Santa Claus Vs. The Devil (1959)

Yippeeeeeeeee another Santa Movie!

This is NOT my work, kudos to the original uploader tubengagements.



Aside from Santa Claus Conquers the Martians (1964) it's hard to imagine a weirder, more astounding Christmas movie than the 1959 Mexican film, Santa Claus Vs The Devil. Directed by Rene Cardona--the crackpot director responsible for such idiot savant gems as Night of the Bloody Apes and Wrestling Women vs. the Aztec Mummy--the film features a psychotically jovial Santa who battles
the Devil when he isn't spying on sleeping children from an orbiting castle
observatory 'far out in space.'

Near the beginning of the film, we find the portly, irrationally giddy Santa (Jose Elias Moreno) playing with a nativity set, that politically-incorrect rascal,
chuckling as he stuffs bedding material into a miniature manger for the baby Jesus. 'It's almost Christmas', he says to a nearby statue of the Virgin Mary,as if she needed reminding, 'and I must finish the toys for all the good children on
earth! I hope you'll pardon me, but you know I mustn't be late!'

Repairing to a white pipe organ, Santa tickles the ivories as a cheerfully ham-handed narrator (American distributor K. Gordon Murray, billed as 'Ken Smith') describes Toyland as 'a sort of international toy factory,' where 'boys and girls of different races and creeds...come from many lands to help bring joy and happiness to all of the earth's children!' The international tone is emphasized
by Santa's oddly Moorish-looking workshop, which vaguely resembles the
interior of one of Saddam Hussein's abandoned palaces.

Santa's elves apparently have organized and gone on strike, because the only workers in Toyland appear to be children, which suggests that Santa's
workshop is either exempt from international child labor agreements or is
outside their jurisdiction, being technically off-planet.

Released in 'Mexiscope': Rene Cardona's amazing Mexican cult classic, 'Santa Claus' (1959) As Santa plays a medley of generic holiday tunes, the children of each representative nation take a moment out of their toy-making duties to sing mournfully tuneless ballads in their native tongues. Notable are the Mexican children, one of whom polishes a rifle while he sings. The most
hilariously shocking, though, are 'the little helpers from Africa', as the narrator calls them, who dance to bongo drums while dressed in animal skins with bones woven into their hair (as opposed to through their noses?).

I swear, I'm not making this up.

In hell, where everything is red, a horned devil named Pitch (Jose Luis Aguirre 'Trotsky') frolics among the burning fires of eternal damnation. Pitch isn't Satan himself, but rather one of a cadre of devils who apparently join together from time to time to do musical numbers among the bubbling magma. Lucifer doesn't
enjoy the choreography any more than we do, though, for he quickly orders the sissy demons to stop with the Busby Berkeley: 'I, Lucifer, king of Hades, command you to stop and disappear! Begone, all of you! Except for Pitch.' In spite of his over-sized plastic ears and greasy red complexion, Pitch is Lucifer's
favorite demon, and the Lord of darkness has a special assignment for him: 'The time is almost here when
you must abandon the brimstone pits and journey up to earth. But this time
you must not fail as you've done in the past. You must not be defeated by that bearded old goat, Santa Claus! If you do not succeed in making all the children of the earth do evil, you shall be punished! And instead of red-hot coals, you will eat chocolate ice cream!'

'No!', Pitch croaks in fear. 'No, Lucifer, king of all the evil spirits! Not that! By the wounds of everything Satanic, I beg you! To live I must have heat! Frozen
meals are bad for me, especially chocolate! It's very bad for my digestion, which is so delicate...by my many wiles, I will finish off Santa forever, and see that the children commit terrible deeds, and make Santa Claus angry!'

Mexican dubbed English