Kris Kringle
Kris is a genial older man who is hired on the spot to fill as Santa Claus in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade when the man originally hired shows up drunk. He is then extended the opportunity to play the store Santa throughout the holidays. When he confesses that he actually is Santa Claus, he thought to be merely suffering a harmless delusion by everybody but one doctor. Eventually, he must prove himself in court to be the actual Santa Claus.
Doris Walker
Doris is the Macy’s employee who hires Kris to fill in for the drunk “Santa” and becomes friends with him afterward. She is a divorcee with a young daughter. Her bitterness about the failure of the marriage has stimulated her to raise her daughter to look at the world realistically and without any illusions of fantasy, such as the existence of Santa Claus.
Susan Walker
The precociously mature daughter of Doris is halfway to becoming cynical before she even gets out of elementary school. Kris recognizes the damage Doris is unwittingly inflicting upon her daughter and makes a deal with their new neighbor to soften them both. Kris will focus on getting Susan to believe in Santa while the neighbor will try to get her mother to believe in love again.
Fred Gailey
The new neighbor with eyes for Doris also develops a friendship with Kris and even invites him to stay at his apartment while he is working at Macy’s. Although their friendship is initially forged as the deal to break down the hardened exteriors of mother and daughter, Fred’s job as a lawyer will soon define their relationship when Fred leaves his position with a legal firm to do the seemingly impossible: prove in court that Kris actually is Santa Claus.
Granville Sawyer
When Doris discovers that Kris actually believes he is Santa Claus, she decides he can’t remain employed any longer. However, Kris has proven to be the most popular Santa Claus the store has ever had, boosting sales and regard for the company and putting Doris in a bind. It is decided that before firing him, Kris will undergo a psychological examination by the company psychiatrist. Kris passes with flying colors, but had managed to put Sawyer on his bad side and so the doctor declares his mental state to be potentially dangerous to himself and others.
Thomas Mara
After the issue of Kris being a danger comes up, the only way he can avoid being confined in a hospital is with a judge’s ruling of sanity. The D.A. gets Kris to admit in court that he believes he is Santa, however, and moves to rest his case. When he brings R.H. Macy—owner of the famous department store—to the stand and asks him if he believes Kris is the real Santa Claus, Macy wavers as he thinks of all great public relations benefits Kris has brought the store and finally answers yes, that he does believe him to be Santa.
Judge Harper
Since Kris can avoid being confined against his will only with a judge’s ruling of competency, the only way the Judge can make that determination is if he either admits he’s not Santa or proves he is Santa. A member of the political machine that got Harper elected warns the Judge against taking on the case because either way he rules is bound to lose him support at the polls: he will either be admitting that he believes in Santa Claus to adults or he will be telling children everywhere that there is not such thing as Santa Claus. His only hope is that Fred can somehow get the evidence to legally accept that Kris is Santa.
