S–A–N–T–A!
C–L–A–U–S!
Hooray for Santy Claus! You spell it
S–A–N–T–A!
CL–A–U–S!
Hooray for Santy Claus! Yah Yah for Santy Claus!
He’s fat and round, but jumpin’ jiminy,
He can climb down any chim-i-ney!
When we hear sleigh bells ring,
Our hearts go ding-a-ling!
Cause there’ll be presents under the tree!
Hooray for Santy Claus!
Now all year long at the North Pole,
He’s busy making toys!
But he knows just what you’re doing,
So you better be good girls and boys!
Hang up that mistletoe!
Soon you’ll hear ‘Ho! Ho! Ho!’
On Christmas Day you’ll wake up and you’ll say,
Hooray for Santy Claus!

Come on…it’s not that bad and you know it. Kino Classics has released public domain favorite, Santa Claus Conquers the Martians: Special Edition, the 1964 Saturday matinee/TV Christmas cult classic from Joseph E. Levine’s Embassy Pictures, starring John Call, Leonard Hicks, Vincent Beck, Bill McCutcheon, and little Pia Zadora in her first of many horrible movies. A TV staple at Christmas time for years and years before it was suddenly “discovered” by MST3K, Santa Claus Conquers the Martians has acquired genuine cult status as “one of the worst movies of all time,” a label that’s easy to lob at it…but one it doesn’t really deserve. Kino scores a pretty nice print of the movie here, adding in a fun bonus of archival movie theatre Christmas greetings, commercials, and Christmas-themed cartoons. A perfect stocking stuffer for the kids or someone you hate…or both.

 The North Pole, 1964. KID-TV reporter Andy Henderson (Ned Wertimer) is interviewing Santa Claus (John Call) on the status of this year’s Christmas schedule. Santa shows Andy a few new toys, including a Martian doll, drunkenly calls one of his reindeer “Nixon,” and introduces Mrs. Claus (Doris Rich), who squeals and runs off camera when she discovers she’s on TV. Meanwhile, on the cold, distant planet Mars, cool, calculating eyes watch this transmission from Earth TV and wonder. Children Bomar and Girmar (Chris Month and Pia Zadora) have no idea what a doll is, or what Santa means by giving the doll “tender loving care.” Their lives are strictly regimented; Electronic Teaching Machines are hooked up to the children’s brains at birth, with “play” and “fun” strictly forbidden. Their father, Chief Kimar (Leonard Hicks) blames feel-good Earth TV for “confusing” the children, affecting their sleeping and eating patterns, but he’s convinced by his wife Momar (Leila Martin) to go with the other fathers into the forest and seek out the “Ancient One of Mars,” Chochem (Carl Don). Chochem, sadly reminding them that he saw this coming hundreds of years ago, advises them to get the children a Santa―that’ll fix ’em up. So Kimar, Hargo (Charles Renn), Rigna (James Cahill), and evil Voldar (Vincent Beck) travel to Earth to kidnap Santa, first taking little Billy and Betty (Victor Stiles and Donna Conforti) to make sure they get the real Santa. Voldar wants no part of this plan; he fears contamination from the weak Earthlings, but Kimar prevails and takes Santa and the children to Mars. Luckily, Santa has an ally in lazy, stupid Martian Dropo (Bill McCutcheon), who loves Santa and Christmas, and who wants to help Santa return to Earth.

 No, I don’t think Santa Claus Conquers the Martians is a great movie, or a “misunderstood classic” ignored by critics…but I don’t think it’s one of the 50 worst films of all time, either, as it was labeled by Harry and Michael Medved in their same-named book back in 1978 (I’ll bet Medved, whose books were the main catalyst for a whole sub-industry, gets pissed whenever he reads that MST3K somehow “discovered” celebrating horrible movies…). An easy (and now clichéd) target whenever bad movies are mentioned, Santa Claus Conquers the Martians has traveled well beyond the bounds of movie criticism and into iconographic tokenism. Its very name stands for something now, just like Plan 9 From Outer Space, that’s entirely outside the reality of experiencing it firsthand. You don’t even have to find someone who’s actually watched it to get the standard reaction; as long as they’ve heard of the title, you can mention the name and people will laugh and snort, feeling included in on the joke. While lists of “worst films” compiled by authors like the Medveds, or lampooned and mocked by performers like the MST3K gang, are undeniably fun (I have all of their books, well-thumbed and worn, sitting right above my desk, while treasured VHS tapes of MST3K are neatly boxed up)…they’re about as useful as all those AFI “100 Best…” lists that drive movie lovers crazy. Sure, most viewers are going to agree on a handful of titles on both ends of the spectrum (who isn’t going to say Plan 9 and Gone With the Wind belong on those lists, respectively?), but movie criticism, despite what the semiotics dopes will tell you, is entirely subjective and about as scientific as phrenology. It really does come down to “I liked it,” and “I didn’t like it,” with the level of “seriousness” attributed to the criticism directly proportional to how “fancy” and intellectualized the argument is, or how cleverly written is the review. A lot of critics hate to hear that (especially the ones stupid enough to actually spend money studying it)…but it’s the truth.

 So when critics write that Santa Claus Conquers the Martians is one of the worst movies ever made, I go back to when I was a kid, watching it religiously every Christmas…and I don’t remember it being so bad. Your worst movie pick or the Medveds’ worst movie pick, is someone else’s genuine pleasure, and if the argument in support of it is valid and intellectually and emotionally honest, well, then…your list means nothing. And vice versa. Of course, the time factor is another element that complicates evaluating it (viewing age then and now). Santa Claus Conquers the Martians is a kids movie, after all. The filmmakers may or may not have intended that parents be entertained here, but clearly the focus is on satisfying children. And with any kids movie, you’re automatically compromised as an adult reviewer. How many times have you shown your kids a movie or TV show you loved when you were young, only to have them bail after five minutes…and vice versa, when they’re screaming in laughter at some Nick tween abomination, while you’re looking for the escape hatch? It’s all about viewer context.

 Watching Santa Claus Conquers the Martians again, and this time not just bemusedly as a Christmas ritual, but with the intent of reviewing it, I found it quite…satisfying, strangely. If you want to get really silly, you can even make an argument that serious subtexts can be found in Santa Claus Conquers the Martians (yeah…I wrote that). No one ever mentions that the movie’s director, Nicholas Webster, was no lightweight (very heavy stuff like ABC Close-Up! documentary series, East Side/West Side); it’s not impossible to think that Webster couldn’t have picked up a little on scriptwriter Paul L. Jacobson’s weirdly intertwined concerns: the affects of television on kids, and the Cold War. By 1964, there had been a lot of articles written about the deleterious effects of children watching too much TV; what parent back then didn’t pause as Kimar worriedly states that his kids don’t sleep or eat, and that “their only interest is watching meaningless Earth programs on the video” (Newton Minnow certainly would have agreed)? Have no fear, though, TV lovers; the broadcaster-as-American-patriot reasserts himself when you realize that those little Russian Commie bastards Martian children―cold, calculating, brainwashed, godless little savages who don’t even know how to love a doll for chrissakes―can be saved by a combination of mainstream American values reflected through network television “Earth programs” and a Jesus surrogate Santa Claus, whose laughter and love reaches across geopolitical and ideological boundaries planets.

 0See? I told you “film criticism” was horsesh*t. Anyway, as an adult, you don’t have to make a big deal over enjoying the movie for what it is: just a silly little Christmas movie for kids, no more or less annoying than most (have you ever seen Olive, the Other Reindeer or One Magic Christmas? No? You need to, then, to recalibrate your reading of Santa Claus Conquers the Martians). Most reviewers negatively comment on the movie’s spartan budget, but I find those wonderfully cramped, cheapjack sets fit right in with the movie’s deliberately comic book schematic. That one claustrophobic North Pole shot, and the Chochem forest scene, are actually quite well lit by future The Swimmer and Pretty Poison cinematographer, David L. Quaid; it helps here to see a better sourced print (the colors are fairly vibrant in this transfer, compared to most of the public domain sources I’ve seen that look blown-out and almost black and white, making the movie look even more chintzy…if that’s possible). I always find the solemn intensity of the Chochem scene quite strange in a Christmas movie (you can tell the director really means it), but that’s an anomaly in a movie whose tone is set by what appears to be one totally hammered Santa (I don’t know what’s funnier―John Call’s dirty, mean laugh, or his completely disinterested line reading when asked if Martians exist: “Well who knows,” he sighs, looking down at the floor). The special effects run the gamut from stock footage of U.S.A.F. maneuvers to one shot of Kimar’s rocket that looks like a strawberry burrito with a Bic® lighter stuck in it. It’s certainly fun to see mustachioed Vincent Beck assaulted by all those cool Marx® toys (the scene looks remarkably like all those Monkees episodes he would soon appear in). Best of all…who can resist that crack cocaine speedball of a theme song, from Hoop Dee Doo‘s Milton DeLugg, as it’s shouted in snotty off-key brio by (reportedly) Pia Zadora and some other brats? I read a lot of reviewers saying they can’t stand that insanely catchy theme song…but we know they’re fibbing, don’t we? It’s worth watching the movie just to hear that song, over and over and over again….

1 2The DVD:

The Video:
The full-screen, 1.33:1 transfer for Santa Claus Conquers the Martians looks about as good as I’ve ever seen it. Colors are pretty vivid, the image is sharp, and screen anomalies (scratches, splices, dirt), while heavy at times, aren’t distracting considering what you’re watching.

The Audio:
The English mono audio track is serviceable, with some pops and hiss, but nothing you wouldn’t expect. No subtitles or closed-captions.

The Extras:
Very, very cool. Shout! has gathered together various vintage Christmas-themed footage for Santa’s Cool Holiday Film Festival (they couldn’t call it Santa’s Cool Christmas Film Festival…because what other holiday does Santa link up to???). Included here are Shari Lewis and Lambchop delivering a seasonal message; America’s favorite family The Nelsons shilling for sponsor Eastman Kodak, Max Fleischer’s Christmas Comes But Once a Year and Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer toons are included; a Castle Films Santa short subject from 1950 pops up; Abbott & Costello and driver Charles Laughton plead for Christmas seals; 1951’s Howdy Doody’s Christmas is here; along with various movie theatre Christmas greetings, in color and b&w, from the 50s and 60s. Terrific Christmas nostalgia.

Final Thoughts:
Yes, it’s goofy and bizarre and creepy and annoying at times…but it’s also a movie for kids, and since kids are goofy and bizarre and creepy and annoying at times, it’s a good fit for them this Christmas time. And you might enjoy it, too, if you forget all that jazz about it being one of the worst movies ever made―you can find far worse crap at the multiplexes right now…. I’m highly recommending Shout!’s Santa Claus Conquers the Martians: Special Edition.

Paul Mavis is an internationally published film and television historian, a member of the Online Film Critics Society, and the author of The Espionage Filmography.

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