Some people would argue that the worst Christmas movie was “Home Alone” or “Surviving Christmas,” and they’d be right. However, I argue that “Santa Claus: The Movie” ranks in one of the top spots and if people actually remembered this movie, they’d think the same.
Boy, this one is a doozie into the surreal world of ruthless commercialism. Leave it to the Alexander Salkind to bring this one to the big screen right on the heels of his atrocious butchery of the “Superman” franchise with “Superman III” and “Supergirl.” Who in their right mind doesn’t think a title like “Santa Claus: The Movie” is a bit presumptuous? It would be like me making a movie titled, “The Tooth Fairy: Based On the True Story.”
Well, regardless, they’ve capitalized on Claus’ famous name and made a 1985 stink bomb out of it. Apparently, Claus is this Nordic dude or some guy from somewhere cold and old, maybe colonial Canada, who freezes to death with the Missus on their sleigh after giving handmade gifts to kids in the Klondike. He’s resurrected by magic or elves or some other poorly explained force and becomes Santa Claus, defender of truth and justice and the gift-giving way. Well, the centuries pass into what appear to be modern times and Claus is still cranking out toys, but his industrious elf, played by Dudley Moore of all people, wants to up the ante by making toys on an assembly line.
He makes this huge machine and it cranks out toys lickety-split, so Claus gives him the new Head Elf role. It’s an odd allegory to the corporate America that was forming in the 1980s. The message: Even Santa Claus is looking for more product and bigger profits and employee loyalty be damned, he’ll screw over his old Head Elf to give the job to an innovating upstart. Such an allegory to modern economic society. Even every toy is stamped with Claus’ company logo! Well, the machine goes jabberwocky and the toys are inferior and get sent back because they’re crap. See, the North Pole becomes the China of holiday manufacturing.
Moore loses his Head Elf job and, chastened, leaves for the real world, where he falls in with the over-the-top corporate mogul, John Lithgow, who wants to market candy canes and lollipops that are infused with Moore’s special elf dust, allowing people to fly. Ugh. Moore inadvertently becomes Claus’ corporate competitor, complete with his own super-duper jet-powered sleigh and whatnot.
Starring Dudley Moore & John Lithgow Directed by Jeannot Szwarc Tri-Star Pictures - 1985 GRADE: D
Meanwhile, Santa has taken in a street urchin in New York City, who’s dressed more like Tiny Tim or Oliver Twist than any street punk of the 1980s. Of course, the homeless kid is in love with a girl of an aristocratic family who doesn’t want her associating with him. Now Santa has to face off against Moore, his formerly loyal elf, and the evil millionaire behind the curtain, who’s three-sheets-to-the-wind psycho.
Directed by “Supergirl” and “Jaws 2” filmmaker Jeannot Szwarc, “Santa Claus: The Movie” does try its best to instill the spirit of Christmas into the viewer in the most cliché of ways. Of course, it makes Claus the largely benevolent bowl full of jelly he is, but in the end the message is simply that you should always trust the officially licensed Santa Claus brand to have a good Christmas. Yeah, kind of creepy considering that the Salkinds took that approach with the licensing of the film too.
This movie is cheesy to the point of whiz, and not in the kind of charming way like “The Santa Clause.” Oh no, this is hokey in the way only the Salkinds in the mid-1980s could conjure. Wow.
