Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hey you welcome to Weird House Cinema. This is Rob Lamb.
Speaker 3: And this is Joe McCormick.
Speaker 4: Again.
Speaker 3: On today's episode of Weird House Cinema, we're going to
Speaker 3: be talking about the nineteen fifty nine film Santa Claus.
Speaker 2: That's right. We've brought this one up a number of
Speaker 2: times before, not only on Weird House Cinema, but I
Speaker 2: think it leaks into the core episodes as well. It's
Speaker 2: just that weird of a film. It is a nineteen
Speaker 2: fifty nine Mexican family fantasy film in which a kind
Speaker 2: of Doctor Doom Santa in the same way that marvels.
Speaker 2: Doctor Doom is a master of both magic and high technology.
Speaker 2: Well so is Santa, or at least the outsources to
Speaker 2: people who know what they're doing.
Speaker 3: That's right. I mean the Santa in this movie relies
Speaker 3: a lot on his sort of cey branch, which is Merlin. Merlin,
Speaker 3: who in this movie is like a cross between Albert
Speaker 3: Hoffman and John Dee. He is a sorcerer who wears
Speaker 3: a pointy hat that's got like moons and stars on it,
Speaker 3: and he's clearly doing magic, but he's also doing a
Speaker 3: lot of chemistry and coming up with psychoactive substances to
Speaker 3: affect the minds of Earth's children.
Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely dabbling in at least some alchemy, if not
Speaker 2: some outright devil worship based on some of the decorations
Speaker 2: in the house. But he also seemingly has the aid
Speaker 2: of a Greek god. And if you haven't seen the
Speaker 2: full cut of this film before, you might be surprised
Speaker 2: to find a figure who seems to be Hephestus aiding
Speaker 2: Santa Claus in his efforts to bring Christmas to the
Speaker 2: good children of the world, regardless of socioeconomic situations.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that was one of the big surprises on this viewing.
Speaker 3: So I had previously only seen this movie in the
Speaker 3: Mystery Science Theater three thousand cut, which excises some of
Speaker 3: the weirdest stuff in the film, excises some merlin stuff,
Speaker 3: and excises the scene where Santa goes to meet with
Speaker 3: the figure you're talking about, who's clearly he faced Us
Speaker 3: or Vulcan called the Master Blacksmith or the key Master
Speaker 3: or key Maker or later in the film, key Man.
Speaker 3: I don't know if you caught that part where Santa
Speaker 3: is just screaming into the air for help, and he
Speaker 3: calls out key Man.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, because he is the one who makes Santa
Speaker 2: his magical key that like fries open any lock, allows
Speaker 2: instant access to the interior of your home.
Speaker 3: And when Santa's first testing this key out, he laughs
Speaker 3: in an almost unsettling way as he's like realizing the
Speaker 3: power to unlock any portal.
Speaker 2: Now, this movie is sometimes referred to as Santa Claus
Speaker 2: Versus the Devil in order to set it apart from
Speaker 2: the various other Santa movies, because again the title is
Speaker 2: just Santa Claus. Came out in fifty nine, initially released
Speaker 2: to Mexican audiences in fifty nine, and it's credited with
Speaker 2: popularizing secular Santa Claus traditions in Mexico at a time
Speaker 2: when most of the emphasis was on the religious aspects
Speaker 2: of the holiday, you know, carrying over from Spanish Catholic traditions.
Speaker 2: This is still a big part of Mexican holiday traditions,
Speaker 2: of course, but this movie really helped to throw Santa
Speaker 2: Claus into the mix.
Speaker 3: So Rob, I don't know if you watched the same
Speaker 3: version I did, but there is the original Spanish language
Speaker 3: version and then there is an English dub, and the
Speaker 3: version that I've seen in all cases, both the one
Speaker 3: featured on MST and the full cut that I watched
Speaker 3: today is the English dub, which adds a layer of
Speaker 3: comedy to the film that I think is probably not
Speaker 3: quite there in the original language edit because of the
Speaker 3: vocal performance of the guy who does who plays the
Speaker 3: role of Santa Claus, who has essentially one vocal gear,
Speaker 3: and that gear is bellowing.
Speaker 2: But it's perfect because the actor playing Santa Claus, who
Speaker 2: will get into in a bit, has that same level
Speaker 2: of energy with his physical performance, so it's weird. Like
Speaker 2: the My primary experience, too, is with the English dub,
Speaker 2: and I primarily watched the English dub for this episode,
Speaker 2: but I did check in on the original Spanish language
Speaker 2: version a little bit just to get a feel for
Speaker 2: the performances. And you know, it's still over the top.
Speaker 2: It's still campy intentionally, so it's still comedic, but there's
Speaker 2: something about these uncredited English language dubs that just really
Speaker 2: help to just strengthen everything and make everything it's already
Speaker 2: over the top, feel just a little bit more over
Speaker 2: the top.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's right. So in the original. I'm sure it
Speaker 3: was a very enthusiastic performance from the actor who plays
Speaker 3: Santa Claus, and you can see it there in his
Speaker 3: physical performance on the screen. But with this English vocal performance,
Speaker 3: it adds in inflections.
Speaker 2: Like oh the devil. Yeah. At times the dubbing is
Speaker 2: really borderline riffing. I didn't get a chance to find
Speaker 2: out if Merlin makes like little tut tut noises as
Speaker 2: he moves around in the Spanish original, like that felt
Speaker 2: they we're almost going too far there again, unless it's
Speaker 2: present in the Spanish original, I didn't have a chance
Speaker 2: to shack. But anyway, the English language dub that this
Speaker 2: comes to us thanks to the work of distributor Kay
Speaker 2: Gordon Murray, who lived nineteen twenty two through nineteen seventy nine.
Speaker 2: He's also the English language narrator and I think he
Speaker 2: does one or two other voices in there. There are
Speaker 2: times where a voice is just way too close to
Speaker 2: the narration. Yeah.
Speaker 3: There are several roles in the film that sound like
Speaker 3: they're being performed by the same actor.
Speaker 2: So this film did receive a limited US theatrical release
Speaker 2: thanks to Kay Gordon Murray, and apparently has it continued
Speaker 2: to play over the years after that, like it was
Speaker 2: always a success. It was the kind of thing that
Speaker 2: theaters would maybe put on as part of a holiday matinee,
Speaker 2: much like Santa Claus Conquers the Martians. I was looking
Speaker 2: this film up in Michael Weldon's The Psychotronic and Cycling
Speaker 2: Dio Film from eighty three, and he closes it out
Speaker 2: by saying, Hey, if your local theater is playing this
Speaker 2: for their holiday mattinee, go see it. It's a lot
Speaker 2: of fun. So it's interesting to think about the you know,
Speaker 2: the continued life of this film as something that at
Speaker 2: least children would go and see and also maybe a
Speaker 2: few you know, psychotronically aligned adults.
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, speaking to the psychotronic appeal. One thing that's
Speaker 3: kind of surprising about this is I think you can
Speaker 3: make an argument that Santa Claus nineteen fifty nine is
Speaker 3: actually a more science fiction oriented film than Santa Claus
Speaker 3: Conquers the Martians because it has more like sci fi
Speaker 3: gadgets and technology in it. In fact, Santa Claus in
Speaker 3: this movie operates a really powerful surveillance communications infrastructure that
Speaker 3: uses these strange sort of biomechanical or cybernetic machines to
Speaker 3: spy on and locate children and people all around the globe.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I understand Christopher Nolan was directly inspired by this
Speaker 2: movie when creating The Dark Knight Returns. Is that the
Speaker 2: second one, The Dark Knight Returns, And that's just the
Speaker 2: Dark Knight? It's the Dark Knight? Okay, Yeah, but he
Speaker 2: does return in that film, Yes he does.
Speaker 3: But so the Santa in this movie raises questions about
Speaker 3: technological ethics and surveillance, surveillance culture.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I think a lot of it. I think
Speaker 2: we can actually understand this a little better now that
Speaker 2: we've talked about other films by the same director from
Speaker 2: the same more or less time period, you know, give
Speaker 2: or take a decade, where we see some of like,
Speaker 2: you know, the various elements that you see in the
Speaker 2: Santo films, where there is super science, there is the supernatural,
Speaker 2: and of course there are also these other like kind
Speaker 2: of holy and religious elements in there as well, all
Speaker 2: kind of mixed together in this kind of you know,
Speaker 2: comic book world that seemed to be like a common
Speaker 2: touchdone for these genre pictures.
Speaker 3: It's an intoxicating blend.
Speaker 2: I enjoy it. Now. This film also appears in various forms,
Speaker 2: not only theatrically, presumably, but also on home video releases.
Speaker 2: Many of these were edited, and some highly edited parts
Speaker 2: of the opening Small World esque sequence that actually predates
Speaker 2: Disney Small World, I believe, are often edited out for
Speaker 2: cultural sensitivity reasons, And there's apparently one cut of the
Speaker 2: film that takes the devil Pitch out completely. I don't
Speaker 2: know how that would work. I guess it would be
Speaker 2: considerably shorter, and the MST three K version, of course,
Speaker 2: is edited and leaves a great deal of weirdness on
Speaker 2: the cutting room floor. As we already mentioned.
Speaker 3: I'm still scratching my head over how you could edit
Speaker 3: out Pitch the name of the demon who is the
Speaker 3: antagonist of this film, you would be left with. I
Speaker 3: don't know. It seems like at least a third of
Speaker 3: the movie would be gone, and some situations would be
Speaker 3: inexplicable without him present to cause them.
Speaker 2: It would seem like the sort of thing you would
Speaker 2: do if your attitude was look, it's just going to
Speaker 2: be a room full of kids. They're going to be
Speaker 2: raising a ruckus. They just want to see Santa Claus.
Speaker 2: They don't know how plot works. Let's just show him
Speaker 2: everything but the devil because we don't want to upset them. Okay,
Speaker 2: so anyway, as we'll discuss it is a delightfully fun
Speaker 2: and weird movie. Do not pay any attention to the
Speaker 2: various star reviews you see on like IMDb and so forth.
Speaker 2: This movie and Santa Claus Conquers the Martians are your
Speaker 2: quintessential psychotronic Christmas movies, and they both set a high
Speaker 2: bar for all holiday weirdness that was to come. Do
Speaker 2: you have an elevator pitch for this one? Joe?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 2: Do I?
Speaker 3: Let's see. Santa Claus wants to bring the good spirit
Speaker 3: of holiday cheer to well behaved children all around the world.
Speaker 3: But standing a thwart to this ambition is the Demon Pitch,
Speaker 3: a malevolent being straight from Hell whose goal is to
Speaker 3: thwart Santa Claus and make the children of Earth behave wickedly.
Speaker 3: Will the Demon Pitch be able to stop Santa Claus
Speaker 3: and in fact kill Santa Claus by confining him to
Speaker 3: Earth where he cannot survive until the next Christmas, Or
Speaker 3: will Santa prevail with the help of a sort of
Speaker 3: bat belt of gadgets from Merlin and assorted other Q
Speaker 3: branch types.
Speaker 2: Sounds good to me. Let's listen to the classic English
Speaker 2: language trailer for this.
Speaker 4: It's like living a story book adventure beyond your wildest imagination.
Speaker 4: From the north pole of fantasy Land comes a feature
Speaker 4: length table with the most enchanting characters in the whole
Speaker 4: wide world, headed by the white whisked Fellow, who's the
Speaker 4: granddaddy of them all. Now a magic motion picture transports
Speaker 4: you to an over the rainbow land, past the doors
Speaker 4: of Sati's towering castle and the strange, mysterious all seeing Eye,
Speaker 4: into a fantastic crystal laboratory filled with weird and wonderful
Speaker 4: secrets no one has ever seen before. You'll see them all,
Speaker 4: and you'll discover how Sata can watch every child on
Speaker 4: earth and every good or bad thing they do. Now
Speaker 4: meet Merlin, the Wizard of Wizards, the miracle Man of
Speaker 4: the Ages too for the show. Hooray we go. Hurry,
Speaker 4: mister Merlin, this is no time to play horses. Come
Speaker 4: face to face with the Devil himself, a mischievous demon
Speaker 4: determined to mess things up as much as he can.
Speaker 3: It's yours, nobody's who.
Speaker 4: You take it to pizza they have borne they won't
Speaker 4: miss it. What does one little doll man, don't you see?
Speaker 4: Leave it to that devilish tricks to the sidetrack, Sata
Speaker 4: up a tree? What's the jolly hijinks of Sata Claus
Speaker 4: as he decides to fight fire with fire? Oh ho,
Speaker 4: a canon? You will want to miss the entertainment, wonder
Speaker 4: of the agents, the treat of a lifetime, or anyone
Speaker 4: who has ever believed there really is a Santa Claus.
Speaker 4: I'm saying that Jark hasn't come.
Speaker 2: Sleep now, darling, Sleep now, and you will see Pete.
Speaker 2: When you will come to find it.
Speaker 4: Darling, you'll see more wonders than you can wave a
Speaker 4: wanda as a dazzling panorama unfolds before your startled eyes.
Speaker 2: All right now, if you want to watch this film,
Speaker 2: if you haven't seen Santa Claus from nineteen fifty nine,
Speaker 2: Santa Claus is the Devil, if you will, well, like
Speaker 2: to say, there are a lot of different versions that
Speaker 2: have come out over the years, various formats. You can
Speaker 2: catch this on the big screen every now and then.
Speaker 2: I think it aired on the big screen locally in
Speaker 2: the last year or two here in Atlanta. But I
Speaker 2: watched the excellent VCI Entertainment Special Edition. Blu Ray rented
Speaker 2: this from Videodrome, great picture quality, and it also has
Speaker 2: really insightful commentary by film historian Daniel Griffith. So some
Speaker 2: of the information I'll share with you about the film
Speaker 2: is from that commentary by Daniel Griffith. But if I
Speaker 2: get something wrong, it's not Daniel Griffith's fault, it's my
Speaker 2: fault for not listening to him enough. I just want
Speaker 2: to put that out there. I don't want people to
Speaker 2: be like, how could he not know this? Did he
Speaker 2: not hear Daniel Griffith explain it? Well, it's because I
Speaker 2: miss something, all right. Let's get into the people involved
Speaker 2: in the production of this film. Starting the top. The
Speaker 2: director and one of the writers is Renee Cardona, who
Speaker 2: we've talked about on the show before. Lived nineteen oh
Speaker 2: five through nineteen eighty eight, director, actor, producer, writer, and editor.
Speaker 2: Best remembered as a director in the Golden Age of
Speaker 2: Mexican cinema. We've talked about him before because we've covered
Speaker 2: two other films that he directed. Nineteen sixty three's Doctor
Speaker 2: of Doom. That's a luchadora film with a very fun,
Speaker 2: mad Scientist, and then nineteen sixty nine Santo in the
Speaker 2: Treasure of Dracula, a time traveling luchador Dracula movie that
Speaker 2: is also tremendous fun.
Speaker 3: I feel like those are two of my favorites that
Speaker 3: we've covered on Weird House. I love these wrestling movies
Speaker 3: in the way the freedom with which they incorporate seemingly
Speaker 3: unlikely other genres such as horror and fantasy and science
Speaker 3: fiction into the wrestling plat format.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and again, you can't see a similar energy in
Speaker 2: this picture, even though there are no luchadors that I
Speaker 2: know I've involved in it, and there's certainly no luchador characters,
Speaker 2: but if there were one, they would not be out
Speaker 2: of place. So anyway, we'll likely cover more Cardona films
Speaker 2: in the future, so I'm going to cover less about
Speaker 2: him now for this episode, other than to stress that, yeah,
Speaker 2: he was highly prolific work with a number of the
Speaker 2: biggest stars in Mexican cinema of the time period, and
Speaker 2: his output ranges from serious dramas and a couple of
Speaker 2: kids movies to Santo pictures and the Grimy Night of
Speaker 2: the Bloody Apes from nineteen sixty nine.
Speaker 3: I've never seen that one, but the tasteful title has
Speaker 3: always appealed to me.
Speaker 2: It's apparently not a tasteful film. As we mentioned in
Speaker 2: our episode on Doctor of Doom. It is essentially a
Speaker 2: remake of some of the elements of Doctor of Doom,
Speaker 2: but it takes it in a much grimier direction. So
Speaker 2: I doubt we'll cover that film on Weird House Cinema,
Speaker 2: but it's out there and it's well known in horror circles,
Speaker 2: all right. The other writer on this is Adolfo Torres Portillo,
Speaker 2: who lived nineteen twenty through nineteen ninety six. His other
Speaker 2: credit include nineteen sixties The Crying Woman, nineteen sixty three's
Speaker 2: Little Red Riding Hood, and Tom Thumb Versus the Monsters
Speaker 2: from sixty two. I'm very interested in that Los Vampires
Speaker 2: from nineteen sixty nine, nineteen eighty three's Mexico two thousand
Speaker 2: that we've mentioned on the show before, as well as
Speaker 2: various other fantasies, Luca and comedies. All right, now, getting
Speaker 2: into the cast, not going to talk about everybody in
Speaker 2: the cast, but of course we got to talk about
Speaker 2: Santa Santa Claus is played by Jose Elias Moreno, who
Speaker 2: lived nineteen ten through nineteen sixty nine, terrific Mexican character
Speaker 2: actor who was largely known apparently for playing heavies and
Speaker 2: villains rather than anything like Santa Claus. So Griffith and
Speaker 2: his commentary says that he he was sort of going
Speaker 2: against type here. It's kind of like if you'd cast
Speaker 2: late nineties, early two thousands Brian Cox as Santa Claus,
Speaker 2: very much a similar energy, and I can imagine Brian
Speaker 2: Cox at nailing it in a similar fashion.
Speaker 3: Okay, well I can see that comparison, but I'm gonna
Speaker 3: say Moreno, just he seems to effortlessly inhabit this role. Again,
Speaker 3: it's not his voice that I'm used to hearing because
Speaker 3: I'm listening to the English dub, But at least the
Speaker 3: physical performance, it's like he was born to play Santa Yeah.
Speaker 2: The physical performance alone is just an absolute delight. He
Speaker 2: leaves no corner of the scene unshewed, and his face,
Speaker 2: though partially obscured by that fake Santa Wig and that
Speaker 2: fake Santa Beard, is just continually shifting into a host
Speaker 2: of just extreme emotional expressions, you know, like it's it's
Speaker 2: just he's just constantly doing something up there and This
Speaker 2: is exactly the sort of movie and the sort of
Speaker 2: role where that kind of energy is rewarding.
Speaker 3: It has the feeling of a stage performance put on screen.
Speaker 2: Yes, you want to make sure that people in the
Speaker 2: very back row know exactly what Santa is feeling just
Speaker 2: by looking at him. Moreno's other credits include nineteen fifty
Speaker 2: two Is the Magnificent Beast, sixty nine's Night of the
Speaker 2: Bloody Apes, and he also played an ogre in Cardona's
Speaker 2: nineteen fifty eight movie Polcrcito.
Speaker 3: Oh, I feel like I saw that word appear in
Speaker 3: the credits. Is that like a nickname of his that
Speaker 3: he might have been credited along with that?
Speaker 2: Is then that that is the name of or the
Speaker 2: nickname of the child actor who plays Pedro. Oh, Santa's helpers.
Speaker 2: That's yeah, I'm not really going to get into him
Speaker 2: because his is kind of a tragic story. But yeah,
Speaker 2: that is the small Mexican boy that is aiding Santa
Speaker 2: in his workshop.
Speaker 3: But hey, okay, Santa is our hero. Let's hear about
Speaker 3: our villain who plays the demon Pitch.
Speaker 2: Yes, Pitch is played by Jose Lewis Aguire, whose nickname
Speaker 2: is Trotsky. A lot of nicknames. In this I assume
Speaker 2: that his nickname is a reference to Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky,
Speaker 2: who of course lived in exile in Mexico City and
Speaker 2: died in Mexico. But I don't know if it goes
Speaker 2: any deeper than that.
Speaker 3: We were just talking about Brian Cox, who played Trotzky
Speaker 3: in the film Nicholas and Alexandra Ah.
Speaker 2: I didn't realize that. Well there you go. So anyway,
Speaker 2: Trotsky here the actor, was born in nineteen twenty three,
Speaker 2: and according to IMDb, he's not been in a film
Speaker 2: since nineteen seventy seven. But there's no death date, which
Speaker 2: means conceivably he's still alive out there at the age
Speaker 2: of one hundred. Hard to say. The movie database Separate
Speaker 2: Database lists credits up through nineteen ninety one, so who knows.
Speaker 2: But also I couldn't find anything like a death date.
Speaker 2: Trotsky was also a dance choreographer, and going by his
Speaker 2: TMD credits, his other parts include a part in Pedro
Speaker 2: Almodovar's nineteen eighty punk movie Pepe Luci Bahm, which I've
Speaker 2: not seen, but I've seen other films by this filmmaker,
Speaker 2: and of course he's pretty famous and very well regarded.
Speaker 3: So this is also a very broad zany, highly physically
Speaker 3: expressive performance from a Giro or Trotsky. Here is Pitch
Speaker 3: and he does a really great job. Like watching this
Speaker 3: as an adult, you can detect a lot of camp energy,
Speaker 3: and that's the appeal there. But if you think about
Speaker 3: this movie through the eyes of a child, I think
Speaker 3: this is a performance that would read as really funny
Speaker 3: to kids.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it is just a deliciously great physical performance.
Speaker 2: There's prancing energy here. It's just frantic prancing. Again, he
Speaker 2: had a dance background, so there's a lot of dance,
Speaker 2: a lot of flourishes to every movement that Pitch makes,
Speaker 2: and it is easy to focus on that and to
Speaker 2: focus on the inherent comedy here, And there's a lot
Speaker 2: of comedy with Pitch. But I don't think the film
Speaker 2: and Trotsky in particular get enough credit for just how
Speaker 2: effectively malevolent Pitches at times. As well, there are not
Speaker 2: many moments where there are a few moments where they
Speaker 2: really get down to Pitch is evil, especially when he's
Speaker 2: whispering in the in the years of sleeping children and
Speaker 2: adults and telling them to do things like murder Santa
Speaker 2: Claus and Cold Blood where he's very menacing, and also
Speaker 2: some moments where he leans unnaturally over the edge of
Speaker 2: rooftops and around corners, like he is actually a cast
Speaker 2: shadow rather than a corporeal being.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I can see what you're saying there, and you're right.
Speaker 3: There are parts where the character is surprisingly truly wicked
Speaker 3: and not just comically wicked, like when he's gloating over
Speaker 3: the fact that Santa Claus is going to die. But
Speaker 3: there is an interesting contrast as well in that I
Speaker 3: feel like he's he's the main thing he is is funny,
Speaker 3: and he's supposed to be funny, and that the really
Speaker 3: the scariest things in this movie are things that I
Speaker 3: don't know if they're probably not supposed to be cute,
Speaker 3: but they're not like demons. They're things like reindeer or
Speaker 3: dolls that are like the true nightmare entities in this film.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, the automatons. All right, let's let's go through
Speaker 2: the rest of the cast real, real quickly. You're not
Speaker 2: going to mention everybody like Lupita is a great character
Speaker 2: played by a child actor by the name of Lupita Quizadas.
Speaker 2: I believe this is Pedro or Polgrosito's brother, I mean
Speaker 2: sister rather, But again, this is like one of only
Speaker 2: two films she was in, so there's not much to
Speaker 2: say there. However, Lupita's mother is played by Nora Verjan
Speaker 2: who lived nineteen twenty nine through nineteen ninety eight. This
Speaker 2: is probably the most believably dramatic performance in the film.
Speaker 2: She was also in another Cardona Kids film, Adventures of
Speaker 2: Jo Solito and Tom Thumb from nineteen sixty, and she
Speaker 2: worked mostly in musicals, dramas, and musical comedies, as well
Speaker 2: as at least one telenovella in the mid nineties.
Speaker 3: There are some moments with Lupita's mom where the movie
Speaker 3: becomes surprisingly tender and really tugs at the heartstrings.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, so like her performance does stand out, though
Speaker 2: it is in a stark contrast to some of the
Speaker 2: other stuff we see.
Speaker 3: Yeah oh but wait, let's get to our psychedelic wizard Merlin.
Speaker 2: Not I don't have a lot to say about him,
Speaker 2: but played by Armando Ariola who lived nineteen oh three
Speaker 2: through nineteen six seventy eight. His other films include nineteen
Speaker 2: fifty nine's El Zarco, which also features Moreno the key
Speaker 2: Maker or you know, the the blacksmith or Vulcan or
Speaker 2: whatever you can refer to him as he's a little
Speaker 2: more interesting because he's played by Angel di Stefani, who
Speaker 2: lived nineteen oh six through nineteen seventy three, tall Mexican
Speaker 2: actor and stunt man. I don't think he was a luchador.
Speaker 2: I looked around to see if I could find his
Speaker 2: name in any of the lucha data bases, but I
Speaker 2: don't think he was.
Speaker 3: But hear a secret identity luchador.
Speaker 2: Well that is true. Mass luchador's identities or even today
Speaker 2: not a matter of public record, so it's entirely possible.
Speaker 2: And there's you know, who knows what else is lost
Speaker 2: in the record of some of these films, so it's possible.
Speaker 2: But anyway, he appeared in multiple Cardona films, including a
Speaker 2: nineteen sixty nine Santo film, nineteen sixty seven's The Panther Woman.
Speaker 2: I think that's a luchadora film. And he also plays
Speaker 2: the titular as tech Mummy in all three as Tech
Speaker 2: Mummy films. Those are not Cardona films, but they are
Speaker 2: certainly well known Mexican horror films. And then the music
Speaker 2: is by Antonio Diez Conde, who died in nineteen seventy six.
Speaker 2: He's come up on the show before because he also
Speaker 2: scored Doctor of Doom. Just a prolific Mexican composer who
Speaker 2: worked on a ton of B pictures during this time period.
Speaker 3: Okay, are we ready to talk about the plot. Let's
Speaker 3: get into it now. As we go through this, we
Speaker 3: are going to do one of the more detailed breakdowns
Speaker 3: of this film. But I want a caveat that there are,
Speaker 3: as we've said earlier, multiple different edits of this film.
Speaker 3: So I am watching one of the English releases, which,
Speaker 3: in addition to English dubbing, might also be a slightly
Speaker 3: different edit. So it's possible the version I'm talking about
Speaker 3: here might have or lack some scenes that appear elsewhere
Speaker 3: or don't appear elsewhere.
Speaker 2: It's also possible this movie is just magical and every
Speaker 2: time you see it it's a little bit different in
Speaker 2: ways that other films are not.
Speaker 3: I guess that's true. So the credits role at the beginning,
Speaker 3: on what looks like kind of a Christmas card stock
Speaker 3: and jingle bells is just black on the soundtrack, very
Speaker 3: traditional Christmas film opening, But after the credits, things start
Speaker 3: getting a little weirder. We see a dark, icy blue
Speaker 3: stratosphere with several white castles floating on top of clouds,
Speaker 3: and I believe this is not Castle Brown Transylvania. Other
Speaker 3: than that, we have no idea where it is at first,
Speaker 3: until the narrator comes in to inform us. The narrator says, away,
Speaker 3: up in the heavens, far out in space, in a
Speaker 3: beautiful golden crystal palace, right above the north pole, lives
Speaker 3: a kind and jolly old gentleman, Santa Claus, also known
Speaker 3: as Saint Nicholas, the best friend of boys and girls everywhere.
Speaker 3: But let's move in closer for a look. Come along,
Speaker 3: And then through a veil of fog, the camera zooms
Speaker 3: in on Saint Nicholas himself, and when we first see him,
Speaker 3: he's busy fixing up his Christmas decorations, including and here's
Speaker 3: the first of many things in the movie that I
Speaker 3: don't know if they were meant to look scary, but
Speaker 3: they really do, like working on a statuette of an
Speaker 3: angel that to me evokes true cosmic horror. It's like
Speaker 3: a somber winged woman with gray flesh who is about
Speaker 3: to speak the names of the Nine Hidden Gods, and Santa's,
Speaker 3: you know, adjusting her clothing. He's also working on a
Speaker 3: little Manger scene, like he's putting Hay in a little
Speaker 3: Manger cradle and various other decorations. There's strings of tinsel
Speaker 3: and figurines of Mary and Joseph and all that. And
Speaker 3: the whole time he is tending to his minies, he
Speaker 3: emits non stop bellowing laughter, just super villain laughter at
Speaker 3: nothing in particular, and I love it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, he's just absolutely overflowing with the Christmas spirit.
Speaker 2: You can't blame him. And these I also have to
Speaker 2: mention this is something that the MST three k Riff
Speaker 2: points out, But it looks like Santa is stuffing like
Speaker 2: bits of his fake beard into the Manger scene, like
Speaker 2: into the manger itself where the christ child will go,
Speaker 2: which feels like the it feels kind of animalistic, you know,
Speaker 2: like he's a he's a beast building a nest. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: I see that. Yeah, but it is interesting too. How again,
Speaker 2: you know, you can imagine this picture going into a
Speaker 2: very otherwise religious Christmas culture, and it's firmly establishing the
Speaker 2: religious faith of Santa Claus just to I guess make
Speaker 2: sure they're you know, they're no misunderstandings, right.
Speaker 3: The Santa Claus in this movie, he doesn't talk about
Speaker 3: it a lot, but it is mentioned at a few times.
Speaker 3: This Santa is a Christian like he mentions the Baby
Speaker 3: Jesus a couple of times. And here he's clearly attending
Speaker 3: to these angels, assuming these are supposed to be Christian
Speaker 3: angels and not like the joyless angels of the Yeah,
Speaker 3: the nine Hidden Gods or whatever, but so, yeah, he's
Speaker 3: messing with the angels. And he says, it's almost Christmas
Speaker 3: and I must finish the toys for all the good
Speaker 3: children on earth. I hope you'll pardon me, but I
Speaker 3: mustn't be late. And then he scampers over to the
Speaker 3: other end of the room, singing the tune of Silent
Speaker 3: Night in like these deep la la laws as he goes.
Speaker 3: And this Santa, by the way, you've gotta imagine a
Speaker 3: deep voice. He is a bass Santa Claus. Yes, So
Speaker 3: he goes and sits down at his organ keyboard and
Speaker 3: he starts like honking the knobs and stuff, and the
Speaker 3: narrator tells us that quote this is Santa's toy Land,
Speaker 3: a sort of international toy factory. Here are gathered boys
Speaker 3: and girls of different races and creeds. They have come
Speaker 3: from many lands to help Santa bring joy and happiness
Speaker 3: to all of the Earth's children. And here begins the
Speaker 3: parade of cultural depictions. Rob what you were referring to
Speaker 3: as the sort of it's a small world montage is
Speaker 3: showing children allegedly from many different countries and continents and regions,
Speaker 3: one group at a time, usually in some stereotypical clothing,
Speaker 3: singing a particular song that may or may not normally
Speaker 3: be associated with their nationality or region of origin. Obviously,
Speaker 3: this segment I think it was well meaning, like intending
Speaker 3: to show Santa inviting children from all around the world
Speaker 3: to help with his benevolent toy shop mission. But as
Speaker 3: you might guess from this nineteen fifty nine movie, some
Speaker 3: of the ways the different cultures are depicted does not
Speaker 3: feel right, so I can understand why some later edits
Speaker 3: of the film cut this section down.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it does go on a long while. It's
Speaker 2: a lengthy segment, but you get those great states that
Speaker 2: you'll show one group of kids, then you'll switch back
Speaker 2: to Santa playing the organ, and it's great because obviously,
Speaker 2: like a lot of actors in films, Santa is not
Speaker 2: the actor of Mareno is obviously not playing a piano
Speaker 2: or an organ here, but he is acting like he is,
Speaker 2: and boy is he acting hard. It is just a
Speaker 2: sight to behold.
Speaker 3: Oh, he's feeling it. He's like he looks like he's
Speaker 3: playing the organ part in like in a God Davida.
Speaker 3: You know, he's just grooving, really feeling the music. And
Speaker 3: also I think it's clear that like he could not
Speaker 3: see what we're seeing when the children are being shown
Speaker 3: in these scenes, that they're just telling him like act
Speaker 3: it up, like you know, you're looking at the children,
Speaker 3: but he's just gazing off to the side somewhere while
Speaker 3: while feeling the organ music.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's amazing.
Speaker 3: But also there's a weird thing during this segment that
Speaker 3: compounds on the questionable cultural depictions, which is that some
Speaker 3: of these segments are also hilarious because of how bored
Speaker 3: and confused many of the children look and for the
Speaker 3: song selections. For example, they never actually show the group
Speaker 3: of children from England. We just hear the narrator mentioned
Speaker 3: there are children from England and then we hear kids
Speaker 3: singing London Bridge is falling down British classic. But then
Speaker 3: we do see the delegation of kids from Russia who
Speaker 3: are singing this really like energetic, aggressive Russian folk song
Speaker 3: with like shouts in it. But for some reason, one
Speaker 3: of the children is shown driving a car.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 3: A few other funny things from around here. I noted
Speaker 3: that the a number of the groups of children are
Speaker 3: heavily armed with rifles and other weapons, and this this
Speaker 3: is not the only time in the movie where like,
Speaker 3: it's kind of prizing for a Christmas film about Santa,
Speaker 3: how many guns there are in it. Also, the kids
Speaker 3: from the USA are dressed as cowboys and singing Mary
Speaker 3: had a little lamb, and I would say that the
Speaker 3: kids who do the best job of selling the song
Speaker 3: they're given to perform are, perhaps unsurprisingly, the Mexican delegation.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, they really shine.
Speaker 3: But eventually Santa gets in, you know, he's had enough
Speaker 3: of that. This This does go on for like seven
Speaker 3: minutes I timed it, and then so he goes off
Speaker 3: to say, Okay, done with the organ I'm gonna meet
Speaker 3: up with some of my top Hinch children, and one
Speaker 3: of the workshop kids bring Santa a demon shaped firecracker
Speaker 3: on a stick and says, Santa, do you like this devil?
Speaker 3: And Santa's a little perplexed by it. He doesn't recall
Speaker 3: any of the good children of Earth asking for this
Speaker 3: toy in their letters to Santa Claus, so he says, oh,
Speaker 3: this is one of his very memorable quotable lines. He says,
Speaker 3: how does it work? What is the sense of it?
Speaker 3: But the kids shows him you got to light the
Speaker 3: few is and then the devil spins around on the
Speaker 3: end of the stick, and from this firecracker we smash
Speaker 3: cut to a real live devil twirling around in a
Speaker 3: similar manner in Hell by the Way, which is represented
Speaker 3: as a cavern full of shadows and belching flames. And
Speaker 3: this is Pitch, our antagonist for the film. He's got horns,
Speaker 3: he's got pointy ears, a goatee, he's a cherry red
Speaker 3: from head to toe except for his dark goatee and
Speaker 3: a few sort of accents on his costume. Red all over,
Speaker 3: And we watch Pitch and the other devils do a
Speaker 3: large coordinated dance number in the middle of the fiery
Speaker 3: subterranean recess surrounded by the way by hooded figures in robes,
Speaker 3: and I was like, wait a minute, I don't know
Speaker 3: if I ever noticed these hooded figures before. Are these
Speaker 3: like Satanic cult members in Hell?
Speaker 2: I think they are supposed to be the souls of
Speaker 2: the dance.
Speaker 3: Okay, I can see that which.
Speaker 2: You want in your Christmas movie of course.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly. So you know, the devils are dancing until
Speaker 3: the boss shows up in a terrifying voice, which I
Speaker 3: think is the same voice as that of the narrator
Speaker 3: by the way he says. He says, stop, I, Lucifer,
Speaker 3: King of Hades, command you, and command you to stop
Speaker 3: and disappear. Begone all of you except Pitch, And then
Speaker 3: Pitch pitches like, what do you want? Master? And Lucifer,
Speaker 3: King of Hades He's gonna give his subordinate demon Pitch
Speaker 3: a talking to. So we learn Pitch is the chief
Speaker 3: of Satan's minions and the time will soon come once
Speaker 3: again that he must leave the Brimstone Pits and go
Speaker 3: up to Earth to do battle with his arch enemy,
Speaker 3: Santa Claus, whom Satan refers to as that bearded old goat,
Speaker 3: which is kind of flipping the script because wouldn't the
Speaker 3: demon be the one who's associated with a goat.
Speaker 2: I don't know, I mean, especially given the sort of
Speaker 2: beard that they've given Pitch.
Speaker 3: Here, Yeah, billy go beard exactly. But yeah, anyway, Satan
Speaker 3: he's got an assignment for Pitch. He wants him to
Speaker 3: go out and convince all of the children of Earth
Speaker 3: to do evil, and if he fails, he will be punished.
Speaker 3: Instead of his favorite food, red hot coals, Pitch will
Speaker 3: be forced to eat chocolate ice cream. And clearly, to Pitch,
Speaker 3: this is a fate worse than death. He begs for mercy,
Speaker 3: he says, not chocolate ice cream. It's very bad for
Speaker 3: his digestion. But you know, Satan, Satan is not a
Speaker 3: good boss. He offers, He's all stick.
Speaker 2: No carrot, and this is great and this is comedy
Speaker 2: for the children.
Speaker 3: So Pitch accepts the mission. He says, I promise, so priceless,
Speaker 3: Prince of Hades, that by my many whiles, I will
Speaker 3: finish off Santa forever and see that the children commit
Speaker 3: terrible deeds and make Santa Claus angry. So you know,
Speaker 3: Pitch has his mission. He goes up to Earth to
Speaker 3: carry it out, and by the way somewhere in here,
Speaker 3: we randomly just see a newspaper lying on the ground
Speaker 3: with the front page headline. It's in Spanish but translated
Speaker 3: to English. The headline is the Christmas Spirit brings Peace
Speaker 3: on Earth.
Speaker 2: Well, I know you want to feel good story for
Speaker 2: the holidays, right, yeah.
Speaker 3: Okay, Pitch burns the newspaper because I guess he doesn't
Speaker 3: like the Christmas Spirit. And speaking of demons, we next
Speaker 3: cut to a department store window with children crowding around
Speaker 3: to look at the toys. And one of the toys
Speaker 3: is one of one of these things in the movie
Speaker 3: that I think is much scarier than it was intended
Speaker 3: to be. It's this creepy, mechanical Santa Claus that is
Speaker 3: much like the real Santa from earlier, laughing maniacally without pause.
Speaker 2: It's an excellent automaton, but it is it is creepy
Speaker 2: to be held.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think it would be. It would be less
Speaker 3: scary if it were less good, actually, like if it
Speaker 3: was less realistic looking. It's it's sort of getting into
Speaker 3: uncanny Valley territory.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 3: And in the scene looking at the department store window,
Speaker 3: we meet two children who were going to follow for
Speaker 3: the rest of the movie. We meet a little boy
Speaker 3: with curly hair who we initially don't learn his name.
Speaker 3: The narrator just identifies him as a boy who has
Speaker 3: been very good all year. But we also learned that
Speaker 3: his father is very rich, so this is the good
Speaker 3: little rich boy. And then by contrast, we meet Lupita
Speaker 3: and her mother. Lupita is also a very good child,
Speaker 3: but her family is very poor, and Lupita's lifelong dream,
Speaker 3: we learn, is to own a doll, any doll.
Speaker 2: And in this the film introduces some rather deep thoughts.
Speaker 2: I guess that it at least plays with kicks around
Speaker 2: a little bit throughout the course of the picture. Like
Speaker 2: it's almost kind of surprising because on one level we
Speaker 2: do have this just fantasy element Santa Claus and then
Speaker 2: this devil. But then the movie then like really sobers
Speaker 2: up at times and it's like, hey, why is there
Speaker 2: inequality in the world? Why do bad things happen to
Speaker 2: good people? Why? And so forth? And it doesn't really
Speaker 2: have answers to those questions, but it, like I say,
Speaker 2: it kicks them around a little bit.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, this movie in which Santa Claus is
Speaker 3: real also somehow grapples with the question why do poor
Speaker 3: children who are good get fewer toys from Santa than
Speaker 3: rich children who are good? And it doesn't really answer
Speaker 3: that question, but it does raise it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it at least acknowledges that question. So it's always
Speaker 2: something that's fascinated me about this picture, Like, yeah, it
Speaker 2: doesn't shy away from it, but it doesn't provide any
Speaker 2: convincing answers because I think these are difficult, difficult problems
Speaker 2: to bring up in your fantasy Santa film.
Speaker 3: Yeah, hey, there are just too many good children we've
Speaker 3: been looking at. Now, are there some real creeps among
Speaker 3: the children here? And yes there are. There are three
Speaker 3: mean little boys who rudely push in front of the
Speaker 3: others to look in the window at all the toys,
Speaker 3: and the Santa robot and the narrator scolds them, but
Speaker 3: they do not seem to notice. Also, I wanted to
Speaker 3: note that the two of the little bad boys here
Speaker 3: are wearing leather jackets in a biker gang. But they're
Speaker 3: like ten years old.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, they got their cuts on. Nice.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So the devil Pitch appears and he goads the
Speaker 3: three wicked boys into doing some evil. He makes rocks
Speaker 3: appear in front of them, and then convinces them to
Speaker 3: throw the rocks and break the department store window, pelting
Speaker 3: the mechanical Santa Claus. And then somehow magically, one of
Speaker 3: the rocks that was thrown at the robot Santa hits
Speaker 3: the real Santa up in his palace in space in
Speaker 3: the face.
Speaker 2: So more complex theology presented here in metaphysics, If you will,
Speaker 2: like I guess, all representations of Santa are also Santa,
Speaker 2: and therefore anything done to them you do unto him.
Speaker 3: Oh wow, it's yes, I can see that. It's like transubstantiation.
Speaker 3: It's like any representation of Santa becomes literally the body
Speaker 3: of Santa.
Speaker 2: I believe. So.
Speaker 3: So Santa is very annoyed at this devil, who he
Speaker 3: clearly they already have early. He knows Pitch quite well.
Speaker 3: They've been battling for years, and he explains that if
Speaker 3: he were allowed, he'd go down to Earth right now
Speaker 3: and put that devil in his place. But he can't
Speaker 3: go to Earth yet. He's only allowed to go on
Speaker 3: Christmas Eve and not before. But that made me wonder,
Speaker 3: first of all, who imposes these restrictions, and second, what
Speaker 3: would happen to Santa if he went before Christmas Eve?
Speaker 3: Would he burst into flames? Would he bleed from his eyes?
Speaker 3: How does it work?
Speaker 2: I mean, these are clearly rules that God has put
Speaker 2: in place, but beyond that we have no details.
Speaker 3: So Santa's main hinch child is the child named Pedro,
Speaker 3: and he seems to be the one who like makes
Speaker 3: everything work in Santa's palace, like even you know, Santa's
Speaker 3: like Merlin is absent minded. Santa himself even kind of
Speaker 3: gets sidetracked on things. It seems like Pedro is like
Speaker 3: it's like the chief of staff in the White House.
Speaker 3: Pedro keeps everything on the rails. And he's got some
Speaker 3: intel for Santa. He knows about Lupita, the the good
Speaker 3: child whose family is very poor, and Santa wants to
Speaker 3: make sure that she is appropriately rewarded at Christmas. So
Speaker 3: they decide to go use the telescope to find her.
Speaker 3: And here begins a sequence of displaying all of Santa's
Speaker 3: array of eerie psychic technology. He has the Euroscope, the
Speaker 3: Teletalker that knows everything, the Cosmic Telescope, and the Master Eye,
Speaker 3: and the narrator says nothing that happens on Earth is
Speaker 3: unknown to Santa Claus. And we see this room and
Speaker 3: it involves not only like a sort of traditional looking telescope,
Speaker 3: it's like a big tube ap peering out of a window,
Speaker 3: but there are also strange I don't even know what
Speaker 3: to call it. You know, one looks like a One
Speaker 3: thing looks like a game of Simon says. Another thing
Speaker 3: is just like a computer in the wall that has
Speaker 3: a face including like lips that move and eyes and
Speaker 3: a big nose that lights up.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like big rolling stone or rocky horror. Lips that
Speaker 2: move and talk and seem to be like moist, evenugh.
Speaker 3: But Pedro says, by magic powers, look for the child
Speaker 3: we're seeking, whether she is in a cave or behind
Speaker 3: a million mountains. And then the lips on the wall
Speaker 3: computer start talking. They say already. And then this tentacle
Speaker 3: eyeball extends out into space from Santa's communications tower, and
Speaker 3: the helpers announced that they have found the little girl
Speaker 3: in Mexico. But then when Santa's like, oh, you found her,
Speaker 3: I'll go take a look, and he looks through that
Speaker 3: telescope eyepiece to see her, and it's like a view
Speaker 3: of the entire earth. I remember there being a funny
Speaker 3: riff about this in the Mystery Science Theater with her like,
Speaker 3: oh yeah, really zoomed in on her. But eventually we
Speaker 3: do tune back in with Lupita, so he finds Lupita directly,
Speaker 3: and when he does, she's watching this grotesque puppet show.
Speaker 3: It's one of these slapstick shows where the puppets are
Speaker 3: hitting each other. Lupita is not laughing at the show,
Speaker 3: though she looks very sad. She's sad because she is
Speaker 3: still thinking about the doll that she wants for Christmas.
Speaker 3: And as her mother takes her by the hand and
Speaker 3: leads her away, they pass a vendor in the street
Speaker 3: selling dolls from a table and here we get to
Speaker 3: the will Lupita steal scene? Oh boy, so Lupita, you
Speaker 3: know she wants a dolly, but the narrator warns her, no, Lupita,
Speaker 3: do not steal. Put it back, and so at first
Speaker 3: she makes like she's gonna do it. She tucks a
Speaker 3: doll into her behind like her jacket, and she walks away,
Speaker 3: and then Pitch appears trying to convince her to take it.
Speaker 3: Pitch says, it's yours. Nobody saw you take it. What
Speaker 3: does one little doll matter, And Pitch is grinning ferociously
Speaker 3: and rubbing his hands together as he tries to talk
Speaker 3: her into it, but the narrator argues back. He says again, no, Lupita,
Speaker 3: it's wrong and you'll be sorry. So Pitch is obviously
Speaker 3: the devil on her shoulder, but the narrator, I guess,
Speaker 3: is the angel on her other shoulder. They go back
Speaker 3: and and then the end, Lupita puts the doll back
Speaker 3: because she is good.
Speaker 2: I love Pitch's energy though, as he's trying to convince her,
Speaker 2: because he's like, you want the doll, you should be evil,
Speaker 2: you should be evil, and she's like, I don't want
Speaker 2: to be evil. He's like, like you want the doll,
Speaker 2: he should be evil. Like he's just like getting cut
Speaker 2: and right to the chase there, and it's like, just
Speaker 2: be evil. We're not even it's not even sugarcoating it
Speaker 2: by being like, well, he does a little bit, he's like,
Speaker 2: you know, they won't miss it, but he just goes
Speaker 2: goes for the bigger cell and it's just like commit
Speaker 2: your heart to darkness now, my child. But Lupita's too
Speaker 2: good for that. Yeah, so she resists.
Speaker 3: Yes, that's right. She is morally pure and she will
Speaker 3: not take the doll. She puts it back. Pitch is
Speaker 3: very angry. He's like flexing his jaw in frustration, like
Speaker 3: a thwarted cat looking out the window at a bird.
Speaker 3: And he says, curses. And he tells her that little
Speaker 3: girls must steal or do without the things they like.
Speaker 3: So the narrator argues again, but this time the delivery
Speaker 3: is funny because of the strange inflection on the line,
Speaker 3: which makes it sound almost like the narrator is mocking her.
Speaker 3: So the narrator says, that's not true, Lupita. If you're good, somehow,
Speaker 3: you'll be rewarded. It almost sounds like the narrator is
Speaker 3: holding back laughter as he says this.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, I know what I'm talking about. I didn't
Speaker 2: quite get that feeling from it, but the line always
Speaker 2: stuck out at me because it like somehow, like she'll
Speaker 2: be rewarded again, dancing around this problem that they are
Speaker 2: addressing elsewhere in the film. You know, why do bad
Speaker 2: things happen to good people? Why do good children not
Speaker 2: get gifts from Santa if they are poor? Question again
Speaker 2: that is directly asked by this picture, but the picture
Speaker 2: does not provide any answers to this difficult problem.
Speaker 3: Well, it kind of side steps it with magic at
Speaker 3: the end because just Santa does give her the gift
Speaker 3: she wants at the end through magic, so it kind
Speaker 3: of gets around the real world problem, right. But anyway,
Speaker 3: so in the film back at the Crystal Palace in
Speaker 3: outer Space, Santa is very proud of Lupita. He exclaims
Speaker 3: to his helpers that all of his friends can't ignore
Speaker 3: the devil, and then they kick off the surveillance process
Speaker 3: once again to find the other children from outside the store.
Speaker 3: This time they tune in on the good boy, whose
Speaker 3: family is rich, and he's asleep when they find him.
Speaker 3: So Santa's like, connect to the antenna for the dream scope,
Speaker 3: and they invade the little boy's dreams and they witness
Speaker 3: in his dreaming mind that he wants to come down
Speaker 3: the stairs on Christmas morning to these two giant boxes.
Speaker 3: And the narrators like, what large gift boxes? Would these
Speaker 3: be toys? But no, they contain what a child loves
Speaker 3: best his parents. And Santa Claus gets very very sober
Speaker 3: here and he says, a dream is a wish the
Speaker 3: heart makes, and Santa explains that even though the little
Speaker 3: rich boy can have any possession he wants just by asking,
Speaker 3: all he really wants is the love and attention of
Speaker 3: his parents, and whether they truly love him is yet
Speaker 3: to be seen. And Santa says this with a heavy sigh.
Speaker 3: But what about Loupita's dreams. Well, here we're going to
Speaker 3: resume the stealing debate, so they tune in on the
Speaker 3: dream scope to Lupita. She's asleep in her bed and
Speaker 3: we see it a little by the way. We see
Speaker 3: her parents talking and Lupita's mother explains to Lapita's father
Speaker 3: that when she was young, she would dream of growing
Speaker 3: up and having great riches, but at the time she
Speaker 3: would also dream of the devil. I guess she would
Speaker 3: be afraid. And then Pitch appears in the house and
Speaker 3: like blows bad dreams into Lupita's brain, and we see
Speaker 3: Lupita standing in this big room that looks like a
Speaker 3: giant like walk in freezer warehouse, and it's full of fog,
Speaker 3: and there are these big boxes, kind of like in
Speaker 3: the last scene where the kid's parents were in boxes,
Speaker 3: but instead this is a lot of adult sized boxes.
Speaker 3: And what comes out of them just a nightmare of
Speaker 3: giant robotic doll ghouls.
Speaker 2: For some reason, this whole sequence, which again is very
Speaker 2: clearly intended to be disturbing, perhaps too disturbing, even though
Speaker 2: it doesn't have actual devils in it, Like it almost
Speaker 2: feels like like this one is by guest director Mario Obabas.
Speaker 2: You know, it's like it reminds me of the planet's
Speaker 2: surface and Planet of the Vampires.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, And these these dolls are a horror creation.
Speaker 3: I mean, I think it's it's supposed to be a
Speaker 3: bad dream. Even though she is she does want doll.
Speaker 3: These are evil dolls that encourage wickedness, and we see
Speaker 3: them dance around a lot. They do like a doll
Speaker 3: ghoul ballet in the fog. And then the argument begins
Speaker 3: with this dull, puppet faced figure who screeches in this
Speaker 3: evil witch voice.
Speaker 2: Total Babba Yaga voice.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, bobbi ya exactly Bobby Yaga. She's like, you
Speaker 3: must steal us all Lupita, and Lupita says no because
Speaker 3: I do not want to steal, but you must learn
Speaker 3: to steal. No, because stealing is bad and I want
Speaker 3: to be good. We dolls only like girls who steal. No,
Speaker 3: to steal would be evil, and I do not want
Speaker 3: to be evil. You must be evil if you want
Speaker 3: the doll. And it just goes on and on, back
Speaker 3: and forth. I don't know this. This is one of
Speaker 3: my favorite parts of the movie. I can't quite explain
Speaker 3: how funny and good the energy of this back and
Speaker 3: forth is. But it's peak Santa Claus.
Speaker 2: Just a real hard sell for evil. Again. It's like
Speaker 2: it's like a timeshare situation going on here.
Speaker 3: The more you steal, the more you save.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: But eventually Lupita wakes up distressed and she's comforted by
Speaker 3: her mother. Now we check in on some of the
Speaker 3: other kids we saw earlier, the three little boys who
Speaker 3: broke the window at the store. They are once again.
Speaker 3: They come under the surveillance of Santa's sophisticated magical equipment,
Speaker 3: and they're talking about how they plan to do more crimes.
Speaker 3: And they also say they plan to write letters to
Speaker 3: Santa Claus claiming that they have been as good as
Speaker 3: angels all year, and Santa will never know the difference
Speaker 3: because he is far away and old, and Santa starts
Speaker 3: getting really offended. He's like, I'm not old. The devil
Speaker 3: is older than me. But obviously you know Santa, he
Speaker 3: knows everything, so he's not going to be fooled by
Speaker 3: these rascals. He understands what they're up to, and their
Speaker 3: letter letters will not trick him.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 3: And then there's a scene of children all around the
Speaker 3: world writing letters to Santa asking for what they want most,
Speaker 3: and these letters are sorted at the post office. Uh,
Speaker 3: the letters to Santa, Like they put them all in
Speaker 3: a pile and then dump them into the furnace in
Speaker 3: the post office. But then by magic, instead of falling
Speaker 3: into the fire, they get sucked up through the chimney
Speaker 3: and out into outer space, where they funnel into Santa's
Speaker 3: crystal palace and then rain down on Santa out of
Speaker 3: a hole in the wall. And Santa seems to get
Speaker 3: real pleasure from being buried under all these letters.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, it's a terrific scene. It's just like it's
Speaker 2: just raining raining letters from the children on him, and
Speaker 2: he's just ah, it's amazing.
Speaker 3: He's literally rolling in the mail, like wallowing in it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's kind of like any It's it's like a
Speaker 2: danger diabolic except with the money on the bed. It's
Speaker 2: it's children's letters to say on the floor.
Speaker 3: So he like looks at some of these letters. There's
Speaker 3: a funny moment where he starts reading one of these
Speaker 3: letters and it's from a kid who asks for too
Speaker 3: many things, including like a nuclear laboratory.
Speaker 2: I think uh.
Speaker 3: And then there are also children who tell falsehoods in
Speaker 3: their notes, and they they have their letters deposited into
Speaker 3: the liar's box. And then there's another thing where children
Speaker 3: who ask for a young younger sibling, they have their
Speaker 3: notes handed off to the stork. But anyway, Christmas Eve
Speaker 3: is almost here, so Santa makes a big speech to
Speaker 3: his helpers, telling them, Okay, we got to put the
Speaker 3: effort in. It's almost time. It's you know, we got
Speaker 3: a big show coming. You know, we really got to
Speaker 3: push it to the finish line. And then we get
Speaker 3: the introduction of Merlin. Yes, yes, Merlin, it's time for Merlin.
Speaker 3: As I said earlier, he's part alchemist, part Archimedes inventor,
Speaker 3: part sorcerer and magician. They you know, he's sort of
Speaker 3: John Dee a little bit. And there there is some
Speaker 3: real occult imagery in his office.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's like a pentagram of sorts above the above
Speaker 2: the hearth. There's also some sort of a goat's head
Speaker 2: above the hearth, and then just again, so many beakers
Speaker 2: of smoking liquids and infuming liquids and tubes. Also you know,
Speaker 2: astronomical looking artifacts as well. It's quite a set.
Speaker 3: The narrator tells us that Merlin is Santa's most devoted ally,
Speaker 3: though he is a bit absent minded. And when we
Speaker 3: first meet him, he tells us he's busy grinding up
Speaker 3: rainbows in his mortar and pestle, and then he's going
Speaker 3: to reveal to Santa the secret of the magic stardust.
Speaker 3: And one of the ingredients he lists is plutonium, another
Speaker 3: is pollen from moonflowers, and dust from butterfly wings, and
Speaker 3: we see him like fiddling around with this giant, you know,
Speaker 3: almost man eating sized flower. Also I noticed a little
Speaker 3: we get one long distant shot where you can see
Speaker 3: Merlin's feet and he's got shoes with those curled up
Speaker 3: pointy toes.
Speaker 2: Oh, of course he does.
Speaker 3: Anyway, Merlin mixes up the magic stardust in an urn
Speaker 3: over a Bunsen burner, and then he pours it off
Speaker 3: into Santa's magic wizard bag. So Merlin, as we said earlier.
Speaker 3: He's basically the source of all of Santa's batman gadgets
Speaker 3: other equipment in addition to the Stardust includes one of
Speaker 3: my favorites, the flower to Disappear. This is a flower
Speaker 3: that's Santa claus can sniff to become invisible or also
Speaker 3: to teleport.
Speaker 2: I think it's a little unclear if he is becoming
Speaker 2: invisible and then walking away and going where he needs
Speaker 2: to go, or if yeah, he vanishes and teleports to
Speaker 2: wherever he needs to go. Either way tremendous effect.
Speaker 3: Onto the next weird ally of Santa's the Master Blacksmith
Speaker 3: or key maker of the Palace. This is the guy
Speaker 3: who you identified as he faced Us or Vulcan. He's
Speaker 3: hammering on his divine anvil. He's got a bunch of
Speaker 3: strange metal implements all throughout the room, and a big
Speaker 3: fire and hammers and tongs and all that stuff. And
Speaker 3: here he oh he also, I don't know, like he's
Speaker 3: got a chest hair on his chest. That is the
Speaker 3: fakest movie chest hair I've ever seen. It's like an
Speaker 3: arrow of hair. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And again, if you've only seen the MST three
Speaker 2: K version of this film, you've missed this segment entirely.
Speaker 3: So here Santa Claus gets the quote the Golden key
Speaker 3: that opens all doors. He gives it a test run.
Speaker 3: It opens doors by like creating an electrical arc with them,
Speaker 3: and he's like laughing as he tests it out. He's like,
Speaker 3: I will get through any door now.
Speaker 2: And then in fact, they do a test run on
Speaker 2: multiple doors.
Speaker 3: Yes, they do. Yes. And then the next thing is,
Speaker 3: this is so strange Santa is using I think this
Speaker 3: is supposed to be a joke about some like nineteen
Speaker 3: fifties gimmick weight loss devices. Santa is using some machine
Speaker 3: that looks like it's like mechanic running a sander belt
Speaker 3: over his belly, and it looks like a thing that
Speaker 3: would really like be sold by Catalog in the fifties,
Speaker 3: claiming to melt off the pounds.
Speaker 2: I feel like I've seen this device so many times
Speaker 2: in the past, in like Looneytoons cartoons perhaps, you know,
Speaker 2: or maybe old timey television, to where I don't even
Speaker 2: think about it when I see it because it's so
Speaker 2: it's so established. And again probably old cartoons or old
Speaker 2: TV shows. But again, you know, Santa likes his tech.
Speaker 3: He does yeah, yeah, and he claims that it works.
Speaker 3: He claims that before he before he used it, he
Speaker 3: couldn't fit down chimneys anymore. But then he tests out
Speaker 3: a chimney in his gym, I guess in the palace,
Speaker 3: and he's like, yep, I fit down now. So the
Speaker 3: next thing is we check out Santa's reindeer. And I'm
Speaker 3: sorry I have to keep emphasizing the creepiness of various elements,
Speaker 3: like the robot Santa Claus in the department store, but
Speaker 3: this is another one of these mechanical creatures that are
Speaker 3: just like a soulless virus from hell. Things are horrifying.
Speaker 3: When they start moving their jaws, I think they have
Speaker 3: yellow eyes, and oh boy, they're creepy.
Speaker 2: They I think they laugh. I'm not sure if there
Speaker 2: is like a laughing sequence. And then we were told
Speaker 2: additional facts about them that do not make them seem
Speaker 2: less creepy. I can't stress enough that the mechanical reindeer
Speaker 2: here eat food made from clouds, and sunlight will turn
Speaker 2: them to dust, like if Santa's not back in one
Speaker 2: night like he's supposed to be, the light of the
Speaker 2: sun will just turn these things into powder.
Speaker 3: Yeah, This is part of a longer conversation about the
Speaker 3: consequences of Santa knot returning on time. So Santa says
Speaker 3: that if he can't make it back by morning. First
Speaker 3: of all, he would not survive on Earth because he
Speaker 3: is used to a diet of crystal palace food, which
Speaker 3: is made up of pastries and ice cream made of clouds.
Speaker 3: And he says, on Earth they eat plants, animals, everything
Speaker 3: in sight, even smoke and alcohol and pedro gasps when
Speaker 3: he says this, but the implication is that Santa cannot
Speaker 3: eat such things and would starve to death on planet Earth.
Speaker 3: And so and his reindeer, if the sun comes up
Speaker 3: on them, they will turn to dust and he won't
Speaker 3: be able to come back. So he's got to be
Speaker 3: back by sunriser. He will die.
Speaker 2: Yeah, again, I don't think it's a great sign when
Speaker 2: you're strange automatons are destroyed by sunlight. I don't know
Speaker 2: that it seems like a red flag for any kind
Speaker 2: of supernatural entity, but against Santa is a special case.
Speaker 3: I guess well, one of his hinch children does suggest
Speaker 3: replacing them. While he's like getting the sleigh out, the
Speaker 3: Russian child comes up and I think says something in Russian,
Speaker 3: but we are to understand that he has suggested that
Speaker 3: Santa replace his sleigh with sputnik topical.
Speaker 2: What if you just replaced the reindeer with sputniks and
Speaker 2: he had, like, you know, a dozen sputniks pulling the
Speaker 2: slide through the sky. That could be kind of cute.
Speaker 3: So Santa he's like, yeah, nice suggestion, but he can't
Speaker 3: replace his white reindeer. They are too precious to.
Speaker 2: Him, clearly.
Speaker 3: So Santa's helpers come. They load up the sleigh with
Speaker 3: gifts for all the children of the world. And as
Speaker 3: Santa is leaving his palace after he winding up his
Speaker 3: mechanical reindeer with a key, he asks that Jesus, the
Speaker 3: Son of God, join him on Earth so that all
Speaker 3: may have joy and goodwill. And then we see him
Speaker 3: flying through space to Earth, and there's a moment where
Speaker 3: the narrator lets us know, like, whew, that was close.
Speaker 3: He almost ran into the moon.
Speaker 2: That that feels like this is Murray just getting in
Speaker 2: some extra fun with the narration, you know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't know if that's in the original. But
Speaker 3: down on Earth we check in with first of all,
Speaker 3: the little rich boy whose parents tuck him into bed
Speaker 3: and then go out on a date. It's Christmas Eve,
Speaker 3: but they're like going out to a restaurant. I mean,
Speaker 3: I guess that's the thing some people do. I don't know,
Speaker 3: but he goes out. Obviously, the little boy wishes that
Speaker 3: his parents would stay home with him, but his mother
Speaker 3: tells him that if he gets bored, he can go
Speaker 3: practice his piano lessons.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, kids love that.
Speaker 3: And then we also check in with the three bad
Speaker 3: boys from earlier. They are discussing a plan to capture
Speaker 3: and enslave Santa Claus so that all of his toys
Speaker 3: and powers would become there. So these are power hungry children.
Speaker 2: These are bad kids.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Then there's also oh I mentioned earlier that there
Speaker 3: are like these surprisingly tender scenes with Lupita and her mother.
Speaker 3: One of them comes up here, and this is, you know,
Speaker 3: the one that addresses the central question. Lupita asks questions
Speaker 3: about Santa Claus, and she wonders if Santa doesn't like
Speaker 3: her because he has never brought her a doll. And
Speaker 3: Lupita's mother is trapped because she can't explain the real
Speaker 3: reason Lupita has never gotten a doll, which is that
Speaker 3: they can't afford it without spoiling, you know, belief in
Speaker 3: Santa Claus. But she doesn't want Lupita to think that
Speaker 3: Santa doesn't like her or believes her to be a
Speaker 3: wicked child. And you can just see the desperation on
Speaker 3: her mother's face. She's in a bind, so she just
Speaker 3: she says they can pray for it, and she tells
Speaker 3: the story of how Christmas is about commemorating the birth
Speaker 3: of Jesus, who was even poorer than they are, And
Speaker 3: then Lupita decides that she will ask Santa for two
Speaker 3: dollies and if she gets them, she will give one
Speaker 3: to little Jesus, and amidst all of the weird stuff
Speaker 3: going on, this sort of complex situation really does grab
Speaker 3: the heartstrings and like asks weird, hard questions about the world.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it almost feels like it belongs in another movie
Speaker 2: in which Santa is not clearly real. Yeah. Yeah, it
Speaker 2: always it throws everything out of line when Santa is real.
Speaker 2: It's kind of like watching ted Lasso. Eventually, it is
Speaker 2: revealed that in the ted Lasso universe, Santa Claus is real,
Speaker 2: which raises all sorts of questions about everything else that
Speaker 2: happens in that tvcer, like, what else is real? Santa's real?
Speaker 2: We've opened the gate ted last tho, what's what else
Speaker 2: is out there?
Speaker 3: Good question?
Speaker 2: All right?
Speaker 3: So meanwhile we've got Santa arriving on Earth. Pitch has
Speaker 3: been hanging out on Earth waiting for Santa to get
Speaker 3: here so he can, you know, play tricks on him.
Speaker 3: And Pitch is cold. He doesn't like Earth because you know,
Speaker 3: he wants his brimstone pits where it's hot. And this
Speaker 3: begins the sort of trick or treat section of the movie.
Speaker 3: For a while, we just watch Santa going around to
Speaker 3: various houses. He's doing his business delivering toys, and along
Speaker 3: the way, Pitch is playing pranks on him and trying
Speaker 3: to harm Santa. So, for example, one house, Pitch moves
Speaker 3: the chimney out of the way so Santa won't be
Speaker 3: able to get inside. I have questions about the mechanics
Speaker 3: of this, but Santa gets around this by jumping down
Speaker 3: to ground level using his magic parasol and then just
Speaker 3: going through the door. And in this house, some children
Speaker 3: wake up and they sneak out to get a glimpse
Speaker 3: of Santa. But Santa throws Merlin's magic sedative dust at them,
Speaker 3: and it makes them go back to sleep. In fact,
Speaker 3: not just go back to sleep, it makes them collapse
Speaker 3: face down on their blankets. So it's strong stuff.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, essentially, you have two entities here that
Speaker 2: each have like Infinity Stone level powers, but the nature
Speaker 2: of their attacks are fairly whimsical.
Speaker 3: Yes. At the next house, Pitch comes up with a plan.
Speaker 3: He says he's going to immolate Santa Claus with a
Speaker 3: blast of fire from the fireplace as he's coming down
Speaker 3: the chimney. Fortunately, Santa only gets a bit scorched on
Speaker 3: the haunches. He's still alive. But since Santa can't come
Speaker 3: down the chimney, he goes down and again comes in
Speaker 3: through the front door. And here Pitch pulls a home
Speaker 3: alone and uses his demon breath to heat up the
Speaker 3: door knob until it glows red. But Santa outwits the
Speaker 3: devil again. Instead of going through the front door, he
Speaker 3: sneaks in through a window, sneaks in behind Pitch, and
Speaker 3: then shoots Pitch in the buttocks with a toy cannon
Speaker 3: that launches darts. Is this a real toy Santa? I question?
Speaker 3: What you were giving to the children.
Speaker 2: I mean, this was nineteen fifty nine, so it's sam
Speaker 2: maybe so, but it does seem extraordinarily dangerous. But the
Speaker 2: real lesson is you can't home alone. Santa Claus, he
Speaker 2: will always out home alone, you like he practically invented
Speaker 2: home aloneing.
Speaker 3: Yes, he does usually get the better of Pitch, though
Speaker 3: there is one scene coming up where Pitch will at
Speaker 3: least temporarily get the better of him. We'll get to
Speaker 3: that in just a minute. So next we check in
Speaker 3: on the good little rich boy. You know, he's home alone.
Speaker 3: His parents are out a clubbing. They're out going to
Speaker 3: the night club and the restaurants, and he wanders around
Speaker 3: the halls of his big house lonely, and the narrator
Speaker 3: tells us that even though he has all the toys
Speaker 3: he could ever dream of, he's poor at heart because
Speaker 3: he doesn't have his parents home with him. And Santa
Speaker 3: he like falls asleep in a chair, and then Santa
Speaker 3: causes the little boy to quote awaken while he is
Speaker 3: dreaming whoh and he explains that the boy's parents love him,
Speaker 3: even though he and his parents don't understand each other.
Speaker 3: Then we cut to the little rich boy's parents out
Speaker 3: at a fancy restaurant. Again this is like, I guess
Speaker 3: supposed to be midnight on Christmas Eve, and we see
Speaker 3: a disembodied hand bring a tray over to their table
Speaker 3: with two cocktails on the tray, and the cocktails are
Speaker 3: emitting some kind of gas or fog, and the mother says,
Speaker 3: that's a strange cocktail. And then the waiter says, in
Speaker 3: Santa voice, it is the cocktail of remembrance, which only
Speaker 3: I can prepare. Whoever drinks it will think of that
Speaker 3: which is most dear, and which, at times, for some
Speaker 3: unknown reason, we seem to forget. And then the waiter
Speaker 3: gives a speech about how the greatest reward for giving
Speaker 3: love is love itself and then concludes with so drink
Speaker 3: my cocktail and you will become aware of that love
Speaker 3: which is closest to your hearts. And the mother says,
Speaker 3: and those without love, he says, they couldn't drink this
Speaker 3: cocktail as it would burn in their throats. So he's
Speaker 3: doing a great job of upselling it. And then they
Speaker 3: just like grab the glasses and have a little chug.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, it's only a little different than any
Speaker 2: other cocktail.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and so they're like, oh, wow, wait a minute,
Speaker 3: I want to be home with our child, and they
Speaker 3: have the sudden urge to go home and see their son,
Speaker 3: who is finally revealed is named Billy. I think this
Speaker 3: is the first time we hear his name, so they
Speaker 3: go home to him. Up next more tricks. Pitch, first
Speaker 3: of all, convinces the three naughty little boys who wanted
Speaker 3: to capture Santa Claus to injure him with a trip wire,
Speaker 3: but they fail at this. Santa I can't tell exactly
Speaker 3: what he sort of like hits them with a stun grenade,
Speaker 3: like some kind of bright flash goes off around them,
Speaker 3: and they are I don't know, they fail at trying
Speaker 3: to trip him. But then right after this, they're like, oh,
Speaker 3: that was Santa, so he's been here. Let's go see
Speaker 3: what toys he brought us. And they each get an
Speaker 3: old chew and you know, because they're not going to
Speaker 3: get anything because they've been bad, and Pitch then tricks
Speaker 3: them into fighting each other and at least here's one
Speaker 3: win for Pitch. He says, Lucifer will be very pleased
Speaker 3: at the way they are fighting.
Speaker 2: I like this scene too. This is another one of
Speaker 2: those scenes where I feel like, I think the music
Speaker 2: gets a little creepier, and yeah, it's like it shows that,
Speaker 2: you like, the devil doesn't really have any favorites, and
Speaker 2: when he's done with you, he's just going to use
Speaker 2: you against each other. All he wants is your misery.
Speaker 2: And so some nice villain work here from Pitch.
Speaker 3: So after this, Pitch tries to steal Santa's sleigh, but
Speaker 3: that doesn't work. I think Santa has like some biometric
Speaker 3: security protocols in place, so Pitch can't make the reindeer go.
Speaker 3: But even though he can't steal the sleigh, he still
Speaker 3: causes more mischief. He manages to puncture Santa's wizard bag
Speaker 3: so all of the magic powder leaks out, so now
Speaker 3: Santa can't put anyone to sleep, and he also causes
Speaker 3: Santa to drop the flower to disappear. The next house
Speaker 3: Santa is going in through, you know, he's going It's
Speaker 3: like a big mansion and a compound. And Santa goes
Speaker 3: in through the gate and he is attacked by a
Speaker 3: guard dog. And at first he's like, oh, this will
Speaker 3: be fine, I will use my Merlin tools, but he
Speaker 3: doesn't have any you know, his powder's all gone, his
Speaker 3: flower to disappear is gone, so he has no choice
Speaker 3: but to climb a tree and hide from the dog.
Speaker 3: And the dog is at the base of the tree
Speaker 3: barking at him. So he's just stuck there and the
Speaker 3: devil taunts him. Pitch explains that he will cause mischief
Speaker 3: by speaking to people through their imagination while Santa is
Speaker 3: stuck there in the tree. And then I laugh out loud.
Speaker 3: Moment for me is Santa in the tree yelling to
Speaker 3: the sky Merlin, keey man.
Speaker 2: This sequence is great because on one hand, it's just
Speaker 2: so ridiculous We've built up to the point in this
Speaker 2: movie where Santa is treed by a dog. Yeah, and
Speaker 2: all Christmas is threatened because of it. And yet at
Speaker 2: the same time, it's kind of interesting, and we have
Speaker 2: this kind of close proximity between Santa and God and
Speaker 2: this film the Christian God and yes, and here he
Speaker 2: is stuck up in a tree, almost kind of an
Speaker 2: odentic figure in the same way you know that Odin
Speaker 2: dies in the Great World Tree and you know, reminds
Speaker 2: us a little bit of certain things in Christian iconography
Speaker 2: as well, though not necessarily in an intentional way, But
Speaker 2: if you really want to read a lot into it,
Speaker 2: perhaps you could play with that idea.
Speaker 3: That Santa is being crucified upon the tree.
Speaker 2: But yeah, whilst the devil mocks.
Speaker 3: Him, Yes, exactly. So Pitch gets up to all kinds
Speaker 3: of trouble while Santa is stuck. He goes inside and
Speaker 3: convinces the family that there is an assassin outside in
Speaker 3: the tree, and so all the family they get woken
Speaker 3: up and start gathering weapons. That the father in the
Speaker 3: family is hilariously cowardly. He also, Pitch contrives to have
Speaker 3: all of the police and fire department summoned. Like, he
Speaker 3: calls up the fire department and and causes flames to
Speaker 3: come out of the speaker of the phone at the
Speaker 3: fire department end, so they're like, wow, that place must
Speaker 3: really be on fire, so they're going to send a
Speaker 3: fire engine. Meanwhile, at Lupita's home, Pitch goes there and
Speaker 3: whispers despair into the ear of sleeping Lupita. He says,
Speaker 3: you'll never get a doll, you'll never get anything you want.
Speaker 3: Santa has abandoned you, and then the last line of
Speaker 3: his speech is you are poor. Then back at the
Speaker 3: house where Santa is stuck the police and the fire
Speaker 3: department around the way. We hear the sirens coming, and
Speaker 3: the whole family has woken up and armed themselves, and
Speaker 3: they're going outside to investigate, and the devil taunts Santa,
Speaker 3: telling him that he will be caught by the police,
Speaker 3: trapped on Earth, unable to fly back to space, and
Speaker 3: that in this state he will starve to death, and
Speaker 3: his reindeer will turn to dust, and Satan will rule
Speaker 3: the planet Earth.
Speaker 2: And now how does that last part? That's a line
Speaker 2: in the film where I feel like, whoa, There's a
Speaker 2: lot more on the line here than I thought.
Speaker 3: But in the end, Santa's prayers are answered. Pedro and
Speaker 3: Merlin come to the rescue. Pedro figures out what is happening.
Speaker 3: As usual, he's the one on the ball, he's the
Speaker 3: you know, he's the chief of staff. He gets everything fixed.
Speaker 3: So he gets Merlin to come to the observatory, and
Speaker 3: then they communicate with Merlin by like Merlin communicates with
Speaker 3: Santa Claus by talking into a microphone, and Santa communicates
Speaker 3: with Merlin just by shouting into the sky. So he says,
Speaker 3: they've got me in a tree. Merlin, I dropped to
Speaker 3: the flower to disappear, and also the powder for dreaming.
Speaker 3: And now this beast won't let me down. All of
Speaker 3: this prepared by mister Pitch. So it looks like Santa's
Speaker 3: goose is cooked. You know, the police are coming. How's
Speaker 3: he going to get out of this jam? Well, Merlin
Speaker 3: thinks up a clever idea. Merlin's thinking, how do you
Speaker 3: stop a mad dog? And he has an ingenious solution.
Speaker 3: He says, a cat. So he convinces Santa to distract
Speaker 3: the dog with a wind up toy cat from his
Speaker 3: bag of gifts, and Santa does this. The police arrive.
Speaker 3: The heavily armed family there outside. They get sprayed but
Speaker 3: with water by the fire department, which is fire department
Speaker 3: seems fairly bumbling. The firefighters are going around trying to
Speaker 3: find the fire, and eventually they do come upon a
Speaker 3: cloud of smoke and they spray it with their hose.
Speaker 3: But of course the smoke is just coming off of
Speaker 3: Pitch because he's a devil, and I guess sometimes he
Speaker 3: emits smoke and he gets drenched too.
Speaker 2: Serves him right, serves him right, for all this despair
Speaker 2: he's trying to spread.
Speaker 3: But Santa has escaped, and you know, so Merlin tells him,
Speaker 3: you're out of time. You've got to come back to
Speaker 3: the Crystal Palace at once. The sun's about to come up,
Speaker 3: but no, Santa says he has one more friend to
Speaker 3: visit before he leaves Earth, and then he shouts at
Speaker 3: the sky to Merlin, I'll see you later if possible.
Speaker 3: Who's it going to be? Of course it is the
Speaker 3: most perfect child who ever lived, Lepita. And so somehow
Speaker 3: the Flower to Disappear has fallen into Lupita's house and
Speaker 3: we see Lupita's in bed. Her father comes home. Lupita's
Speaker 3: mother lets him inside and she says, did you find
Speaker 3: any work? And he's dejected and he says, nothing, my dear, nothing,
Speaker 3: And I like, on one hand the scene is like
Speaker 3: there's great pathos and it works, but on the other hand,
Speaker 3: it's like, wait, he was out looking for work in
Speaker 3: the dark before sunrise on Christmas Day.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, they're kind of laying it on a bit
Speaker 2: thick perhaps.
Speaker 3: But Lupita wakes up. She tells her mother that she
Speaker 3: has dreamed of Santa Claus, that he left her a
Speaker 3: dolly out on the patio, and her mother tells her
Speaker 3: go back to sleep, but Lupita goes to check and
Speaker 3: there it is. There really is a doll, and it's huge.
Speaker 3: It's like almost the same size as Lupita, and Lupita's
Speaker 3: parents are amazed. Her mother makes the sign of the Cross,
Speaker 3: and Lupita looks out the window and begins praying to
Speaker 3: Santa Claus, and we see the sleigh making the journey
Speaker 3: back through outer space, and the narrator tells us that
Speaker 3: once again Santa Claus returns to his palace from his
Speaker 3: yearly Christmas rounds. He is happy and gay for once
Speaker 3: again he has brought joy to the children of the world,
Speaker 3: and we get a sort of title card at the
Speaker 3: end that said, Blessed are those who believe, for they
Speaker 3: shall see God peace on earth, goodwill toward men, and
Speaker 3: so sidestepping some of the hard issues with magic, as
Speaker 3: we've said, but also it's a sweet ending. And I
Speaker 3: guess what is the last thing we see of Pitch.
Speaker 3: The last thing is he just gets sprayed with water.
Speaker 2: I think, yeah, yeah, there's no scene where he actually
Speaker 2: has to go back to Hell and eat ice cream,
Speaker 2: but you know, he's roundly defeated. It does seem like
Speaker 2: maybe he should have had a little bit more of
Speaker 2: a come upance there than just getting a bit wet
Speaker 2: because he was he was setting up the public murder
Speaker 2: of Santa Claus here.
Speaker 3: That's right. Yeah, and he got really close to having
Speaker 3: Satan rule over the earth.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I mean, I guess it. I mean, you know,
Speaker 2: a lot of authors have explored this. I mean, the
Speaker 2: holidays have their roots and very old traditions that you
Speaker 2: know are about you know, the dying of the earth
Speaker 2: during the winter and the resurgence of the world in
Speaker 2: the springtime, and that this is a threshold you have
Speaker 2: to cross, and you know there's a certain amount of
Speaker 2: sacrifice wound up in all of this, so you know,
Speaker 2: it's not completely out of character, but they do start
Speaker 2: laying on just how dire the situation is right at
Speaker 2: the end where it's like, oh yeah, if Santa goes,
Speaker 2: Satan rules the world, like it's the end of everything.
Speaker 3: And thus concludes the tale of Santa Claus.
Speaker 2: What is the sense of it? Tremendously fun holiday picture
Speaker 2: like I say this and Santa Claus Congress, the Martians
Speaker 2: set the bar. There are other weird holiday films out there,
Speaker 2: but you almost can't consider any of them except in
Speaker 2: comparison to these pictures. Yeah, and I wish we could
Speaker 2: have had a crossover with the two Santas. They're both
Speaker 2: excellent Santa Clauses. Or Dropo versus Pitch. I mean, there's
Speaker 2: so many ways you could go.
Speaker 3: But Dropo wasn't really the villain. What's the villain in
Speaker 3: Santa Claus Congress? The Martians? The guy with the mustache.
Speaker 2: Oh, oh goodness, I forgetting his name.
Speaker 3: I want to say Zoltar or something.
Speaker 2: Bold Ar, something like that, Voldar, Voldar. That's it, Voldarah. Yeah,
Speaker 2: don't forget Winky and chow chim Okay.
Speaker 3: I think that's it for today.
Speaker 2: All Right, we're gonna go ahead and close out this
Speaker 2: holiday episode, but we hope you enjoyed it as much
Speaker 2: as we did. The Santa Claus Conquers The Martian episode
Speaker 2: will also rerun over the next couple of weeks if
Speaker 2: you haven't listened to that one, or if you want
Speaker 2: to listen to it again, if you want to keep
Speaker 2: up with the movies we've covered on Weird House Cinema,
Speaker 2: and in some cases we want to get a hint
Speaker 2: of what's coming up next. We can go over to
Speaker 2: letterbox dot com. It's L E T T E R
Speaker 2: B O x D dot com. We are a weird
Speaker 2: house on there, and we have a nice list prepared
Speaker 2: of all the movies we've covered so far. We're primarily
Speaker 2: a science podcast on Stuff to Blow Your Mind, with
Speaker 2: core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but on Fridays we
Speaker 2: set aside most serious concerns to just talk about a
Speaker 2: weird movie here on Weird House Cinema.
Speaker 3: Here's thanks always to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway.
Speaker 3: If you would like to get in touch with us
Speaker 3: with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest
Speaker 3: a topic for the future, or just to say hello,
Speaker 3: you can email us at contact at stuff to blow
Speaker 3: your Mind dot com.
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For
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