The Movie at 40 – how a box office flop became a ‘pure panto’ British Christmas staple

It’s December 1985, I’m six years old and I’m sat next to my dad in a small-town cinema in Norfolk. Some might unkindly describe the venue as a fleapit permanently on the brink of closure. Today, though, there’s snow on the ground and magic in the air.

Instead of the usual sparse attendance, the place is packed. It’s already been a legendary festive season for the young cinemagoer: The Goonies and Back to the Future have just been released. But even those Hollywood behemoths have nothing on the excitement that has brought out this record crowd.

We’re crammed together to watch Santa Claus: The Movie, and as the house lights dim there’s a palpable hum. By the time the final credits roll, we’re all true believers. I’m certain I’ve just watched a timeless classic that will take its place in the pantheon of Christmas greats.

Four decades later, six-year-old me might be disappointed. Time and the crushing weight of critical opinion have conspired to prove me painfully wrong. At least in the UK, Santa Claus: The Movie was a massive commercial success, sitting proudly at the top of the box office for all of December and landing as one of the biggest grossing films of the year. The rest of the world? Not so much.

In the US, Santa Claus: The Movie became an infamous flop, failing to make back its hefty production budget. Since I wasn’t a regular subscriber to the New York Times in 1985, I didn’t know that the movie had been panned by Vincent Canby: “elaborate and tacky … It has the manner of a listless musical without any production numbers.” Even in the UK, the critics hardly raved. The Daily Express judged it to be “the kind of film that gives Christmas a bad name”.

The film was even briefly a tabloid sensation when it emerged that ten reindeer had been shot in Norway to provide skins for the animatronic movie versions.

The passing years haven’t done much to moderate critical opinion. When the movie was remastered and briefly re-released in cinemas in 2023, The Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw called it “the filmic equivalent of the uneaten toffee left at the bottom of the Quality Street tin”.

Alonso Durande, author of the definitive guide to festive viewing Have Yourself a Movie Little Christmas, included Santa Claus: The Movie on his list of the worst Christmas movies of all time. He called it “a train-wreck of a Christmas film that’s so very wrong that you won’t be able to tear yourself away from it” – which is, at least, a kind of recommendation.

Even its cast members have added to the pile-on. Anyone who’s seen the movie will recall John Lithgow’s spirited turn as the evil corporate toymaker B.Z. Indeed, even in 1985 he managed to squeeze some begrudging praise out of the otherwise hostile New York Times (“the film’s only remotely stylish performance”). But interviewed by the AV Club in 2019, Lithgow did not have fond festive memories of Santa Claus: The Movie. He described it as “one of the tackiest movies I’d ever been in. It seemed cheesy. It certainly never stuck”.

Except, of course, there was one place that it did stick. Lithgow remains well aware of its popularity in England: “It’s huge over there,” he marvelled, clearly bemused, “it is still, every Christmas”. Apparently, even now British fans routinely approach him to declare their undying love for the film. For Lithgow, rewatching the movie amounts to “a tacky Christmas tradition over there”.

Statistically speaking at least, he’s right. Believe it or not, according to analysis undertaken by The Guardian in 2023, Santa Claus: The Movie holds the title of the most-shown film on UK television at Christmas time, having been screened 21 times since its release. All these years later, despite the derision, Santa Claus: The Movie clings on in the national Christmas consciousness.

Apart from the cumulative effect of repeat screenings, there are undoubtedly other reasons why the film abides in British memories while it’s reviled elsewhere. British cast members abound – and not just the star turn of Dudley Moore as Patch the Elf. Sitcom stalwarts like Judy Cornwell, Don Estelle and Melvyn Hayes help to give proceedings a peculiarly British flavour for a film set largely in New York, and which features notorious product placements for McDonald’s and Coca Cola.
In life as in the film itself, plucky British eccentricity apparently proved more powerful than American corporate might.

I reached out to Alonso Durande to see if he’d had any further thoughts on the movie since he put it on his naughty list. He had this telling insight into the profound Transatlantic split in the movie’s reception: “If there’s one factor that makes this film beloved in the UK and reviled in the US, it’s John Lithgow’s performance; American audiences think they’re watching a distinguished actor go off the rails, but for Brits, he’s pure panto, and just in time for Christmas.”

Pure panto, a peculiar type of British whimsy, an expression of the festive season that’s as distinctive as Christmas pudding and Christmas crackers and all the other trappings of the season that failed to make a Transatlantic translation. Perhaps that is the secret of the UK’s embrace of this unloved Christmas orphan. For us true believers, the idiosyncratic magic of that first viewing in 1985 has never dimmed.

On its 40th anniversary, maybe it’s time for the UK to fully embrace the curious legacy of Santa Claus: The Movie as a fundamental part of our Christmas landscape.

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