DVD Flashback: Santa Claus – the Movie

12 Days of Christmas; Movie Blog Style.

On the fourth day of Christmas my true love gave to me: Santa Claus (1985)

I take great pride in my DVD collection and when I’m shopping for new additions not only do I look for my personal favorites, I also pick up titles which will make people say “Wow you have … on DVD”. Not always good movies but movies that may be forgotten about or obscure and act as conversation starters. Last week I added Santa Claus – The Movie (20th Anniversary Edition) to my catalog and I feel this is one of those conversation striking films. Back in 1985 Santa Claus was a huge production, and I can remember all the hub bub that surrounded this film. It isn’t on TV very often and it has been years since I’ve even thought of this movie. So when I saw it on the Christmas movie end cap, I just had to grab it.

Directed by Jeannot Szwarc (Jaws2), this Christmas tale stars the late Dudley Moore, John Lithgow, David Huddleston and Burgess Meredith.

It begins hundreds of years ago with an older couple who do not have children of their own but travel from farm to farm on Christmas delivering toys to the children of others. After being magically swept to the North Pole, Chris and his wife are given the gift of immortality in order to make and deliver toys to the children of the world on Christmas and being “knighted” Santa Claus.

Fast forward to the modern day (1985) and Patch (Moore) is the head elf in charge of toy production. After an assembly line issue the children return all of their gifts, and Patch is demoted. Wanting desperately to show Santa his abilities, Patch travels to New York City and gets a job for a giant toy manufacturing company run by B.Z. (Lithgow). B.Z. is the typical evil CEO and after learning of Patch’s knowledge of the jolly man in red, he persuades Patch to build toys and mass produce magical candy in order to corner the Christmas market and put Santa Claus out of business.

Patch befriends two kids who have links to Santa, and together they have to fight corporate America in order to save Christmas. Patch gets only so far in the challenge when none other than Santa himself comes to Patch’s rescue, which results in a daring stunt by Santa and his reindeer in the night sky of NYC.

An old movie which is certainly for kids, it has a good story and a strong Christmas message. It is interesting to see the special effects from 1985. As I mentioned above, at this time, this movie was cutting edge. The magical glitter effects, animatronics and cut & paste techniques realy show a major stepping stone in movie special effects.

I love the location. There’s something about Christmas movies set in New York City that radiate what Chrismas should look like (though exaggerated). NYC is amazing during the Holidays.

As for the cast; Santa Claus is one of the first films for Lithgow were he plays the villain -well The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai but I didn’t see that until much later in life-. I think we can all agree that Lithgow is a great actor, but my favorite Lithgow roles are of him playing the bad guy. He truly nails these roles and you never see it coming.

Dudley Moore … what can I say, it’s Dudley Moore. If he where alive today, he would have had a cameo as the head elf in Elf because of this role. I always enjoyed Moore and although this is a children’s Holiday film, he still makes you smile.

The 20th Anniversary DVD contains a good number of special features. A making of documentary -which I totally remember watching on HBO- 4 trailers, bios and the new staple: widescreen format. I honesty didn’t expect any special features so this small list was a treat.

Santa Claus is a good family movie and a blast from the past. It has launched a number of nostalgic conversations at my house this Holiday.