Filming Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade was a 'frenzied scramble' for the Miracle On 34th Street crew

Maureen O'Hara, who played Doris Walker in "Miracle on 34th Street," has since spoken about the experience of filming the film, which, would you believe, served as a guide for David Harbour's upcoming "Violent Night." Walker, of course, was one of the film's main characters - a divorcee with a precocious but slightly too cynical daughter named Susan (Natalie Wood). In the film, Walker actually works for none other than Mr. R.H. Macy himself, and as such spends a lot of time in and around the flagship store and runway show where she first encounters Gwenn's Kris Kringle.

In her biography "'Tis Herself", O'Hara recalled how she was "rushed back to New York" to film at Macy's fashion show:

"They weren't going to hold the parade more than once on our behalf... It was a mad scramble to get all the shots we needed and we couldn't do each scene only once."

Not only did the filmmakers have to circle around the parade as it unfolded, but they also had to contend with inclement weather conditions throughout. O'Hara recalled it being "freezing cold" while filming the parade scenes. In fact, the entire production on location was plagued by freezing temperatures which at one point, as TCM's official website notes, caused cameras to freeze during filming of the film's finale.

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