Category: 1964

Santa Claus Conquers the Martians (1964)

SANTA CLAUS CONQUERS THE MARTIANS

SANTA CLAUS CONQUERS THE MARTIANS (1964) One star

IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE. SCROOGE. A CHRISTMAS STORY. DIE HARD. CHRISTMAS VACATION. HOME ALONE.

There’s one movie title sure not to be heard in the discussion for “Best Christmas Movie”: SANTA CLAUS CONQUERS THE MARTIANS, which can be found instead on the IMDb’s Bottom 100. At last perusal, it’s No. 39 between STEEL (below) and THE EMOJI MOVIE (above).

SANTA CLAUS CONQUERS THE MARTIANS and I go a long way back.

I first watched this 1964 low-budget production during my last year of college, checking it out from the Leonard H. Axe Library alongside Ingmar Bergman’s PERSONA and Lucio Fulci’s DON’T TORTURE A DUCKLING. I wrote a review long ago and I apparently buried it within a time capsule deep inside Middle Earth.

Over time, I have acquired three VHS copies and I’ve already broken it out this holiday season, just like the Chipmunks and Star Wars.

I first read about SANTA CLAUS CONQUERS THE MARTIANS in John Wilson’s “The Official Razzie Movie Guide,” which honors the so-called best of Hollywood’s worst. The book’s front cover includes a still of that infamous man-in-a-suit ape with his middle finger uplifted from the Korean KING KONG rip-off A*P*E.

I suppose that I’ll start with the plot.

The children of Mars are not happy. Be warned that you could end up just like the children of Mars as you watch SANTA CLAUS CONQUERS THE MARTIANS.

The Martians all have dopey names: Kimar, Voldar, Dropo, Bomar, Girmar, Momar, and Rigna. Dropo is the laziest man on Mars and Voldar is the vulgar voice of doomy discontent in this cinematic confection. He’s an unrepentant Grinch, a real Scrooge, equipped with a ridiculous looking contraption on top of his head, just like all his fellow Martians. Voldar believes the Martians have gone soft. Mars was, you know, the god of war.

Fearless leader Rigna says to Voldar, “Chochem is 800 years old, you can’t dismiss the wisdom of centuries.”

Voldar mouths back, “I can.”

Chochem tells the Martian leaders the children are sullen and have trouble sleeping because there’s no joy on Mars. Martian children have become obsessed with TV, not unlike children from the Planet Earth, and they especially love this holly jolly Santa Claus fellow they see all the darn time on KID-TV. You can talk about evil liberal media bias and fake news all you want: Reporter Andy Henderson interviews Santa Claus, despite the fact that it’s 91-below zero up on the North Pole.

The Martians decide they must have this Santa Claus, who brings joy everywhere he goes, and come to Earth, but they run into a roadblock when they see a Santa Claus on virtually every street corner.

The Martians find Earth children Billy and Betty Foster and kidnap them, who lead the space invaders to Santa Claus.

Santa Claus eventually wins over the Martians, and that’s what they mean by the conquer part of the title rather than Santa Claus building an army to defeat the Martians in battle.

All’s well that ends well on both Mars and Earth, as well as KID-TV.

Pia Zadora made her screen debut as Girmar, one of the two main Martian children.

Vincent Beck’s IMDb biography starts, “Tall, deep-voiced character actor who started on screen in the lamentable SANTA CLAUS CONQUERS THE MARTIANS [as Voldar], which may have taken him some time to live down.” Beck, who passed away in 1984, made appearances on several famous sitcoms from the 1960s and 1970s: “Gilligan’s Island,” “Gunsmoke,” “Bonanza,” “The Monkees,” and “Mannix.”

Kentucky native Bill McCutcheon (1924-2002) did not let playing Dropo, the laziest man on Mars, stop him from roles in HOT STUFF and STEEL MAGNOLIAS.

SANTA CLAUS CONQUERS THE MARTIANS includes the infamous song “Hooray for Santa Claus,” which has been covered by Sloppy Seconds and the Fleshtones. I would not be surprised if one day we find out that “Hooray for Santa Claus” was used at Guantanamo Bay.

Dr. Strangelove (1964)

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DR. STRANGELOVE (1964) Four stars
Stanley Kubrick’s DR. STRANGELOVE (abbreviated title) OR: HOW I LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING AND LOVE THE BOMB (long title) contains one of my favorite lines of dialogue in any movie.

President Merkin Muffley, played by Peter Sellers in one of his three roles in the movie, tells the Americans and Commies both, “Gentlemen, you can’t fight in here! This is the War Room!”

I don’t give a damn that it placed No. 64 on the American Film Institute’s 100 Years … 100 Movie Quotes list.

Oh, sorry, “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn” from GONE WITH THE WIND came in at No. 1, followed by quotes from Marlon Brando characters in THE GODFATHER and ON THE WATERFRONT that bums just can’t refuse.

Kansans will be sure thrilled that “Toto, I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore” came in at No. 4.

CASABLANCA led that list with six quotes and freaking JERRY MAGUIRE picked up two. Are you kidding?

Anyhoo, DR. STRANGELOVE certainly lives up to such a title: It’s a strange movie about strange people doing and saying the strangest things.

I’ve heard it described as a movie about what could happen if the wrong person pushed the wrong button.

That wrong person would be General Jack D. Ripper (Sterling Hayden), who believes them damn commies have conspired to pollute our “precious bodily fluids.” To say that it’s an obsession for Gen. Ripper would be one of the great understatements.

Gen. Ripper orders a first strike nuclear attack on the Soviet Union.

Then we get a mad gallery of characters that are just slightly less mad than Ripper: Muffley, Group Captain Lionel Mandrake, and Dr. Strangelove played by Sellers; General Buck Turgidson by George C. Scott; Colonel Bat Guano by Keenan Wynn; and Major T.J. “King” Kong by Slim Pickens, for example. Muffley and Turgidson are predominantly inside the War Room, one of the great movie sets.

Sellers originally had been slated to play four roles, including Kong, but it went down to three after he hurt his ankle.

Sellers predominantly improvised most of his dialogue and his ad-libs were retroscripted into the screenplay.

Sellers modeled Muffley after 1952 and 1956 U.S. Presidential candidate Adlai Stevenson and former Nazi scientist Dr. Strangelove after Wernher von Braun. Strangelove’s very reminiscent stylistically of mad scientist Rotwang from Fritz Lang’s METROPOLIS.

Strangelove comes aboard late in the movie as humanity faces nuclear destruction.

Scott, who later won an Oscar for Gen. Patton in the Best Picture-winning PATTON, played Gen. Turgidson a lot differently than he intended and he was apparently tricked by Kubrick into acting ridiculously like in the final film. Scott never worked with Kubrick again. Kubrick and Scott played each other at chess and Kubrick got the edge on Scott, a skilled player, often.

John Wayne and Dan Blocker, of course, turned down Kong because, you know, DR. STRANGELOVE was just way too darn pinko for their persuasions.

The role ended up in the hands of the one-and-only Pickens, whom the makers of DR. STRANGELOVE did not understand was a genuine cowboy.

They did not tell Pickens that it was a black comedy and he played it straight, gloriously straight.

He gets one of the great exit scenes in film history.

There’s a whole lot about DR. STRANGELOVE that I don’t want to talk about in this space, especially for those who have not yet seen the movie.

I believe, however, that you will find it to be one of the great movie experiences.

It’s definitely the satire the Cold War deserved.

It’s an incredibly smart and sneaky movie, truly ahead of its time.

For example, a Cornell University professor Legrace G. Benson wrote Kubrick a fan letter and the professor interpreted DR. STRANGELOVE as being very sexually-layered. (Not sure how people could miss it.)

Kubrick wrote Benson back, “Seriously, you are the first one who seems to have noticed the sexual framework from intromission (the planes going in) to the last spasm (Kong’s ride down and detonation at target).”

And, for sure, after DR. STRANGELOVE you will never hear “We’ll Meet Again” the same way again.