|
Year
: 1995
Director:
Jeannot Szwarc
Starring:
Dudley Moore, John Lithgow,
David Huddlestone. |
Santa Claus The Movie
The
real Santa Claus makes one of his rare cinematic
appearances - presumably this was filmed in the
spring and summer when he wasn't so busy.
The
story begins in the 14th century where a peasant
wood cutter, Claus, and his wife get caught in
a terrible snowstorm, they get rescued, and
taken up high into the magical mountains where
they are greeted by the Elves who have been told
in a prophecy of such a day. The head elf explains
to Claus and his wife that they have been brought
here to carry out their destiny of making toys
for every child in the world. The rest is history.
We catch up with Claus and the elves in the modern
day and an invention provided by one of the elves
(Patch) that will lead to mass production of the
traditionally hand made toys by the elves. Unfortunately
the device proves unreliable which leads to children
having defective toys on Christmas morning. Embarrassed
by the failure of his invention and upset by his
treatment by Santa and the other elves Patch decides
to leave the the North Pole and go and try to make
his mark in the real world. Unfortunately he meets
a shoddy toy manufacturer who intends to exploit
Patch's magic and challenge the dominance of Santa
himself in the Christmas market.
This
is a charming little film. One that seeks to combine
the legend of Santa Claus in with a light hearted
modern day tale of the commercial battle for christmas.
It does that particularly well and rather than
attempting some kind of "disney" representation
of the Santa and the elves, it is done with quite
some humour. Of all the movies that centre on Santa
this is the pick of the bunch and well worth a
watch during the festive period.
It
is significant for one of the few times in cinematic
history that Santa's real Elves are shown on camera
- many of them look sort of familiar though. In
fact I'm sure I saw one of them in the BBC sitcom
"The Young Ones".
Santa
Claus The Movie is
placed at December 14th on our Films
guaranteed to make you feel Christmassy (UK edition).
Buy
this film and more from our Christmas
DVD Store in association
with Amazon.co.uk
