Proposal for a Thanksgiving classic film that someone should make

Thanksgiving Day in Monument Valley
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Why isn't there a great Thanksgiving movie

Like the Christmas classic,

"The Miracle on 34th Street"(1947), directed by George Seaton?

The reason that movie works is

It hits home in several ways:

It is about a good man who falls,

Who succumbs to greed and drink,

Basically an everyman moral tale,

Except it has a believable angel in it

And things turn around in an unexpected way,

I don't want to give anything away

In case you haven't seen it.

Back to my opening question:

Why isn't there a great Thanksgiving movie?

I think there are several reasons for this.

Because Thanksgiving,

Our idea of Thanksgiving --

That many years ago

Before our Country was a country,

There was a harvest feast at which

Native Americans, (our benefactors, according to this myth)

Shared a table with the Puritans

Who they took under wing

Because these newcomers

Were on the verge of starving.

So, according to this myth,

We owe everything to the Indians,

Just as much as to God.

Now, even if this myth was true,

Everyone knows our gratitude didn't last

Longer than a snowball in hell.

So the myth is overhung by a dark cloud

Of unexpressed, repressed, shame.

That is why no one has come up with a movie

Equivalent to Miracle on 34th Street,

Because it wouldn't hold up.

You could have the wayward son

Show up right before the extended family

Says the blessing, after the film has tracked

The life of the family that rejected this son,

And has tracked the life of the wayward son.

We could have the old family dog limp to the front door

Just as it it opens to the storm

And the long-absent youth enters.

How about this: The family dog hasn't walked on its own

For the whole film.

When it struggles to its feet to go to the door,

The little boy, sitting next to his grandmother,

Notices that the dog has gotten up

And draws everyone's attention to

The epiphany of what is happening.

The dog gets up and heads for the door

Before it opens.

Great story.

But it wouldn't work, because

Our Thanksgiving story has too many holes in it.

But I have an idea.

We keep the tension between the red-blooded all-American family

And the wayward son

Who is homeless and drifting.

It is raining and blowing fiercely.

He has returned to his home town, somewhere in AZ,

And is in a bar, at the bar, drenched to the bone.

Trying to decide whether to disappear again

Or show up for Thanksgiving,

Even though he hasn't spoken

To anyone in the family for months.

At the bar he meets a Native American (drunk)

Who, cynically at first, advises the youth to go home for Thanksgiving.

"Bury the hatchet", he says. "It's not worth it." (cough)

He orders another beer.

Our youth considers this advice

But asks the old Indian,

What he thinks about Thanksgiving.

"It didn't happen, right? Its all bogus.

We took everything from you folks

And they want us to believe

That you saved us. Well not us,

But those Puritans

Who saw you all as heathens and savages

Who needed to be converted.

The whole thing shits. . .

You know what? Im sorry, sir!

What we did was wrong.

Thats why I cant go home tonight . . .

Or ever."

He starts to get up to leave,

But the Native American lays his hand on his shoulder.

"You do what you need to do son,

But I'll tell you this (cough),

If it was me,

I would go home."

Youth: "I've changed too much. . .

And they haven't."

Native American: He pokes the young man's heart.

"You just listen to that!"

The youth goes to the men's room

And looks hard at himself in the mirror

For a long time.

Next scene is him showing up at the door,

With the wind and rain blowing in

And he is standing there

With the Native American from the bar.

That is my submission

For a Thanksgiving film concept

That might hold water these days.

Remember, what worked for Miracle on 34th Street

Was it set up the expectation that everything

Was going well, like a genre piece,

But then it begins to unravel

And then things begin to snowball,

And you wonder, How is this going to turn out well?

34th street is any address, America.

And a miracle is what we are always hoping for.

I think my concept has those elements.

Happy Holidays!