If you're looking for something that really scrapes the bottom of the Christmas barrel, you could scarcely do worse than the immortal "Santa Claus Conquers the Martians" (1964), which used to pollute neighborhood theaters annually as a kiddie matinee during the 1960s. I was among the millions of innocent kids taken to see this when I was a toddler, and it's a miracle I ever set foot in a theater again.
"Martians" tells a warped tale of lonely Martian youth who seem to be growing up in the Valley of the Dolls. All their meals come in pill form and "sleep spray" is used to help them get their rest. When the young ones appear even more lifeless than usual, Kimar (Leonard Hicks, who intones each line with such seriousness you'd think he was doing Shakespeare), the Martian leader, embarks on a trip to Earth to kidnap Santa Claus (John Call, who staggers around as if Santa has been chugging a little too much pre-holiday eggnog).
A trip to another world would probably be a welcome change of season for Santa, since Mrs. Claus comes off as an old scold ("Go finish painting those hobby horses!" she barks at Santa), while Santa himself seems a bit, shall we say, out of it, promising a TV reporter he'll be using his reindeer "Prancer, and Dancer, and Donder, and Blitzen, and Vixen and Nixon" to make the annual deliveries. "Wowee wow!" the intrepid journalist responds.
Santa is eventually spirited away to Mars, along with Earth kids Betty and Billy, who sound like they came straight outta Newark. In her film debut, Pia Zadora plays a cute little Martian girl with the same vacant stare and expressionless line readings that would become her trademark in her performances as the world's most vapid sex kitten in movies like "Butterfly" and the infamous "The Lonely Lady."
Although the title would seem to promise a rousing battle between Saint Nick and the space invaders, excitement turns out to be in short supply. Santa eventually "conquers" Mars by teaching everyone Christmas carols and opening a toy factory on the Red Planet. There's also a disturbingly perky theme song, "Hooray For Santa Claus," which goes "Hoo-ray for Santy Claus/Yea yea for Santy Claus/. . .When we hear sleigh bells ring/Our hearts go ting-a-ling!" Oh yeah, I got your ting-a-ling right here, buddy. . .
It's all about as heartwarming as a documentary about reconstructive bowel surgery, a procedure you may need should you choose to sit through all 82 minutes of "Santa Claus Conquers the Martians." James Sanford
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews