Santa Claus: The Making of the Movie (1985 TV Movie) User Reviews

An engrossing and informative behind-the-scenes making of documentary

[Woodyanders · 8/10 · 13 December 2018]

This 50-minute made-for-TV special covers a lot of interesting and illuminating ground on the making of the big budget yuletide spectacle "Santa Claus: The Movie." Hosted with charming aplomb by Dudley Moore -- who also demonstrates his most impressive piano playing skills at one point -- and featuring David Huddleston in character as Santa, this special goes into fascinatingly thorough detail on how various scenes for the film were shot and staged. Moreover, we also see a bunch of reindeer undergoing extensive training for use in the picture, there's a lot of neat stuff about how the special effects were done, and it was especially nice to find out that the thousands of toys made for the movie were later donated to needy children. Of course, we also get interviews with such folks as John Lithgow, screenwriter David Newman, director Jeannot Szwarc, producers Ilya Salkind and Pierre Spengler, and composer Henry Mancini. Recommended viewing for fans of the film.

Better Than the Feature

[Michael_Elliott · 26 December 2015]

Santa Claus: The Making of a Movie (1985)

*** (out of 4)

This made-for-television special clocks in at 50 minutes and covers the making of SANTA CLAUS, the 1985 movie with Dudley Moore. Moore is among the people interviewed as they talk about why they were interested in the project and what they wanted to do in order to make the film as great as possible. I wasn't a fan of the actual film but I actually enjoyed this special because it gave us a lot of behind-the-scenes stories and for the most part it was very entertaining. Moore talks about why he took on his role and there are several stories dealing with the production. The highlight is without question the stuff dealing with the reindeer's and how they were picked and eventually trained for the movie.