Michael Baldwin (Paul Le Mat), working for an unreasonable boss (Mason Adams), is drilling for oil too close to Santa’s workshop. The head elf (Paul Williams) takes Michael’s wife, Claudia (Jaclyn Smith), and their three kids to visit Mr. and Mrs. Claus (Art Carney and June Lockhart) so they can hear about the danger, but no one believes them when they return.
This movie takes me back to the quality television of 1984. You know, that’s not someplace I want to be. What was it about mid-eighties, made-for-TV movies that makes them so easy to recognize, and even easier to discard? Don’t bother dwelling on it. Instead, keep on discarding.
The Night They Saved Christmas is dominated by Jaclyn Smith, who had hung up her halo as one of Charlie’s angels two years earlier. OK, so I’m planning a movie with one of the sex symbols of the era; is it clever to cast her as a mother and set the story in the arctic so you can’t see the curves that made her famous? Ms Smith has always been better known, and appreciated, for her appearance than her acting chops, and rightly so. That doesn’t stop her from giving the best performance in this flick, which should give you an idea of how dire things are.
Am I being too severe? This is a kid’s film, more by default since there’s not much here to interest adults. There’s Santa, the ultimate mom as Mrs. Claus, his elves, a colorful North Pole city, lots of gizmos, flying sleighs, and children in prominent roles. Isn’t that enough? Obviously my answer is no. The segments at the North Pole might be fun for your very young rug rats. Santa’s city is too small, the gadgets aren’t nearly as spectacular as even low budget movies can manage now, and not much happens, but it might be enough for a four-year-old. And you might find some amusement in Paul Williams dressed as an effeminate elf with eye shadow.
Away from Santa, things get bleak, and even the smallest child is going to look for something better to fill his time. Evil oil drilling isn’t any more exciting than benevolent oil drilling, and far too much time is spent dwelling on where to sink the next shaft, in a G-rated way. I’m more familiar with “Sight A” and “Sight B” than anyone ever needs to be. When we’re not part of corporate energy production, we’re stuck with the husband and boss stating their disbelief in anything Claudia and her children have to say. Those kinds of scenes are tricky. Miracle on 34th Street pulled them off, but here it’s just frustrating.
The characters are more of a problem than the story. All scenes with Michael or his boss are unpleasant. Sure, we’re supposed to dislike the corporate executive, but then he should have been evil, not just a jerk. If he was full-out, kids-film evil, then maybe it would make sense for him to tell a man who thinks his spouse and kids have died a horrible death to stop looking for the bodies and get back to work. Snidely Whiplash had better labor relations. But at least we’re not supposed to feel all warm about the boss. We are supposed to like Michael. He ought to be someone we can all feel for, but I wanted Santa’s sleigh to behead him with an extra sharp runner. In any Santa film, the person who doesn’t believe is harder to snuggle up to. So to make up for that, he ought to show extra concern for the people around him, like his wife and kids. Yet, when he believes Claudia and two of his children are freezing to death on the ice, he’s more worried about delivering papers and getting the drilling operation going at “Sight A.” I recall that finding new sources of oil was a pretty big deal in the mid-eighties, but not this big. He doesn’t even argue against setting off a huge explosion in an area where is family could be effected (or blown to bits). He only calls off the blast when his other crew strikes oil. That’s cold.
The Night They Saved Christmas wants to be cute, family entertainment, but the cuteness is stale, and the family is broken and unpleasant. There’s better ways to find Christmas cheer.