> Superman Returns wasn’t the only potentially promising film that was irreparably ruined by following the example of the first Christopher Reeve Superman film.
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> Yes, father-and-son producers Alexander and Ilya Salkind scored critical and box office wins with the 1978 Superman movie, but I’d credit a lot of that to the talent of Richard Donner as a director, and Reeve and Gene Hackman as actors, all of whom managed to do commendable work with the remarkably flawed material that they were handed, from the dialogue and the characterizations to the plot points and the overall story arc.
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> If you want proof of this assertion, go ahead and watch Santa Claus: The Movie, produced by the Salkinds in 1985 after the jaw-dropping consecutive non-successes that were Superman III and Supergirl, and marvel at how much they must have thought to themselves, “If we just go back to that winning formula, then it’ll all turn out okay!†And to be fair, given the not-inconsiderable similarities between Superman and Santa Claus, it almost could have been a reasonably decent success:- Start with an internationally known icon of modern folklore with an instantly recognizable costume,
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> Give him an appropriately epic origin that establishes his home in the Arctic (where Superman set up his Fortress of Solitude, and where Santa and Mrs. Claus were taken in by the elves of the North Pole),
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> Cast a well-known character actor in a significant but non-recurring role (Marlon Brando as Jor-El, Burgess Meredith as the Ancient One of the elves),
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> Lay down the beats of the protagonist’s patterns while “on the job†through a montage (Superman saving lives and foiling crime in Metropolis, Santa delivering toys, deciding to make “naughty†and “nice†lists, and reacting to the description of himself in ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas),
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> And wrap up with a confrontation between the dignified, trustworthy hero and the scheming comic relief villain (Hackman as would-be real estate mogul Lex Luthor, John Lithgow as corrupt businessman and toy manufacturer B.Z.) with his even more bumbling sidekick (Ned Beatty as Otis, Dudley Moore as well-meaning but prodigal elf Patch).While the Salkinds got lucky with Reeve in Superman, who remains the only actor who’s been equally capable of playing both Clark Kent and Superman, they were slightly less fortunate with David Huddleston as the title character in Santa Claus: The Movie. Without the beard and long, full hair he sported as Santa, Huddleston could pass for the meaner and more energetic brother of Charles Durning in many of his roles, especially as (again) the title character in Joel and Ethan Coen’s The Big Lebowski. The guy is a good actor, and he’s certainly not offensively miscast as Santa, but much like Judy Cornwell as Mrs. Claus, his onscreen presence in this movie is mostly just … there, most of the time.
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> So, since Moore’s performance was so painfully bad, by managing to be both bland and overdone at the same time (and the number of lines he had in the script which required him to substitute the word “self†with “elf†did not help), that leaves only Lithgow as a potential saving grace of this movie, and goddamn if he doesn’t do his damnedest to salvage it. Lithgow is to comedy what William Shatner is to drama, except that Lithgow is intentionally funny, and he manages to outshine everyone else in this production simply by breathing the same air. As a viable antagonist, B.Z. is a hopelessly underwritten cipher, even by the 1980s standards of children’s entertainment, but Lithgow works his fucking ass off to sell him to the audience … alas, to no avail.
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> All that being said, I can’t hate this movie, or even dislike it, because until this holiday season, the last time I’d seen it was in the theater, as a member of the target age demographic for it, and I thought it was neat as hell back then. Even now, there are still brief, isolated moments of it that shine – it was genuinely moving when the Ancient One told Santa and Mrs. Claus that, because the elderly toymaker and his wife loved children so much, even though they were never able to have any of their own, they would be given the ability to give gifts to all the children of the world, and likewise, when Patch unveiled his goofy, holiday-themed, cartoonishly mechanical answer to Santa’s sled, it made me grin – but unfortunately, such bright spots tend more to underscore how lacking in quality the rest of the film is.
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> Still, it gives me hope, that someone might somebody create a truly mythic portrayal of Santa Claus, that doesn’t involve Tim Allen and his punchable face.
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> Whatever religion you are (or aren’t), wherever you are, and whomever you’re celebrating (or not) whichever occasion with, my best wishes go out to you.
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> I’m with family, and we’re engaging in our regular get-together traditions of eating and drinking too much, laughing too loud, playing (and cheating at) silly games, watching movies, and talking shit about shit that we don’t know about.
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> In other words, good times.
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