Movies - Santa Claus: The Movie

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	Movies - Santa Claus: The Movie

Santa Claus: The Movie was a 1985 Christmas movie starring Dudley Moore and John Lithgow. It was the penultimate major feature, and last major fantasy film, produced by the Paris-based father-and-son production team of Alexander and Ilya Salkind. Released in North America on November 27, 1985 by Tri-Star Pictures, the film was a straightforward, nondenominational attempt to explore the mysteries of Santa Claus, the key objective being to answer some of the most basic questions many children have about Santa: How do his reindeer fly? How did Santa and his wife make it to the North Pole? How does he manage to go up the chimneys? At the same time, the film supplemented its answers to these and other questions by telling a contemporary story in which one of Santa's elves (here called the Vendequm), a far-seeing visionary named Patch, sets out to accomplish Santa's toymaking methods on his own, unaware that he might be ruining the magic of Christmas in the process.

Conceived by Ilya Salkind in the wake of the apparently waning critical and U.S. box office success of Superman III (1983) and its immediate follow-up, Supergirl (1984), the film was directed by veteran film and television helmer Jeannot Szwarc (Jaws 2 ; Somewhere in Time ) from a story by David and Leslie Newman, who had written the three previous Superman films, and were not involved with Supergirl. David Newman, however, took sole screenplay credit. Pierre Spengler, Ilya's longtime partner, and the third key element of Team Salkind, joined Alexander's son as the project's producer.

The story

The Origins of Santa

The film's storyline is divided into two basic parts. The first part takes place in an unspecified period during the early or late 14th Century, where Claus (David Huddleston) is a simple peasant woodcutter in his late fifties who, with his wife Anya (Judy Cornwell), delivers his gifts to the children of a village.

One night, following a particularly routine visit, Claus and Anya are caught in a violent blizzard that seemingly freezes them and their reindeer, Donner and Blitzen, to death. Mere monents later, however, the four of them, along with their sleigh, reawaken to find themselves deposited in a spectacular frozen plain: the "ice mountains, way up at the top of the world," the home of the fabled Vendequm, or Elves. Leading the contingent that greets them is a venerable old Elf named Dooley (John Barrard), who then tells Claus and Anya that they have been expected.

Also in the contingent of Elves is a wide-eyed, overzealous fellow named Patch (Moore), who is joined by his three faithful companions Boog (Tim Stern), Honka (Peter O'Farrell) and Vout (Christopher Ryan). Dooley instructs the four to take charge of the reindeer and sleigh, and the kindly couple are led into the wondrous, wooden-shaped world of the Elvish Compound. Before long, Dooley explains to Claus and Anya that they have been brought here to spend eternity crafting and giving a fantastic array of toys of all descriptions to every child on Earth.

Later, Patch introduces Claus to the six other deer who will join Donner and Blitzen in helping the old woodcutter make his rounds: Prancer and Dancer, Dasher and Vixen, Comet and Cupid. In an extended montage sequence, set to the film's major song, "Making Toys," we see various aspects of the final preparations for Santa's very first Christmas Eve journey, climaxing with 'Season's Greetings,' in which the North Star's light effuses the Great Hall of the Elvish Compound with that unmistakable Christmas magic.

Later, the supreme moment arrives when Claus, resplendent in his full red-suited regalia, is greeted by the Ancient One (Burgess Meredith), the oldest and wisest of all the Elves, who explains to Claus that he and Anya represent the fulfillment of a prophecy that a "Chosen One" would be brought into the Elves' world who, "having no child of his own, would love all children everywhere, and that he himself would be an artisan, and a craftsman, and a skilled maker of toys." The Ancient One then presents the Chosen One with his sacred duties --- and the name by which he will be known throughout the world for all time to come: Santa Claus.

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