adaptation: Valentine Davies wrote this movie and its novelization.
Stillborn Franchise: John Payne wanted really badly to make a sequel, and Maureen O'Hara claimed they had talked about it for years. He apparently wrote a screenplay for it but died before it could be produced.
Throw It In!: Child actor Robert Hyatt, who played the District Attorney's son who gets questioned on the stand, came up with the "Daddy told me so" line, which was unscripted.
Working Title: The original intended title was Christmas Miracle on 34th Street. The Christmas part was dropped when all references to the holiday were removed from the marketing campaign. (The title of the script that Maureen O'Hara was first shown was The Big Heart, which became the film's initial UK release title.)
Natalie Wood and her husband Robert Wagner were approached to play Karen Walker and Bill Schaffner, respectively with Natalie's daughter Natasha Gregson Wagner, who was three years old at the time, playing Susan. However, Natalie and Robert refused due to the fact that they didn't want their daughter to go into acting at a young age like Natalie did.
Melissa Gilbert auditioned for the role of Susan Walker since she was a fan of the 1947 version, however she wasn't given the role.
The 1994 remake:
Ability over Appearance: The original plan was to give a Gender Flip to Susan and have the remake's child be a boy named Jonathan. According to Mara Wilson's autobiography, a few people she had worked with recommended her for the part, and the character became a girl named Susan once again.
Creator Backlash: Mara Wilson disliked how Susan was rewritten during filming. She was conceived as a more interesting and intelligent child, but they kept dropping these traits to emphasize her cuteness. A lot of critics had a Sweetness Aversion to the character, which Mara herself agrees with.
The Danza: Middle name variant. Susan's middle name is Elizabeth, as is Mara Wilson's.
Remake Cameo: Alvin Greenman, who played Alfred in the original, plays the doorman. Ironically, the character of Alfred was Adapted Out in this version.
