Santa Claus Is a Stinker (1982)

Terrible acting, screenplay and direction.

good back-story, and good acting

Awesome Movie

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

This is one of these films in your country that for some reason, somehow, has transformed into a national treasure. People will immediately dislike you and frown at you when you recall how you don't think it's a good film. They'll immediately think there's something wrong with you, when really the film isn't even that defensible, it's not like the film is amazing on any level or anything, it's just a crowd favorite. Objectively, this comedy is well enough constructed in that it allows for wacky scenarios to take place and go berserk from there, all sorts of strange happenings in subplots that eventually connect. The gags are those of a prude society of the time (early 80's) liberating itself with silly, stuck-up eruptions of vulgarity whether verbally or through act. It isn't really funny, most of the comedy here being cheap sex-oriented, taboo type humor. It's barely entertaining at all to watch now, moving back from it in the later decades, but at one point this was the absolute blast of absolute blasts, and it's hard to even imagine this is the same Jean-Marie Poiré who, a decade later, would go on to write the mythical, legendary "Les Visiteurs", for this reviewer, the single greatest french film of all-time.

A French black comedy that is set during the Yuletide period (one of the protagonists spends the entire time dressed up as Father Christmas) and can therefore be seen to have anticipated BAD SANTA (2003) by some 20 years! Unfortunately, I watched the film – which seems not to have been released outside its country of origin (and, in view of a potentially offensive title that means SANTA CLAUS IS A BASTARD, actually had trouble setting up a publicity campaign!) – in French without even the benefit of subtitles in that language (this practice used to be a given on the TV channel where it was shown but it has regrettably been dropped of late!), thus missing on a good deal of the dialogue (though I could still follow the plot). Most of the proceedings take place inside an apartment where a lonelyhearts helpline for the festive season is based; the two telephone operators (a man and a woman, both reserved, while she is a complete washout at knitting – making three-fingered gloves and presenting her colleague with a jacket which looks more like a pauper's rags!) are beset by numerous calamities and, amid all the fracas, realize they are attracted to one another. To begin with, their landlady gets trapped in the elevator for the longest time (she tries to grab their attention by incessantly blowing on a toy trumpet!), then they receive a visit by a wacky relative of the woman – who has ditched, and is being pursued by, her even more unbalanced hubby (the titular figure). Afterwards, one of the desperate callers presents himself on the spot, only he turns out be a transvestite!; later still, a tenant of Islamic descent repeatedly shows up at the door with various Oriental dishes which our heroes invariably find repugnant and try to get rid of (most hilariously, a log cake gets thrown out the window and plummets onto the rear windshield of a taxi-cab parked down in the street, smashing it!). The bickering 'intruders' cause the lion's share of the mischief: after the woman hits the man squarely in the face with an iron, they rush him to a clinic where he is to be treated there and then – unfortunately, the elderly owner was on the point of going to some party (with a much younger girl) and is all dressed up, but then his white suit gets covered with chocolate squeezed out of the afore-mentioned log-cake when someone inadvertently sits on it! That said, the most side-splitting scenes occur towards the end as the couple, still at each other's throat, fight amongst themselves for possession of a gun – first, they shoot the transvestite in the leg and then empty the cartridge in the direction of the entrance to the flat…except that, just then, the apartment block's handyman was calling and he drops dead inside as soon as the front door is opened! While the wounded party is bemoaning his fate in the bedroom and the telephone operators succumb to their passions in the bathroom (the woman needing a shower to be revived after feeling faint at the sight of the corpse), husband and wife are finally united in a common cause – disposing of the stiff in the kitchen, where they cut it all up and wrap the dismembered body parts as if they were Christmas gifts!; to wash their hands clean of the deed, the two then persuade the rest of the group to feed the unfortunate's remains to the various wild animals at the local zoo!! All in all, then, this is a pretty good farce – and, being much in the same vulgar vein as the box-office smash LA CAGE AUX FOLLES (1978), ought to be better known.

I have seen this movie yesterday for the Xth times. After all these views, I still cannot get tired of it. Yesterday, I was wondering when this movie was actually happening. It is actually dated of 1982. 21 years ago. And after all this time every single piece of humour you see or hear is stil funny. Ok, the sets are a bit old fashioned but stil represents the type of low-end apartment you could find in Paris and that would be hired by an non-profit association like SOS Detresse amitie.I don't know what makes this movie so present and why it is impossible not to find it funny after all this time. I think it is the ability to make laugh by taking the opposite of the common sense.Another interesting point is that the Pere Noel has been adapted from a theatre play written and played by the same actors as in the film. And the movie doesn't look like a filmed play as it often is. There's been a great job in the adaptation of the text as well as the story (because there are some important differences)I am afraid I will see this movie every year and always laugh with it.

I must have seen this film about 100 times : Le Père Noël... is probably the most famous french comedy ever done, at least in France, far, far more famous and cult than the recent "Le diner De cons" (which is not cult at all, plain funny and that's it). Le Père Noël wasn't a real hit when it got released (it was in fact the movie version of the same-titled play), but it gradually became THE reference in cult comedy amongst french teenagers. I don't even see what the equivalent could be in the States. Anyway : each and every line of this film is sheer fun delight, total trashy-meets-uptight-meets gory-meets-nonsensical humor. Obviously untranslatable and mainly based upon the very subtle depiction of each character, most of the specific expressions of the film are now part of everyday language. It's not even a must-see for every french movie-goer since everyone has seen it at least once in his life. For those who don't cringe at french humor (nothing scatological here), this is an absolute topper in fun. Highly recommended.