Perennial holiday film classic relates the tale of "Kris Kringle," a Macy's department store Santa Claus (Edmund Gwenn, in an Academy Award-winning performance)claiming to be the genuine article-much to the consternation of pragmatic store event director Doris Walker (Maureen O'Hara) who is raising her daughter (Natalie Wood) not to believe in fantasy. But when the gift-giver is declared insane, a good-hearted lawyer (John Payne) fights to prove that the man truly is jolly old St. Nicholas.