Santa Claus - The Movie

Love this film, Christmas doesn't start in my house til we've watched it, i have this on dvd but rented the blu ray to see if anything had been changed and my sister and i watched it and sat in awe at the picture quality, though not uniform the entire film there were times when this 27yr old film looked clearer and crisper than some week old films!! Saw so much more going on this time round than we'd EVER seen before just made me love it more!!! Well worth a watch and definitely worth watching the blu ray!

I first saw SANTA CLAUS way back in 1985 in the cinema with my older brother and his best friend. I was 12 then. I used to own it on VHS but sold it. I haven't seen it in years. It is a seasonal film, annually shown on TV at Christmas. So, watching it in Spring might seem a bit strange, but I watched it again recently (now aged 37) and there is something about this movie that gives you a nice warm feeling inside, so you can watch it at any time of year and it doesn't matter. As for the cast, DAVID HUDDLESTON is perfect as Santa (in the same way RICHARD ATTENBOROUGH was perfect as Santa in the remake of MIRACLE ON 34TH STREET). JOHN LITHGOW is great as capitalist toymaker tycoon BZ (pronounced Bee-Zee), the late Composer HENRY MANCINI delivers a very good score for the film, which is at times sad, but mostly uplifting, but the real star of the show is DUDLEY MOORE as Patch, the elf with the big ideas. In fact the only sad thing about SANTA CLAUS is Dudley Moore. While not at the peak of his career as he was in Blake Edwards' 10 (1979) or ARTHUR (1981), Moore is still on top form here. It is genuinely tragic to watch him in this movie, and then realize what happened to him nine years later. In 1996 Moore developed an irreversible degenerative brain condition, which slowly robbed him of his motor functions, meaning he could no longer play the piano. Moore would later die from pneumonia in 2002. The extras on the DVD are a by-the-numbers affair: a decent making-of doc and two alternate trailers. In the making-of documentary it is interesting to watch how the slightly ropey special effects were done, and how the animatronic reindeer were built and operated. Of course, if the film was made today, the special effects would be that much better. Still, in closing, SANTA CLAUS is a good movie, at any time of the year.

So I cannot comment but what I saw seemed ok. The usual Santa movie. Don't even know why I put in my list to be honest

This is my favourite ever Christmas Movie. I really think the Santa Claus in this movie is exactly what Santa Claus would be like in real life.

It's just a magical tale, which brings Santa into the real world in a genuine way.

One for all the family. One for Christmas Eve.

The film transfer is great on the blu-ray version. It's nice and detailed. I was annoyed that despite the film being listed as having a 6 track audio master Optimum have decided to be half cocked and only include a stereo track. No true-hd or dts-master audio here (except for the pathe ident at the start of the disk that is). It's a real shame because this is probably the final time the film will be released and nobody will have a chance to hear the original sound mix again now.