Category: Movies

Santa Claus The Movie 4K Restoration Review

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? It’s Superman! No, wait, it’s Santa Claus! Having shown the world that a man could fly in Richard Donner’s Superman The Movie, producers Pierre Spengler and Ilya Salkind turned their attention to another story centred around a flying hero in red.

Drafting in Superman co-writers David Newman & Leslie Newman and Jaws 2 director Jeannot Szwarc (which was the best of the sequels by a long shot), here Santa gets a fantastical origin story. We first meet the man who would be Santa (David Huddleston) in the Middle Ages, going by the name Claus, along with his wife Anya (played by Judy Cornwell, who is best known for her turn as Daisy in Keeping Up Appearances), they deliver beautiful hand carved toys to the children every Christmas. However, one year, while out delivering presents with their beloved reindeer, they become trapped in a fierce blizzard, but help arrives when they are saved by a band of elves and taken to a magical workshop in the icy depths of the North Pole. Accepting the role of Santa, the centuries fly by, and before you can say Frosty The Snowman, the legend of Santa has grown; the big red one grows ever tired of the ever-expanding workload.

Reluctantly, Santa agrees to take on an assistant, and the role is down to two elves, Puffy who sticks to the toymaking ways of old, and Patch (Dudley Moore) a young elf who desperately wants to bring toy production into the 20th century. Patch wins the contest by constructing machines to speed up the process, but it soon becomes clear that his machines produce second-rate toys, all of which fall apart no sooner than they’re opened. Believing he has ruined Christmas and disgraced all elves, Patch quits his job and journies to New York City, where he offers his services to shady toy manufacturer The B.Z. Toy Company. The penny-pinching conglomerate recently had to recall entire lines of toys that were deemed unsafe, and its boss isn’t happy about it one bit.

At this stage in the review, I have to pause and highlight the sheer scene-chewing, larger-than-life, Ebenezer Scrooge-styled performance from John Lithgow as sinister Toy Company owner B.Z. This is a man who exclusively gets candy by stealing it from babies; he’d then eat said candy in full view of the horrified parents and crying baby, all the while laughing a cruel laugh as he filled his face with his ill-gotten confectionary. Lithgow is a fantastic actor who can slip from serious to sinister to hilarity. He’s moved us, terrified us, and as B.Z., he understood the assignment. All that’s missing from his glorious performance is infrequent boos from the audience.

Now that Patch has a job at the ailing toy company, B.Z plans on taking over Christmas and replacing Santa. I had completely forgotten how much fun this movie is; its plot might be slight, yet it’s far from a slickly made production, but its offbeat tone and cheesy vibe make Santa Claus The Movie fun for the whole family. The restoration is impressive; my hazy memories of seeing this film as a kid on T.V. over the festive period were nowhere as sharp or as funny as I remember.

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