1984, d. Jackie Cooper - Tubi
Airing on ABC in December of 1984, The Night They Saved Christmas is a star-studded (B-tier) affair that sports a reasonably healthy enough budget to permit location shooting and ambitious-for-TV-at-the-time special effects. The result is an exhausting, repetitive and boring film that could have had something to say but chose to say nothing instead.
The film opens with explosions. Ice and snow flying. Michael Baldwin (Paul Le Mat, American Graffiti), working for an oil company, is in the arctic circle dyna-mining for black gold. Site A just isn't producing results, but Michael is certain there's oil there. He's being told by his boss (total 80's "that guy" Mason Adams) to move on to site B. Michael is picked up by his wife, Claudia (Jaclyn Smith, Charlie's Angels) and they argue about their lives. Claudia is ready to pack it all in, tired of moving around the globe time after time, with the three kids, especially the youngest, having a difficult time, not just with the moving, but Michael's absence.
After a tense dinner where the youngest, C.B., tells his parents he hates them and wishes they were dead, Michael returns to work, only to be met by an elf named Ed (Paul Williams, Phantom of the Paradise). Ed tries to convince Michael that all the dynamiting is bad for Christmas Town in the North Pole, that should they proceed with their Site B explosion, it could destroy the city altogether.
Michael thinks it's a practical joke. The next day Ed gives it another shot, this time convincing Claudia and the kids to join him to visit Santa at Christmas Town. Michael thinks they've been kidnapped, victims of corporate espionage. They visit Christmas Town, meet the elves, and ultimately Santa (Art Carney, The Honeymooners), who implores Claudia to tell Michael not to dynamite Site B, but that there's oil in Site A and to focus his attentions there.
Who knew Santa was a Reaganite.
Seriously, I was expecting this to have an environmental message, a message about how our need and dependency on oil has unintended ecological consequences, and that we should really think twice about raping the earth and taking whatever we want for our own greed.
But no, Santa's just an NIMBY. Explore for oil anywhere so long as it doesn't affect me.
All the scenes with Ed, or the elves, or Santa, or Mrs. Clause (June Lockhart, Lost in Space) -- aka Martha (Why'd you say that name!] -- involve the kids asking questions around the practicality of Santa's enterprise, and the film is only too happy to come up with answers. Teleporters, satellite stations, a time-slowing device, etc etc. There's no magic to it, only half-baked science, none of which convincingly explains anything. The most magical scenes in the film are bogged down by tedious exposition. What a waste.
The film circles back to Claudia and the kids trying to convince Michael to no avail, so the next morning the kids take off on snowmobiles to warn Santa. Claudia chases after them in a plane. Michael, once again, is worried about the disappearance of his family. Claudia and the kids are saved by Santa and it's only by deus ex machina that they don't dynamite Site B.
Michael turns down a promotion and quits his job in completely unearned coda to the story. There's no personal growth in this tale at all, and Paul Le Mat couldn't look more bored in the role. Williams as Ed is playing his head elf in a very understated manner, far too placid, while the only real energy comes from the kids - Scott Grimes as David and R.J. Williams as C.B.
I appreciate the Alaskan village shooting location, the fun (if obvious) miniatures, the clunky stop-motion reindeer and the matte paintings of Christmas Town. None of it is particularly convincing, but it's charmingly hand-crafted. If only some of that magic translated into the story being told.
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