Santa Claus: The Movie (1985)

Look at this poster. Just take my money!

Welcome to Classic Christmas Movies: Annotated! We'll be looking at some true gems of the Christmas movie genre, starting with today's film - Santa Claus: The Movie, from 1985. This movie starred David Huddleston as old Saint Nick, Dudley Moore as Patch the elf, who wants to be Santa's helper but ends up being his biggest competition, and Joh Lithgow as BZ, he evil toy company owner who wants to put Santa out of business and "take over" Christmas.

An old-timey font! You know this movie is going to be good.

This movie has been given a bad rap for some reason by picky critics and fickle audiences. It wasn't a big hit when released, and never seemed to gain the pop culture traction it needed to really catch on as a mainstream holiday film. Still shown from time to time on TV during the holidays, Santa Claus: The Movie is one of my all-time favorite yuletide movies. Made by the Salkinds, the same brotherly duo who brought us the Chris Reeve Superman films, I watch Santa Claus: The Movie at least once each year (three times this year, in preparation for writing this blog post). So without further ado, let's begin our breakdown of this underappreciated gem of a film.

Snow storms in the 1400s. So beautiful, yet so deadly.

The movie begins with Nicholas, a childless toymaker (played by the amazing David Huddleston), and his wife Anya as they travel to a remote village somewhere in 14th-century northern Europe (Norway?). Nicholas apparently lives to give toys to children and enjoys their happiness and wonder as he arrives each Christmas. After making their customary deliveries, the pair head to the next town using their reindeer-pulled sleigh. Unfortunately, a blizzard closes in and the pair...er...freeze to death.

They look so...peaceful.

This could be the end of a very short and very depressing film...but it's not! After a short while the pair are somehow transported to the north pole, where the storm is gone, the sky is alive with stars, and a strange glow heralds the approach of the vendigum, or "elves" as they prefer to be called.

So...the elves are from...space?

The one called Dooley seems to be the spokesman. He welcomes Nicholas and Anya and informs them that they've been expecting them for "a long, long time". The north pole is to become their new home. 

Is that Dumbledore over there on the left?

 
Meanwhile, the elf called Patch (played by Dudley Moore) has been criticizing Santa's sleigh, but gets caught and begins sucking up to Nicholas and Anya. It works.

This is nothing a little flattery can't get me out of.

Soon, a fantastic workshop appears out of thin air. Apparently there is some sort of spell or enchantment on the place. Not just anyone can see it, and not just at any time. It appears when you have the knack to see it, and when you are a certain distance away.

Imagine the heating bill.

Inside the workshop, Claus and his wife meet the rest of the elves and watch them making toys and generally frolicking about. They tour the facility, which appears to be disturbingly infinite in size.

The horrible naked singularity at the heart of Santa's workshop.

Claus learns from Dooley that he and the missus will live forever and deliver the toys to all the children in the world. He seems shocked, but then quietly agrees to sleep in a closet. His mind being a bit restless, however, he decides to leave his wife behind and tour the stables (a common pasttime in 14th century Norway, I suppose).

Santa and Patch the elf bond over reindeer.

Patch introduces the six reindeer housed at the north pole stables to Santa (he brought his own pair), and shows him some of his many inventions. The scene ends and presumably Claus returns to his bed/cupboard and rejoins his wife. Next morning, he observes the elves working and creating a magical dust that makes the reindeer fly (and will feature prominently in the plot later on). 

The secret ingredient is love. And probably a lot of toxic chemicals.

Then Santa gets fitted for a new suit. Green turns out to be "not his color", but Patch suggests red and everyone agrees it's the right choice. 

Those elves don't just make toys. They also have a fashion line.

Soon, after some further elf frolicking, it's time for Season's Greetings (which appears to be their term for Christmas Eve). An elf in a bizarre Neverending Story-like telescope contraption focuses on an odd, glowing celestial object that seems like some sort of cross between a star and comet. 

I can see the Southern Oracle! er...I mean the Season's Greetings star.

The object zooms overhead, then comes to a halt and explodes in brightness. Season's Greetings has begun.

It's either Season's Greetings time, or North Korea has launched another nuke.

After yet more dancing and carrying-on, it's time for the big ride. Dooley informs Santa that "they're all waiting" and he walks back into the toy hall, where he gets his first glimpse of the loaded sleigh, ready to fly. 

What's with the little green lantern?

Patch and the other elves remark that Santa sure looks the part. Apparently his fashion sense has to be on point or kids everywhere would go toyless. 

His outfit is stylish. I guess we can let him deliver our toys.

With the seal of approval from the elf rank-and-file obtained, it's time for the big ride to get underway. But before that happens, Santa has to get instructions from the Ancient Elf, a wise old north pole denizen who seems to be part holy man, part teacher. He also has epic facial hair.

You know you're a high-ranking elf when you have *two* beards.

The Ancient Elf's explanations of Santa's abilities actually make sense! "The night of the world is a passage of endless night for you" he tells Claus. Does that mean that Christmas Eve seems to stretch on forever to Santa? Does he perceive people frozen in time, like comic hero the Flash? Doesn't he trip over furniture delivering toys to all these dark, pre-electricity homes? So many questions.

Is it too late to back out of this bizarre job?

No time for more answers, as the Ancient Elf turns and slowly walks back toward the singularity-looking end of the toy hall, where he presumably lives. It's time to get this show on the road (or in the air). Claus mounts his sleigh, the reindeer run down their track, and they soar out of the headquarters and take flight.

"I haven't had this much fun in a sleigh since that time I froze to death!"

The effects in this sequence are real old-school stuff, antiquated even in 1985 (which was, after all, two years after Return of the Jedi hit theaters).

Santa's sleigh: an amazing 8-reindeer-power vehicle.

Animated sparkles, obvious matte paintings, and crude green-screen effects are on full display. Somehow, however, in this movie it all works.

Today, a 12-year old could do these effects on an iPad

A montage follows, showing the advances of civilization as Santa rides through Christmas Eves down through the centuries. Literate children begin writing letters to him. At the north pole, elves paint toys using other elves' beards. Sand falls through hourglasses for dramatic effect. Bratty kids abuse animals. We get to see Santa's teleport power for the first time.

Why climb up and down dirty chimneys when you can teleport? Santa's no dummy.

Next comes a bizarre interlude where Claus first hears an elf-read recitation of "The Night Before Christmas" - yes, the poem written by Clement Clarke Moore. Apparently Santa isn't thrilled with being called fat in the poem. Mrs. Claus and the elves reluctantly reveal to him that his cookie-eating habit has resulted in some unwanted weight gain. But wait, isn't he an immortal spirit now? How can he gain weight? Why does he even eat? None of this makes any sense. 

"Stop eating. We're dead, remember?"

This leads to a second nonsensical plot point - that Santa's once-a-year ride is leaving him exhausted. He needs an assistant to help him out! But before that can get underway, we switch gears to the mean streets of New York and meet local orphan Joe, a homeless street kid who spends his time dodging the cops, peering wistfully into McDonald's restaurants, and hanging out near the well-appointed mansion where a little girl named Cornelia lives with her step-uncle.

"Leave food out for me or I'll tear your garbage bags open. Either way, I eat!"

Well, back to the elves and their desire to be Santa's chief lackey. The two main competitors for the job are the hyperactive, inventive Patch and the boring, brown-nosing elf called Puffy.

"Name one of us your assistant or we'll be forced to keep making these faces."

Patch wants to build toys using an assembly line, while making horrible puns involving the word "elf". Puffy wants to make toys the traditional way, while doing the traditional brown-nosing of Santa. Both set to it, while Claus himself tells them he will decide based on which one makes the most toys. Quantity over quality, that's our Santa. Patch takes the early lead by creating a gigantic Rube-Goldberg-like toymaking device, which promptly begins to malfunction and run out of control.

Patch's machine has all the quality control of a drunken Wile E. Coyote.

Of course no one notices, and Patch gets the assistant job based on the huge pile of cheap crap he's created.

Don't get too comfy in that oversized red apron, Patch ol' pal.

We go back to the Big Apple, where Cornelia is leaving heaping plates of food out for starving urchin Joe. And cans of Coke too, probably because Pepsi refused to cough up the product placement fee the Salkinds demanded.

This will either attract Joe or a pile of raccoons. Let's find out which!

We get some great shots of Santa flying over New York City (the Statue of Liberty, the Brooklyn Bridge, Rockefeller Center), and soon he spots Joe warming himself around a flaming barrel below.

Santa enjoys Rockefeller Center.

Joe doesn't notice Santa until he appears beside him, convincing him he's the real deal by teleporting himself and Joe to a rooftop where the reindeer and sleigh are parked.

Joe: great survival skills, poor powers of observation.

Joe gets to ride in the sleigh and even take the reins. We get more amazing NY cityscape shots (the World Trade Center, the Empire State building, Central Park), then Santa tries the "Super Duper Looper". This is apparently some weird trick that the reindeer haven't been able to master. Nothing makes more sense than letting a complete newbie take part in a dangerous stunt that even an expert reindeer-handler like Claus can't get the beasts to perform correctly.

"These Coney Island rides have really gone downhill."

They fail to do the Looper, but Santa lets Joe fly the sleigh under the Brooklyn Bridge as a sort of consolation prize. After this, they start to deliver some toys - you know, sort of the whole point of this "flying sleigh" thing. They visit Cornelia's house, where Joe knocks over some furniture and wakes her up. She catches Santa and Joe and this gives Claus a good excuse to ditch Joe with a promise to come back and check up on him next year.

 

Joe and Corny watch the bizarre intruder escape up her chimney.

 

Meanwhile, Santa's got trouble: product returns. Patch's horribly-made toys are being rejected by parents everywhere. Santa fires Patch on the spot, and the renegade elf decides to prove his worth by...leaving. That'll show 'em!

Patch does his heel turn.

On his way out, he steals a big pouch of the elf magic dust from the north pole before beginning the long, 5500 km (that's 3,400 miles for you Americans) walk from Santa's place to New York (why he chooses New York city is never explained).

This should take me...many years.

Our focus now shifts to a United States Senate investigation room, where toy magnate BZ (John Lithgow) is being grilled about some very unsafe products.

"It's okay to smoke in here, right?"

Apparently he's about to have his toy license revoked, but he's saved by Patch, who teleports in to New York City (no walking after all) in search of a toy maker to partner with. Patch's plan is to impress Santa and in so doing get asked to come back to the north pole.

Elves like Patch apparently share Santa's awesome supernatural powers.

Patch appears in BZ's office and soon they've struck a deal. Patch will manufacture "something special" for BZ using the stolen secret magical dust. BZ will give it away free to all the children of the world, fixing his image and getting Santa to notice Patch's brilliance.

"Hi, I'm Patch. I'm not a villain, I just constantly hang around with villains and help them with their evil plots."

Little does the elf know that BZ is planning on charging kids $100 or $200 the second time around, potentially making him billions.

Patch showing BZ his ill-gotten gains.

Patch appears on TV, hawking the new "patchwork present" in the midst of a poorly-imagined north pole scene. The patchwork present is some sort of puce-colored, lollipop-like creation filled with the elves' magic flying dust.

It's like a cross between Santa's workshop and an 80s Robert Palmer video.

Cornelia is shown watching Patch's television appearance, and BZ is revealed to be her step-uncle. Then we see Santa watching TV at the north pole (didn't know he had cable) and becoming depressed. Scene shifts back to BZ's factory, where Patch has apparently built a vehicle that can mimic Santa's sleigh - without the need for 8 furry animals. 

Those windmills are a bit excessive.

As an aside, since Patch can apparently deliver his patchwork present to every child in the world in one night, just like Santa, does every elf have the "time stop" power? If so, what the Ancient Elf told Claus about "the night of the world" also applies to every single elf, since Patch is not unique in any way. Yet they never use the power, except for Patch in this one instance (imitating Santa). What a waste! The elves at the north pole also seem to never use their teleportation abilities. Strange.

"The HELL is that?!"

Santa encounters the patchwork present at Cornelia's place, and makes an appropriately disgusted face. The next morning, people all over the world start eating Patch's creation and getting the temporary ability to float around in mid-air. The whole thing is a big success for BZ and Patch.

BZ emoting at Patch.

 
BZ holds a press confernence, then convinces Patch to make another version of the patchwork present (this time in the shape of candy canes) with a more potent dose of the magic elf dust inside. Out of Patch's earshot, BZ declares that he's going to "take over Christmas" and put Santa Claus out of business. He's planning a sequel of the holiday season called Christmas 2 on March 25th. At the north pole, Santa has sunk into some sort of post-holiday depression. The movie never quite makes it clear why Patch defecting and aping Santa's own Christmas Eve worldwide delivery run gets him so down. In fact, he questions whether the whole idea of Christmas is worth continuing. Strangely, he never asks Jesus for his thoughts on the matter, which would seem appropriate since it's Jesus's birthday party, not his.

Depressed Santa is depressed for...reasons.

In other news, Joe has developed a cold and fever. Cornelia offers to stow him in the basement of her house. She promises to feed and take care of him until he recovers. Joe accepts, and begins his new life as a cellar-dweller. We go back to Patch, who is refilling his candy cane-making machine with stolen north pole pixie-dust.

Do you think elves can abuse that stuff by snorting it?

More scenes of Santa moping around at the north pole, then Towser, BZ's wimpy assistant, shows up at his house and tells him that Patch's new candy canes explode when heated. BZ plans to keep selling them and let Patch take the blame for any fatalities. As they are talking, they catch the sneezy Joe lurking in the basement and BZ gets his henchman to abduct him and tie him up back at the toy factory.

"Santa Claus is finished! I'm taking over Christmas." Now there's some great dialogue.

Cornelia writes to Santa, telling him about the serious situation. Santa decides to come to Joe's assistance, but his reindeer have come down with some sort of four-legged flu. This subplot is totally useless, by the way. What, Santa having eight working reindeer would just make it too easy? Anyway, Santa flies to Joe's aid down two fleabags.

Even the elves think this plot development is stupid.

Patch finds Joe tied up in the factory and releases him. Joe abuses Patch a bit (Patch: "I just wanted to show Santa what a good assistant I could be!" Joe: "He's seen what you are!"), but they soon become friends. Patch decides to take Joe back to the north pole, but Patch's flying car is filled with explosive candy canes he's conveniently loaded right next to the hot exhaust of the vehicle. They fly north, Santa in hot pursuit with Corny riding shotgun.

From enemies to best buddies in mere moments.

Back at BZ's place, his shenanigans have been discovered and he's about to be arrested like Towser and his other lackeys. BZ has the stupid idea to devour a handful of the patchwork presents, instead of maybe eating one of them (with the rest stashed in his pocket or something) and flying off to Brazil.

In what way did this seem like a good idea?

Next comes a fairly disturbing scene where the police break into BZ's office only to watch him step out a window and soar upward uncontrollably, high into the atmosphere.

This pic is the closest one shot can come to depicting the horrifying nature of this sequence.

Let's switch back to Patch and Joe. Despite Santa's efforts to catch up (he's down 2 reindeer, don't you know!), the explosive candy canes go off and Patch's vehicle is destroyed. When they exploded at the factory, Towser told BZ that the entire lab was destroyed, but here the hot canes only blow the car apart. Patch and Joe aren't even singed. That's a big lapse in internal consistency, but I digress.

Car go boom.

Anyway, Patch and Joe begin the long fall to the glacier far below. Santa needs to do the Super Dooper Looper in order to save them. Why Patch just doesn't teleport himself into Santa's sleigh (or safely down to the ground) is not explained. For that matter Santa teleported himself *and* Joe twice. Why doesn't Patch just teleport himself and Joe somewhere safe? But no, they continue falling to their deaths.

"Help! I forgot I have magic powers!"

Santa and Corny coax the reindeer (only six remember, not eight!) into doing the Looper, and they catch the other two before they hit the ice. Everyone is all smiles as the whole thing wraps up nicely.

Not sure why Patch is smiling here. All of this is his fault, isn't it?

But wait! What about BZ? Well, apparently he is still rising, headed for outer space. Will he suffocate, be killed by radiation, die by the frigid temperatures, explode in the hard vacuum, or simply starve to death? Use your imagination, kids!

"I can see my toy factory from up here!"

At the north pole, Santa agrees to let Corny and Joe live with him and the missus for one year, and Dooley volunteers to set up a school and be their teacher. This is all very heartwarming, but I hope Corny's cousins don't have her declared legally dead at some point during her upcoming yearlong absence and steal her inheritance.

A year here is worth losing your family fortune.

I also feel bad for Joe, who will spend a year in the lap of luxury at Santa's workshop, then be returned to the bleak life of a New York street kid. Maybe Corny will let him live in her basement some more - assuming she hasn't lost the house to some vulture-like distant relative.

This movie was Super! (get it?)

The movie ends on that note, and we have come to the end of this annotated journey. Hope you liked it, and if you haven't seen Santa Claus: The Movie, download it and enjoy a real classic! Before I go, here is a convenient chart to sum up Santa Claus: The Movie. 

The positives outweigh the negatives, at least for me.

Thanks to all of you for reading, and have yourselves a Merry Christmas (and/or Christmas 2).

Next time: I will be annotating the *other* classic 1985 Christmas movie, Disney's "One Magic Christmas". See you in December, 2018!