the worst


I'm one of those Christmas freaks who start listening to Christmas music on Labor Day, and I usually love all things Christmas, esp. campy Christmas movies and recordings (anyone else LOVE Mae West's Christmas album?), but I just saw this movie for the first time and I think it's one of the worst films I've ever seen. It's bad on SO many levels, from the writing to the casting to the acting to the effects to the horribly forgettable songs, there's just nothing right. I think if you see this movie as a small child, which I didn't, you might feel nostalgia for it, but if you see it for the first time as an adult, it's absolute crap.

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Well, I did see it as a young child and I loved it then and still do. Sure, the special effects are bad and the acting is cheesey, but it's a good memory for me and there are at least two good songs - The Christmas That Almost wasn't (recently covered by Osaka Popstar) and Why Can't Everyday Be Christmas? Hey, it's a Christmas movie made in Italy in 1966 and it's still better than The Grinch or Fred Claus.

Elimination Game: http://www.imdb.com/board/bd0000114/thread/124136597

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[deleted]

And yet you come here 50 years later to post on its message board

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Actually no, I was dragged to it at age 9, against my will (even then I had some measure of taste), and still shudder at the recollection

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I agree, I must have 8 when I saw it, I didnt like the dubbing etc. but certain scenes stand out. I remember a boy wishing his parents were home and they were deivered by Santa in big gift boxes. Is this the same movie? I have a strange yearning to see it again though.

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But I did see it for the first time as an adult and I absolutely adore it. I also developed an appreciation for Rossano Brazzi after seeing this film.

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I saw it in a theater when it first came out so I must have been 11 although if you had asked me how old I was before I re-discovered it this year and learned that the release date was 1966, I would have guessed 7 or 8. I hadn't thought about this movie in years when the title popped into my head and I watched it on You Tube. I was expecting it to be pretty awful as most things are that you liked when you were young and impressionable and then find disappointing when you see years later. In some ways it was pretty bad but in others, I was kind of impressed. The songs ranged from 'not too bad' to 'god-awful'. All the kids singing, "I've Got a Date with Santa." as they get into bed was perfectly innocent when I was a child but cracked me up when I saw it at age 57. The ending had the same emotional impact on me that it did when I was a kid; it choked me up.
It was the 60's--a different time. I guess you had to be there.

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Yes, by today's standards, this is a very poor film. BUT, it's got value on so many different levels.

It would definitely be a candidate for "Mystery Science Theater x000" (or was it already done ?).

As many of the reviewers in this thread mentioned, this was a film that we saw in the theaters' in the '60s, which would be part of a '50 cent' Saturday matinee (the theater would be packed with kids, who went WITHOUT parental supervision).

Personally, I love the film for it's badness (did it end Rossano Brazzi's career ?) and have shown it as my Christmas edition of "Weird Movie Night" (which includes snakkies and alcoholic beverages, which helps the viewing experience).

Friends who have never seen the film, are disturbed, with many of the 'innocent' scenes of the '60s, now having 'child predator' implications...

Everyone should watch this film 'once', to expand their horizons...

...apricot ? NO, PRUNE !!!

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