There are a wide and varied list of movies that are cherished as “Christmas Movies” that people break out every year once the page of the calender flips to December. Everyone has their own lists and it proves to be a highly personal choice – some people go traditional with the likes of White Christmas and It’s A Wonderful Life, while others go more modern with titles like Elf and Jingle All The Way. Some explore other genres with harder stuff like Black Christmas or Gremlins or temper their viewing with more aggressive fare like Die Hard or Lethal Weapon and most people mix and match their annual viewing, some non-christmas movies inevitably get drawn in such as The Great Escape or an older Bond flick.
However, surely one of the most ironic twists of fate is that possibly one of the most shamelessly Christmas movies that’s ever existed seems to rarely get namechecked, so as we each settle down to watch a movie that encapsulates the Christmas period, spare a thought for the poor old, unappreciated Santa Claus: The Movie.
During the middle ages, a kindly woodcutter, his wife and their two reindeer would go about giving out hand carved presents to needy children every year, but their giving nature eventually gets the better of them as they’re caught out in a blizzard one year and get lost. However, before they all freeze to death and thus leading to an exceedingly short and oddly downbeat Christmas movie, the group is met by a group of vertically challenged men who introduce themselves as Elves and claim that the freezing to death of Claus and his wife was foretold by their prophecy. Furthermore, they have a new role for him to undertake as he is now immortal and is tasked to deliver presents to the world’s children in a single night after a year of prep – which doubtlessly would lead to any sane person asking the Elves if they have any sort of union in place. However, happy to serve the children of the world, Klaus takes the mantle of Santa Claus and soon his legend becomes famous far and wide.
Fast forward to the late 20th century and even though Santa couldn’t be happier whizzing around on flying reindeer handing out pressies to excited ankle-biters, but his absurd workload is getting too much for the old fella and so an assistant is chosen. Step forward Patch, an especially industrious elf who claims his inventions can get the toys made far quicker. However, while his machines are great at speed, their quality control utterly sucks and the shoddy workmanship leads to Santa becoming a laughing stock.
After losing his job, a despondent Patch quits the North Pole and in an attempt to get Santa to appreciate him, falls into the camp of the tyrannical B.Z., the monstrous owner of the B.Z. Toy Company, who hopes that Patch’s secrets can help him close down Santa once and for all. With only an orphaned street punk and B.Z.’s niece, Cornelia still believing in him, can Santa push past his mid-life crisis to get back on the sleigh once more.
A quick rewatch of Jeannot Szwarc’s Santa Claus: The Movie reveals pretty quickly why it’s never at the top of many Christmas favorite lists as, for the most part, the movie is fairly muddled and often seems to have no idea what it actually seems to be about. In fact, in an attempt to have its cake an eat it, the story is split into two distinct parts with the first taking the form of a quieter, traditional fantasy that sees us witnessing Santa’s origin as he and wife are essentially resurrected from the dead to work in a fantasy sweatshop for the rest of entirety (take that Amazon). However, around the forty minute mark the film suddenly plonks us into the present (meaning the mid-80s), to give us a more frenzied adventure that takes time out from Dudley Moore making tiresome “Elf-jokes” to take scattershot aim at rampant commercialism. If I didn’t know better, I’d have to say that the entire film was trying to take its cue from Richard Donner’s Superman: The Movie which also split its runtime between telling Kal-El’s origins in great detail and then shifting over to a more conventional adventure, but while this makes some sort of thematic sense when you figure that Szwarc helmed Supergirl the year before and Santa abd Supes sharing the same producers, it just leaves Santa Claus feeling more unfocused than that drunken uncle who is always trashed by Christmas lunch.
It’s certainly lush, with the set builders going to town to construct all the various sets at the North Pole, the costumes being equally accomplished and the puppet reindeer look pretty good for the mid-80s (Christ, they even wheel out Burgess Meredith at one point for a cameo), but not only do the story’s two halves refuse to butt up at all, but they’re individually fairly awkward. The main reason for this is Dudley Moore, who not only achieves top billing over Santa himself, but his bumbling elf character, Patch, tends to weirdly draw focus away from the main character, to the point where both we, the character and even Szwarc seems to forgets who the film is supposed to be actually about. As a result, we get to watch Moore mug he way through the thing dressed in a creepy green elf suit while making shitty puns while acting like he’s in a dime store panto – which would be find, but everyone else in the first half seem to be playing their roles as serious as a seasonal heart attack. David Huddleston might not seem to make the shortlist of greatest cinematic Santas, but he certainly puts the effort in, coming across as suitably grandfatherly and jolly and utterly convincing while in the famous red get up. However, once his origin is done, the shift to a more contemporary setting doesn’t seem to have a clue what to do with him aside from having him depressed and befriend a random street punk – although, the fact the film seems to think that Santa Claus only discovering that homelessness exists in 1985 isn’t exactly a good look for a near omnipotent lover of children.
While the broader, second half tends to favour Moore’s performance more, he’s utterly blown off the screen by John Lithgow epically shitty example of humanity, B.Z. whose wild overacting and diabolical laugh keep things watchable as the movie stumbles blindly toward an ending that contains volatile candy canes that can explode like plastic explosive, a sky chase between Santa’s sleigh and Patch’s flying vehicle and a final, life saving hail mary play that sees the likes of Donner, Blitzed and the gang having to pull off the most unnecessary loop the loop in movie history (they already start the maneuver in the exact place they need to be in to save Patch and orphan Joe when their car explodes).
I’m pretty sure that the intentions of the producers were to cough up the most quintessential Santa Claus movie ever made, but despite some great production values, an absurdly solid Santa and a deliciously unhinged villain turn, Santa Claus: The Movie might have been better taking on a less is Moore attitude…
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