The Night They Saved Christmas (1984)

This might be the last holiday movie I remember seeing as a child that we'd yet to get around to. The reason it took so long was, despite remembering a handful of moments and details, I had no idea what this was called. My best guess is that I probably watched this sometime in 1985 or 1986, possibly on VHS at a daycare I went to back then, though any of those details could be wrong.

What's clearer was my reaction to the movie: I remember being mostly bored by the thing. And unfortunately, that assessment holds up pretty well. This TV movie has an obnoxiously slow pace, some awful directing, and very little action. In short, this isn't worth tracking down despite a surprising number of merits.

I'm feeling jolly, so let's run through those first. This uses some solid matte paintings, backdrops, and miniature work to create the North Pole (technically North Pole City, but I said we were going to cover the good stuff first). Actually, that may be selling these features a little short - some of the visuals are reminiscent of those used by Georges Méliès in short fantasy films he created showcasing arctic landscapes. Meanwhile, some of the miniatures reminded me of Edwin S. Porter's 1905 film, The Night Before Christmas. In both cases, the techniques and effects were similar enough I suspect the resemblance may have been intentional. It makes for some neat practical visuals to distract from.... Sorry. Almost forgot we're keeping this section positive.

The movie includes some thoughtful revisions and expansions to the lore surrounding Santa Claus. This tackles several of the typical questions around the time required to deliver the gifts, how he accesses homes, and so on, incorporating a mix of fantasy and science-fiction tropes to deliver semi-plausible explanations. It's similar (though not as developed) to what Arthur Christmas would do a few decades later.

Next up is Santa Claus. The movie casts Art Carney in the role, and he delivers a decent performance. The movie imagines him as somewhat grounded and realistic (or at least as realistic as the premise permits). His introduction is genuinely funny, and a sequence in which he interacts with Claudia (played by Jaclyn Smith, of Charlie's Angels fame), briefly crosses over the line into qualifying as an actually good moment. I like this scene quite a bit, in fact - Santa has to prove he's who he claims, and the movie sidesteps the obvious pitfalls and cliches. She's not chastised for her skepticism (if anything, Santa treats it as a natural, rational reaction), and as he discusses her past the movie gives us a glimpse into the toll that level of knowledge about people would take on a being as ancient and empathetic as Saint Nick.

The only other aspect worth praising is the decision (or perhaps lucky accident - I have no idea how this film came together) to film the non-North Pole scenes on location in northern Alaska in an actual arctic town, rather than using a soundstage or a more picturesque location. The setting grounds the movie and contrasts effectively with the fantasy sequences, which is more than I can say for a lot of films that start with similar premises.

That completes the "nice" list. Before we move on to the outright bad stuff, I do want to mention a couple aspects I found weird but ultimately neutral. The first of these centers on the reindeer - these appear in only a handful of short scenes, and they're created through stop-motion, which is incorporated into live-action shots. On a technical level, it's well executed, though it doesn't look at all believable. I can't imagine it wouldn't have been cheaper to just use actual deer, which makes the whole thing all the more confusing. I assume this was intended as an homage to Rankin/Bass.

Next up is Mrs. Claus, who's played by Hollywood icon June Lockhart. To be fair, this probably could qualify as something good, as she's fine in the role and her presence is certainly impressive. But she's not really given much to do, and her screentime is limited to the point it certainly didn't require an actress of her stature.

Now then, let's move on to the bad stuff, which we can start with a summary of the plot, since that absolutely applies. The story centers around a family where Michael (the father, played by Paul Le Mat) manages oil drills. He's searching for oil near the North Pole, where...

...Okay, let's get this out of the way. I'm not going to make a huge deal about this movie treating the North Pole as if it's on land rather than a floating ice sheet. Likewise, I don't care that this treats the Arctic climate as "sort of cold" in winter, rather than the death trap it actually is. And while it's sort of a pet peeve of mine that these movies almost always fail to depict the northern winters as a season-long extended night, that's not actually a flaw. None of these are - these are setting choices to keep things simple for kids. I don't like those choices, I'd rather they embraced an opportunity to educate kids, and the inaccuracies undermine some halfhearted pro-science themes elsewhere in the film... but I understand the decisions, so we're just going to assume this is set in a universe where all that makes sense and move on.

At any rate, they're using dynamite to search, and so far they're not having much luck. Michael is convinced the oil is somewhere on "Site A," which is relatively far from "North Pole City", but his boss wants them to move to "Site B," which is further north. Soon, Michael is visited by a Christmas elf who tells him he can't keep dynamiting, as it's creating problems for the North Pole. Even worse, if they move to Site B, they could destroy North Pole City and kill Santa Claus. Michael assumes the elf is part of an elaborate prank and brushes him off.

Meanwhile, things aren't great at home. His wife, Claudia, wants to move back to Los Angeles, and she informs him she'll be doing so with the three kids with or without him after the holidays. Michael tells them about the "prank," which his youngest suspects is real. The next day, the elf shows up hoping to bring the entire family to North Pole City, but Michael needs to work. Claudia, despite believing it to be a joke, decides to go along with the kids for fun.

Of course, the elf brings them to the actual North Pole (City), where they meet Santa and witness the threat posed by the dynamite. Santa sends them back with detailed instructions on where to find the oil at Site A, because this thing was made in a decade where the moral couldn't imply corporate profits were bad.

They return home that night and try to convince Michael, but he - due in part to his boss's insistence - believes they were all drugged by a rival oil tycoon. Claudia is disgusted Michael doesn't believe her. Meanwhile, her kids are upset that their dad's job poses an existential threat to Christmas. The older two kids steal a snowmobile and head north to try and warn Santa, and Claudia tracks them down in her plane after they get lost. They're all eventually rescued by Santa's elves, who bring them back to North Pole.

City.

The youngest kid then convinces his dad not to give up on Site A. Against his boss's orders, Michael has his men continue searching Site A, where they eventually find the oil. Then there's a last-minute race to cancel dynamiting at Site B in a failed attempt to wring some suspense out of this. The movie ends with Michael deciding to leave his job and move back to LA with his family. It's a little weird his kids are still eager to leave an area adjacent to Santa's workshop where they presumably have an open invitation, but whatever.

The movie's themes come across as disjointed and watered down. This almost delivers an environmental message, but it undermines that by ensuring the oil is located. If anything, the politics seem to stop at "the environment matters, so make sure to find the sweet spot where neither it nor profits interfere with each other." It's a very '80s moral, I'll grant. Likewise, any themes concerning family, honesty, belief, and the like are muddled and ultimately meaningless. It's one of those movies that sort of mimics having something to say without actually managing to make any kind of coherent point.

I'm not sure that matters all that much, though. Like it or not, theme is really more of a bonus than a determining factor in whether something is enjoyable. The main problem with this movie is the pace, which drags through almost every scene. The movie tries for a serious, realistic tone in an attempt to build a contrast between mundane and magic. I respect the attempt, but without better material, it doesn't work. Far too much of the dialogue sounds like filler.

The kids don't help. Despite structurally being less crucial to the plot than their parents, they filled a lot of the runtime, and it's exhausting. I don't think it was the performers' fault - a great deal of entertainment from the era had child actors focusing on clarity over everything else. This was no exception: for whatever reason, they weren't being directed or taught to focus on believability, so long as they looked sad on cue and spoke loudly and clearly.

There's a surprising amount of good stuff tossed in here, but none of it comes close to redeeming the movie. The good stuff doesn't even really mitigate the bad - there's simply too much of the latter for the occasional interesting backdrop or a handful of solid moments to even register. As a whole, this is a grueling, dull experience you're better off avoiding.