Santa Claus: The Other Movie

With Christmas just around the corner I thought it was time to look at some more seasonally-themed random movie trailers, starting with Santa Claus (1960).  Not to be confused with the later Dudley Moore film of the same name, this is actually a Mexican movie produced in 1959 and distributed in this US version by K. Gordon Murray.  Just watching the trailer tells you that we're a long way from the traditional North Pole based Father Christmas familiar to US and UK audiences.  This guy lives in the clouds and has a surveillance operation to rival the NSA and GCHQ - designed to check who has been naughty and who has been nice, of course.  He's also pals with Merlin and opposed by Satan.

Which brings us to the perennial problem of trying to dramatise Santa - the lack of conflict inherent in his story.  In fact, he doesn't really have much of a story in his modern iteration - he's just some old guy who goes around delivering presents to kids at Christmas.  So, in order to create a dramatic narrative for a film, all sorts of other elements have to be brought in, particularly some kind of adversary.  As Santa doesn't have any natural foes, filmmakers have to invent them: evil capitalist John Lithgow, out to commercialise Christmas, for instance, in the Dudley Moore film.   Clearly, in Mexico, mere human rapacious businessmen weren't considered a worthy enough enemy for Santa, so they co-opted Satan instead.  Which, when you think about it, makes a certain degree of sense.  Whilst Santa's origins might be pagan, he is also the most visible and enduring manifestation of an ostensibly Christian festival, a substitute for Christ himself, even.  So, it is natural that his activities be opposed by the Devil himself.

All of which is undoubtedly an over-intellectualisation of a cheap exploitation film.  That said, from the trailer at least, it still looks a damn sight more entertaining than the aforementioned Dudley Moore film with its saccharine sentimentality.