Davies met director George Seaton in the 1920s, while the former was a
student at the University of Michigan and the latter was an actor in
Detroit. They became longtime friends and colleagues.
Davies' family had a successful real estate business, but he wanted to
be a writer. He attended Yale graduate school to study drama.
He wrote the outline for Miracle on 34th Street (1947) while in the Coast Guard in 1944. He
was disillusioned with the commercialization of Christmas and thought
about what would happen if a real Santa Claus walked into a department
store in December.