This Miracle on 34th Street trivia quiz has 50 free questions with answers and covers the 1947 classic and everything that grew from it: Edmund Gwenn's Kris Kringle, Maureen O'Hara and a nine-year-old Natalie Wood, the drunk parade Santa, the fire engine at Gimbels, the umbrella and Mr. Sawyer, the competency hearing, the mail sacks and the cane in the dream house. It also covers how the film was made and sold, from the real 1946 Macy's parade footage to Darryl Zanuck's decision to release a Christmas film in June, its three Oscars and its place in the National Film Registry, and then the 1994 remake with Richard Attenborough and Mara Wilson, the television versions and Meredith Willson's Broadway musical. It is written for holiday movie nights, Christmas trivia parties and classic-film fans who can quote the courtroom scene. Easy questions cover the story most people know; the hard ones ask about the budget, the Catholic Legion of Decency and who directed the 1955 TV version. Every answer has been checked against a reliable source and each question shows its citation once you have answered.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In the 1947 film, who plays Kris Kringle?
Edmund Gwenn
The London-born actor won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for the role, and later appeared in Hitchcock's The Trouble with Harry.
Q 02How does Kris end up in the red suit at the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade?
The hired man is drunk
Event director Doris Walker recruits him on the spot, and he does so well that Macy's hires him for the store on 34th Street.
Q 03Kris shocks his employers by sending a shopper to which rival store to find a fire engine?
Gimbels
The rival stood a block away on Herald Square, and their feud gave America the phrase 'Does Macy's tell Gimbels?'
Q 04Which actress plays Doris Walker, the Macy's events director and Susan's mother?
Maureen O'Hara
She had just moved back to post-war Ireland and was reluctant to return; she later received an honorary Oscar in 2014.
Q 05The young Susan Walker is played by which future star of Rebel Without a Cause and West Side Story?
Natalie Wood
Born Natalia Zakharenko in San Francisco, she was eight during filming and went on to three Oscar nominations.
Q 06What is the name of the lawyer neighbour who defends Kris in court and courts Doris?
Fred Gailey
John Payne played him, and later starred as a reluctant gunfighter in the TV western The Restless Gun.
Q 07What convinces Susan that Kris might really be Santa, when she watches him with a little orphan girl?
He speaks Dutch to her
Doris has raised Susan not to believe in fairy tales, so the scene is the first crack in her scepticism.
Q 08Kris is sent to Bellevue after striking the store psychologist Granville Sawyer on the head with what?
An umbrella
Sawyer had declared Kris dangerous and recommended he be institutionalised.
Q 09Which branch of the federal government does Fred cite in court as recognising Kris as Santa Claus?
The Post Office
Mail sorters had dumped every letter addressed to Santa on Kris, and the sacks are hauled into court as evidence.
Q 10Which witness at the hearing testifies that Santa Claus is real because his own father told him so?
The DA's young son
It leaves the prosecutor unable to argue that Santa does not exist without contradicting himself.
Q 11What do Fred and Doris spot inside the house Susan wanted for Christmas in the final scene?
A cane like Kris's
The film never says outright whether Kris is Santa, and the cane is the closest it comes to an answer.
Q 12Which actor plays Judge Henry X. Harper, who must rule on whether Kris is sane?
Gene Lockhart
William Frawley, later Fred Mertz on I Love Lucy, plays the political fixer who warns the judge what ruling against Santa would do to his career.
Q 13Which actor plays the store psychologist Granville Sawyer?
Porter Hall
Kris's dislike of him is the one time the gentle old man loses his temper.
Q 21The film was made on a budget of roughly how much?
$248,000
It returned about $2.7 million in domestic rentals, more than ten times its cost.
Q 22In which year was the film selected for preservation in the US National Film Registry?
2005
By then it had been colorised for two decades; the 1985 version was one of the first full-length black-and-white films to get the treatment.
Q 23Why did the Catholic Legion of Decency rate the 1947 film 'morally objectionable in part'?
Doris is a divorcée
A single mother raising a child alone was still a delicate subject on screen in 1947.
Q 14Who directed the 1947 film and won an Oscar for its screenplay?
George Seaton
Valentine Davies won a separate Oscar for the original story, and published a short novelisation with Harcourt Brace.
Q 15The parade scenes were filmed live during the real Macy's parade of which year?
1946
O'Hara recalled 'a mad scramble' in which each scene could be shot only once as the floats went by.
Q 16Studio boss Darryl F. Zanuck insisted the Christmas film be released in which month of 1947?
May
He believed more people went to the movies in warm weather, so the trailers hid the Christmas setting entirely.
Q 17The film opened in New York City on June 4, 1947, at which theatre?
The Roxy
It was released by 20th Century-Fox, which retitled it The Big Heart for British audiences.
Q 18Under what title was the film originally released in the United Kingdom?
The Big Heart
British distributors apparently thought '34th Street' would mean nothing to their audience.
Q 19How many Academy Awards did the 1947 film win?
Three
Supporting actor, original story and screenplay; it lost Best Picture to Gentleman's Agreement.
Q 20The 1947 film lost the Best Picture Oscar to which other 20th Century-Fox film, about antisemitism?
Gentleman's Agreement
Both were 20th Century-Fox releases, so the studio won either way.
Q 24The residence for the aged where Kris lives at the start of the film is called what?
Brooks Memorial
His mailing address there is one of the details that make his sanity hearing so awkward.
Q 25Except in 1932, the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade has always ended with which figure's arrival?
Old St. Nick
The only exception was 1932, when Santa led the parade instead of closing it.
Q 26Macy's rival in the film held its own Thanksgiving parade in which city, four years before Macy's?
Philadelphia
The Philadelphia store was also the first in the world to move customers by escalator; the chain closed for good in 1987.
Q 27In the 1994 remake, who plays Kris Kringle?
Richard Attenborough
The Gandhi director had just played John Hammond in Jurassic Park the year before.
Q 28The 1994 remake replaces Macy's with a fictional store called what?
Cole's
Macy's declined to let its name be used, and Gimbels had gone out of business in 1987, so the rival became Shopper's Express.
Q 29Which writer-producer, famous for Home Alone, co-wrote and produced the 1994 remake?
John Hughes
Les Mayfield directed, and Siskel and Ebert gave it two thumbs up despite a lukewarm 59 percent on Rotten Tomatoes.
Q 30Which child actress, also seen in Mrs. Doubtfire and Matilda, plays Susan in the 1994 remake?
Mara Wilson
Elizabeth Perkins plays her mother, renamed Dorey, and Dylan McDermott plays the lawyer, renamed Bryan Bedford.