Stubs - Miracle on Main St.

Miracle on Main St. (1939) Starring Margo, Walter Abel, William Collier Sr., Lyle Talbot. Directed by Steve Sekely. Screenplay by Frederick Jackson. Produced by Jack H. Skirball. Run time: 78 minutes. Black and White. USA Christmas, Melodrama

Before there was Cher or Madonna, there was Margo. Born María Marguerita Guadalupe Teresa Estela Bolado Castilla y O'Donnell, in Mexico City, Margo began her career as a dancer, at age 9, working for her uncle Xavier Cugat and his band in performances at nightclubs in Mexico. While accompanying Cugat and his orchestra at the Waldorf Astoria in New York City, Margo was discovered by producer and director Ben Hecht and screenwriter Charles MacArthur, who cast the 17-year-old performer as the lead in their film Crime Without Passion. She would also have a memorable part in Frank Capra’s Lost Horizon (1937).

Margo was set to star in Miracle on Main St., which was to be released by Grand National Films, Inc. Grand National was an independent motion picture production-distribution company founded in 1936 by Edward L. Alperson. Its predecessor, First Division Pictures, was like United Artists to low-budget producers. Alperson took over First Division in April 1936 and rebranded it.

The studio found early success with Westerns featuring the singing cowboy Tex Ritter, but the biggest coup for the studio came in 1937, when they signed James Cagney after his falling out with Warner Bros. At Grand National, Cagney made Great Guy (1936) and Something to Sing About (1937). The company pulled out all the stops expecting a box-office bonanza. However, neither film was a success and the company was unable to recoup their investment, which helped lead it to collapse. Cagney returned to Warner Bros.

Miracle on Main St. went into production in April of 1939, but the studio was in liquidation by the time it came to release it. Several of its films were bought by other studios, including Isle of Destiny (1940), which was bought by RKO; Half a Sinner (1940), which was bought by Universal; and Miracle on Main St., which was purchased by Columbia Pictures, who released the picture on December 19, 1939. A Spanish-language version, El Milagro de la Calle Mayor shot at the same time and starring Margo was released by Twentieth Century Fox in 1940.

On Christmas Eve, along Olvera Street in Los Angeles, there is a parade to celebrate the birth of Christ, but no sooner has the parade ended in a near by Catholic church, than Dick Porter (Lyle Talbot) orders Duke (Willie Best) to start up his drumming to announce the presence of the show. Despite the pending holiday, the promise of a burlesque show for ten cents is too much for many men to resist, including undercover cop, Detective (Pat Flaherty).

There are three girls in the show, Sadie (Wynne Gibson), Flo (Veda Ann Borg) and Maria Porter (Margo), Dick’s wife. After Margo performs the Dance of the Seven Veils, the show is over. Dick promises a more risqué show for a quarter, but all the men leave, except for the Detective. Dick tells him that Maria won’t dance for a quarter, but Detective is willing to pay more, but wants to meet her first.

  

Trouble starts. From l to r, Maria Porter (Margo), Dick Porter (Lyle Talbot) and the Detective (Pat Flaherty).

Backstage, Dick plans, with Maria’s help, to roll him. However, when they give him a drink and charge him a dollar for it, he tries to arrest them for selling liquor without a license. But both Dick and Maria manage to escape. Maria, who falls and cuts her knee, manages to get past the police and ends up in the church. While praying for help, she hears a baby crying and discovers an abandoned child next to a creche’s baby Jesus.

Meanwhile, at the bar in Pepito’s restaurant, Dr. Miles (William Collier) is trying to convince the bartender to give him one more drink on credit. He only allows it after Pepito (George Humbert) okays it.

Jim Foreman (Walter Abel) and Nina (Jean Brooks) are engaged. Why does neither look happy about it?

Nearby, rancher Jim Foreman (Walter Abel) is celebrating his engagement to a rather hesitant Nina (Jean Brooks). She’s a city girl willing to give the marriage a go.

Picking up the baby, Maria seems to feel an attachment to it and picks it up. Holding a baby is a good disguise as the police are looking for a single woman. She takes the baby back to the boarding house where she lives with Dick. Dick has already made his way back. Mrs. Harris (Jane Darwell), the owner of the boarding house, tells Dick that the police are on their way. Dick cuts out, since he has previous charges against him.

Dr. Miles, who has come to dress Maria’s cut knee, along with Mrs. Harris, help to bluff the Detective when he arrives. They tell him that Maria is a sick woman and he apologizes, saying they had bad information.

The next day, Dr. Miles is helping to wash baby clothes and helping Maria prepare to feed the baby. Mrs. Harris enters and while she is supportive of Maria, she still wants to get paid. Since dancing is out of the question for the moment, it is suggested that Maria look for a job where she can work from home, like sewing.

This still captures the interaction with a Woman in Church (Dorothy Devore) that convinces Maria to to keep the baby.

Maria, however, thinks she should return the baby to the church. But an encounter with a Woman in Church (Dorothy Devore), who is jealous of Maria, convinces her to keep the baby. She returns to the boarding house with the baby and a job, sewing for a boutique shop that sells only handmade baby clothes.

Sadie and Flo are supportive of Maria and use the shutdown of the show as a chance to get more lucrative jobs as a nanny/tutor and a receptionist.

Meanwhile, Jim’s marriage to Nina ends amicably. She doesn’t like living in the country and yearns for a city life that Jim can’t give her.

Sewing doesn’t pay the bills, so Mrs. Harris encourages Maria to get a job dancing again. However, jobs are tight. She goes to Pepito, who tells her he could hire her, perhaps in six to eight weeks.

Jim is there again, drowning his sorrows at the bar when he spots Maria. Having overheard her conversation with Pepito, he calls her over, pretending for the bartender’s sake that he had been waiting on her. The two seem to get along. He walks her back to the boarding house and she invites him up to meet the baby.

A courtship develops between the two. Jim brings her and the baby out to his ranch and she is very happy there. And while they’d like to be together, each knows that the other is still married, though Nina has apparently started divorce procedures. Maria doesn’t know what to do, since Dick is on the run. She’s afraid to tell Jim her whole sordid past.

Time passes and Maria is now a fashion designer at the shop and making enough money to move into a better room at the boarding house. Jim has also put money into it, so Mrs. Harris has renovated the place and has a better clientele. Dr. Miles is the only one living there for free now.

Jim has taken Maria and the baby to the beach for the day when Dick shows up at the boarding house looking for her. Mrs. Harris lets him stay in Maria’s room and is afraid to call the cops out of fear for how it would upend Maria’s new life. Dr. Miles tries to chase Dick away with a gun, but Dick manages to take it away from him.

Meanwhile, at the beach, Maria is just about to confess all to Jim when word reaches her that Dick is back in town. She has Jim drop her off at the boarding house and goes into confront Dick, who is now asleep in her bed.

He tells her that he’ll leave her alone for $500, which should be enough to get him to South America. But she doesn’t have that kind of money. He convinces her to get the money from Jim and to lie to him one more time, telling him that the baby needs an operation.

Jim returns to the boarding house, knowing that something is amiss. Maria tells him the lie and he’s willing to help, offering to cash a check and return with the cash.

However, Maria realizes that Dick won’t take one payment to go away and fears that he’ll extort Jim instead. When Jim returns with the money, she acts like she’s been pulling a fast one on him and calls him a sucker. He leaves without giving the money. Dick feels betrayed by her and goes across the street to the drug store to call Child Welfare. He tells them that Maria is an unfit mother with no job to support the baby.

But the Detective, who is always around, spots Dick and follows him. He is outside the store when he sees Dick hold up the proprietor with Dr. Miles’ gun. The Detective shoots through the front window of the shop and kills Dick.

Meanwhile, Jim and Dr. Miles are over at Pepito’s drowning their sorrows at the bar when Mrs. Harris arrives. She tells them that Dick is dead and that Maria doesn’t know. She also convinces Jim that Maria pretended not to love him to spare him from Dick’s plans. They leave together and head back to the boarding house.

However, a Child Welfare worker, along with a policeman, are there following up on Dick’s call to them. They see that Maria isn’t destitute, but when she can’t produce the birth certificate, the worker tries to remove the baby.

That’s when Jim, Dr. Miles, and Mrs. Harris return. Dr. Miles tells the Welfare worker that he delivered the baby on Christmas Eve but had forgotten to file the paperwork. And Jim announces that he and Maria will be getting married so the baby will have financial support.

By the time of the next Christmas, Jim, Maria, and baby are together at his ranch and happy.

The film was “featured” during TCM’s 2023 Christmas Marathon. Their write up refers to the film as “a fine early example of the 'pure' kind of Christmas movie. The holiday comes off as an active force, fostering redemption and healing, as it prompts Margo to transform. Other characters including two stripper friends, a crusty landlady, and a drunken hobo will soften their cynicism as well.” (Note: The reference to the hobo is Dr. Miles, who is referred by that moniker by Dick when he returns.)

Their assessment is correct, as the film does show the redemptive side of Christmas and ability for the spirit of the season to make people into better examples of themselves. And the film succeeds despite some uneven acting from Margo.

Margo plays Maria in The Miracle on Main St.

I’m not saying she’s bad, but some of her performance seems emotionless. I’m not familiar with her acting so I don’t know if it’s her or how she was directed by Steve Sekely, a Hungarian-born director making his directorial debut in Hollywood. Based on her performance, it is easy to see why perhaps she was not in more films during her career; 17 over about 36 years.

The other leads are just okay as well. I doubt either Walter Abel or Lyle Talbot would put this picture on their sizzle reel. Abel, an American stage, film, and radio actor, had a career that spanned seven decades. He would get his start in silent films, Out of a Clear Sky (1918), but his career got a real lift in RKO Pictures' The Three Musketeers (1935). He would appear in over 60 films, including Holiday Inn (1942), Mr. Skeffington (1944) and 13 Rue Madeleine (1946).

Lyle Talbot was another stage actor who came to Hollywood at the beginning of the sound era, 1932, with a contract at Warner Bros. His career would span 175 productions at various studios ranging from everything from young matinee idol to leading man in B-movies and eventually as a character actor. But he is probably best known for his 10-year portrayal as Joe Randolph, Ozzie Nelson’s friend and neighbor on ABC sitcom The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet (1952-66).

Both Abel and Talbot give rather restrained performances. Given what they’re going through, you’d think the character’s emotions would be high, but neither really registers with their performances.

Before Pat Flaherty came to Hollywood in 1934, he was a professional athlete, playing for both John McGraw’s New York Giants baseball team and George Halas’ Chicago Bears football team before getting into the music publishing business. He came to Hollywood to be a producer at 20th Century Fox for the owner Joseph P. Kennedy. He would appear or advise over 200 motion pictures, including Death on the Diamond (1934), Mutiny on the Bounty (1935), Sergeant York (1941), Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942), and The Pride of the Yankees (1942) before joining the Army in WWII. He is often uncredited in his appearances and his role here as the Detective seems to be typical of many roles he played. His career would resume after the war and his last film was The Desperate Hours (1955).

Jane Darwell would appear in over 100 films during her career. You might not realize it from her performance here as Mrs. Harris, but she would win the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for next year’s The Grapes of Wrath. A more than dependable character actress, she does give A Miracle on Main St. some pep from her performance.

William Collier, who played Dr. Miles, would appear in 89 films, making the transition from silent to sound as an actor. He had previously retired from acting in 1935 to become a movie producer in Europe before returning to Hollywood. Here, he plays perhaps the most complicated character, who goes from drunken hobo to sober doctor and more than once helps Maria with the law. It’s a minor but significant role and Collier does his most with it.

The movie never seems to stand still and really doesn’t try to explain too much as it does. The story is almost credible. There are some moments where you just have to go along with it, such as on Christmas day, not only does Maria have clothes and other baby paraphernalia, but we’re led to believe that she also lands a job sewing clothes. Or, you might wonder why Jim drives all the way into Los Angeles to drink alone at the bar; until he meets Maria, Pepito’s hasn’t really been too lucky for him.

Also, you can tell pretty much right away that Jim’s marriage to Nina is doomed. She is less than enthusiastic about it when he proposes. And when they decide to call it quits, it feels more like a bad date that didn’t work out rather than a marriage. Again, there is a lack of emotion about pretty much anything that goes on.

Still, the movie has its charms and tells a story that speaks to the spirit of Christmas without being overly religious. Despite their desperate circumstances, everyone seems to come to each other’s aid. Dr. Miles and Mrs. Harris lie to the police to save Maria, Jim helps Mrs. Harris renovate her establishment, and Maria, most importantly, takes in an orphan baby. Having the baby seems to inspire Maria to do better by herself; give up dancing and become a designer. She wants a profession the baby will be proud of.

Unlike, say, Bachelor Mother (1939), another Christmas film about a woman and a baby that isn’t hers, Maria chooses to take care of the baby, even when she can barely take care of herself. Polly Parrish (Ginger Rogers), in Bachelor Mother, seems to be forced by others to take care of the baby left on her door.

While this melodrama might not be for everyone, Miracle on Main St. does have a good message and one that is right for Christmas.