Well, it’s the holidays again, and that means that Christmas movies are back in season. But while Christmas movies have long been an annual tradition, in the last few decades the market for new holiday-themed classics has grown by leaps and bounds. Gone are the days when scruffy little movies like A Christmas Story would do decent business in theatres only to become classics on video and cable. Today, Christmas movies are big business, and rare is the big budget holiday movie that doesn’t clean up at the box office. For my next three Yesterday’s Hits columns, I’ll be taking a new look at three of the biggest holiday hits of all time, to get you all in the spirit of the season. This week, I’ll begin with the 1994 blockbuster The Santa Clause.
The Santa Clause came after nearly a decade of Christmas movies that shied away from dealing with Santa Claus. While this might seem odd nowadays, there was a good reason for this at the time- 1985’s Santa Claus: The Movie was a massive flop, scaring the studios into making less fantasy-based holiday movies in the years to come. But by the mid-1990s, Disney decided it was time to bring back the jolly old elf, and The Santa Clause served up St. Nick with a twist on the old tale. After several established movie stars (Bill Murray and Chevy Chase, to name two) turned down the role, Disney turned to the star of the hugely popular sitcom Home Improvement, a former standup comedian named Tim Allen. The combination of Christmas and Allen’s big-screen leading man debut proved as irresistible to audiences as milk and cookies, and The Santa Clause became the biggest hit of fall 1994, spawning two sequels and propelling Allen to movie stardom.
The premise of the film certainly helped. Rather than beginning with its main character born as Santa, The Santa Clause took the novel approach of having its protagonist Scott Calvin (played by Allen) more or less inherit the job. In the film, if something happens to the current Santa, the next person to don the suit takes his place, with all of the side effects that implies. The Santa Clause’s best sequence takes place right after Scott finds himself thrust into the role of Kris Kringle, when we discover through his eyes the perils of the job- snarling dogs, home security systems, gifts that are too big to fit under the tree. And while Scott predictably finds himself turning physically into Santa, gaining 45 pounds in a week and growing a long white beard in a matter of minutes, the sight gags are fairly enjoyable nonetheless.
Unfortunately, the rest of the movie isn’t as much fun as the Santa material. Scott’s life in the temperate latitudes includes a well-paying job as a toy company executive and an ex-wife Laura (Wendy Crewson), with whom he shares custody of their young son Charlie (Eric Lloyd). Naturally, Charlie is jazzed about his dad being Santa, but of course none of the other adults believe his stories of when they visited the North Pole and went around delivering gifts. Laura’s new husband Neil (Judge Reinhold) just happens to be a psychiatrist, and he quickly concludes that Charlie is having trouble distinguishing between reality and fantasy, and that Scott with his physical changes is feeding his son’s delusions in order to look better in Charlie’s eyes. The resulting plot developments are too contrived to be effective, and they’re exacerbated by Reinhold’s awful performance, in which he comes off less as a competent doctor than someone who’s suffered a recent blow to the head.
Ever since Charles Dickens penned A Christmas Carol more than 160 years ago, there has been a fairly standard trajectory for Christmas stories and, later, Christmas movies- a character, or group of characters, overcome their self-centered ways by discovering the meaning of Christmas. Even Bad Santa’s Willie, the most dissolute of recent Christmas movie protagonists, ended up finding some member of the Christmas spirit through his unlikely mentorship of a (very strange) kid. The Santa Clause was directed by John Pasquin, who had previously worked with Allen when he directed numerous episodes of Home Improvement, and the movie feels and looks like a big-screen sitcom, with some easy laughs and nothing offensive to scare away audiences. Like most Christmas movies, it’s an okay way to take a break from holiday shopping or entertain visiting relatives. But as a movie, it’s really nothing special.