This short film from 1951 kicks off our week of holiday posts. Produced and directed by Sid Davis, it's from the "so bad it's good" school of filmmaking and has a school pageant quality to it. The story follows the Fairy Snow Queen who brings Santa's toys to life when he stands her up for a sugar cookie. The amateurish production values and performances are endearing and the quirky quality of the performers give a "Land of the Misfit Toys" feel to the proceedings. I expect it was produced for school assemblies similar to The Winter of the Witch featured earlier on the blog, but without the star power.
This public domain film is available on YouTube thanks to an upload by my friend Michael at XmasFLIX. I don't believe it's even been released on DVD.
Obscurity factor: 10 (Complete oddity, almost totally forgotten, not on DVD)
For total schlock, check out "Santa and the Ice Cream Bunny" (1972). Southern Florida "filmmaker" Barry Mahon, formerly of porn, creates a really horrendous little movie - basically wrapping an earlier production of "Thumbelina" (!!!), with a "story" involving a creepy, sweaty Santa, and giant scary rabbit ......filmed at the old Pirate's World amusement park, notorious for being sued numerous times, due to its Steeplechase Horse ride. It involved big metal horses, moving along a rollercoaster-like track (flat). People sat on top (minus restraints) and held on for their lives (some were lost, if I'm not mistaken).
ReplyDeleteHmmmm, I now want to physically harm toys. I kept picturing Sarah Jessica Parker as the Fairy Princess, for some reason.
ReplyDeleteI'll have to look for that one. It sounds pretty wacky!
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteFound it at Target for $1 Comes on a dvd that boasts 5 hours of Christmas entertainment, the shows producer is pretty interesting to read about, i kinda liked this crazy show, too bad its not a Cmas cult classic!
ReplyDelete