It is that time of year again! It is Christmas time once more and with it comes my fourth consecutive year of reviewing a Christmas film for each day of December leading up to Christmas. I thought I was scraping the bottom of the barrel with a lot of the films I watched last year and so coming unto this December I was concerned that I would be stuck watching exclusively Hallmark crap. But it turns out there a still plenty of classics I have missed but do not fear as I have included plenty of crap as well. The first film I am going to be speaking about appears to fall into both categories, and that film is Sant Claus: The Movie (1985). The film tells the story of how Santa Claus came into being, before travelling to the 1980s and showing Santa question9ng whether the magic of Christmas still exists in the modern world. Oh, and John Lithgow creating exploding candy canes with the help of an elf.
Watching this film without any prior knowledge of it led me to come to a couple of conclusions straight away. One, this film isn’t very good and probably never was. And two, I bet this film is absolutely beloved by people who saw it as kids. It just has that vibe to it that feels like it would become a favourite for kids if they saw it young. It does do a very good job of creating the feeling of Christmas. The optimism, joy, and magic that surrounds the season is felt throughout the film, especially in the first half where we spend all our time with Santa and his elves in their workshop. The design of the workshop itself helps to add to this Christmas atmosphere. I saw one review that said it looked cheap, but I am not sure I agree. And even if that was true it also looks like a classic interpretation of the workshop. Another aspect of the film that adds to this feeling is David Huddleston as the titular Santa Claus. He gives a performance that is warm and charming and when you look at him you believe he is Santa. He also manages to do a decent job when it comes to him playing down and distant. But his isn’t the best performance in the film. That award goes to John Lithgow.
John Lithgow is an absolute joy in this film. He plays a classic evil business mogul, and he is having an absolute blast while doing it. He has no issue chewing the scenery to within an inch of its life and the film is all the better for it. The film has a cartoonish vibe to it and Lithgow takes that and runs with it. I had so many genuine laugh-out-loud moments from his performance, and I am pretty sure it was all intentional. The only issue I have with John Lithgow in this film is that he only shows up after about half of the runtime. And that is symptomatic of the main issue the film has, the narrative is a bit of a mess. It feels like two films awkwardly attached to each other and it doesn’t work. The first film is the story of how Santa came to be, and then we jump forward almost 600 years without any warning and the film changes to the John Lithgow stuff and it means the film fails to flow. The way the stories are told is also clearly aimed at small children also which, again, goes into my theory that this film is only a classic for those who saw it when they were kids.
This film is battling it out in my head in terms of whether I would recommend it. I don’t think the quality of the film warrants it, but the atmosphere it creates is unbelievably Christmassy and so it may do the job for you if you are looking for something to watch to give you that feeling. I would say that it may be worth watching for John Lithgow alone, but you have to get through a lot of naff stuff to get there. It isn’t the worst thing you’ll ever see but there are plenty of better Christmas films out there.
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