Characters: Frederick “Fred” M. Gailey and Doris Walker
Media: Miracle on 34th Street (1947)
Played by: John Payne and Maureen O’Hara
Setting: 1940s, New York City
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Doris Walker is the successful, no-nonsense events director for Macy’s Department Store, and her stressful job is worsened by the fact that it’s Christmas, making her role as a divorced single mother even more difficult.
Fred Gailey is a lawyer and Doris’s next-door apartment neighbor, and he hopes to get to know Doris better by befriending her precocious daughter Susan, who has been brought up to face reality unconditionally.
Fred and Doris struggle to find their direction as they begin spending more time together, but the arrival of a department store Santa Claus - a man who truly believes that he is Kris Kringle - shakes things up, plants doubts in Susan’s mind as to what she believes, and drives Doris and Fred together and apart repeatedly. Fred takes on Kris as a roommate in hopes of softening Doris’ bitterness, but a court case against Kris leaves them all reeling and looking for a Christmas miracle, one that will give Kris a home and Susan a family.