25 Days: Santa Claus (1959- The Mexican One)

Typically, Santa's job description merely entails delivering gifts to all the children of the world all in one night, but sometimes Santa must fight the eternal battle of good vs. evil against the Devil himself:
SANTA CLAUS    (FANTASY/CHILDREN, 1959)
Directed by Rene Cardona  (U.S. Dubbing by K. Gordon Murray)
Starring Jose Elias Moreno, Jose Luis Aguirre, Lupita Quezadas
Not Rated (G-level, Nothing Likely to Offend)
Naughty or Nice?: Nice
Religious or Secular?: Quite a Bit of Both
Cynical or Sentimental?: Very Sentimental
Holiday Relations: Christmas is Integral to the Plot
OVERALL: 0 out of 4

If you know anything at all about this strange holiday confection from South of the Border, it's probably that this is that one Santa movie that also has Satan in it.  You've probably seen it listed somewhere on Netflix or listed with terrible Christmas movies.  It's the one with Santa Claus on it, and a bright red guy with a goatee and horns, with fire all around.  That is the movie we're talking about here. 
You can no longer see the film in its entirety, as it was slightly edited from its original release in Mexico when it played in the United States, and all the available formats for the film are transferred from those theatrical prints that have since aged and worn something terrible.  Honestly though, the film required some editing anyway.  If you do watch it, it's very much recommended that you either watch it via the Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode from Season 5, or with your own movie-riffing buddies.  This is a terrible movie.
Set on a Christmas Eve, Santa Claus (Jose Elias Moreno) is hard at work keeping tabs on his child slaves as they build toys for Santa from all around the world.  No, okay, so the movie doesn't actually acknowledge these children as slaves, but they seem to fill what is typically the role of Santa's elves, and in a surprisingly extended stretch of time, Santa plays an organ (occasionally with disturbing enthusiasm), which brings up video images of all his children "helpers" from around the world.  To get that ball rolling, we see Santa's little helpers in Africa, who sing and dance with drums, painted faces and bones in their hair.  Nice.  That's the most blatantly racist moment, but then there's also the belly dancing little girls of "The Orient" and a wide

It's Satan O' Clock- Do you know where your children are?

collection of other stereotypes.  Only making it so much funnier, is the fact that almost every child in this film appears utterly unhappy to be there, even when the narrator (U.S. distributor/dubbing director, K. Gordon Murray) is quite insistent that whatever child onscreen is meant to be happy.  The narrator is on of the best parts, present throughout, offering commentary and shouting advice to the onscreen characters.  It's funny that MST3K did an episode of it, because SANTA CLAUS already has someone shouting at the screen.
SANTA CLAUS is full of unnecessarily extended moments like Santa's organ-playing, and like that the bizarre ballet that is occurring simultaneously down in the depths of Hell (keep in mind that these were the 1950s, and most people were still of the persuasion that Hell was full of homosexuals).  Down in Hell, we meet Pitch (Jose Luis Aguirre), the film's villain who, like the rest of his satanic pals frolicking happily in Hell, has bright crimson skin, horns, a black goatee, and wears pantaloons with tights.  In case you didn't catch on, he's about as evil as evil gets.  He's not the boss in Hell though; that would be Lucifer, who is heard from offscreen as he orders Pitch to travel to Earth and finally turn all the world's children to evil and against Santa Claus.  If Pitch fails, Lucifer warns, he will be forced to eat nothing but chocolate ice cream!  So Pitch travels up to Earth and appears out of nowhere beside three brothers looking through a Christmas shop window, and whispers in their ears to throw a rock through the window.  The result is one of the film's best moments, when the rock shatters the window and hits... Santa Claus!  Right in the face, too, where he stands in his celestial palace watching down on Earth, with his most trusted child slaves/servants/helpers, and Merlin (yes, that Merlin).
There's a couple of other children on Earth who Pitch is especially intent on tempting (eww...) but will not be so easily persuaded (yes, Lucifer wanted him to turn all the children of the world, but Pitch has a limit of five at a time, I guess).  There's Billy (Antonio Diaz Conde hijo), the son of wealthy parents who rarely send time with him, so he has dreams about opening presents on Christmas morning to find his parent inside them.  The other, and primary focus of the film, is Lupita (Lupita Quezadas), a dreadfully somber little girl who wants a doll more than anything, but her family can barely afford dirt.  Pitch is intent on getting Lupita to steal a doll, but to the narrator's relief, is consistently unsuccessful.

Mechanical Reindeer: The true villains of the movie.

As Santa prepares to go on his annual journey to Earth to deliver presents to the children of the world who have been good (i.e. not the poor, who are always naughty in the Santa story, expect Lupita, who Santa will have to deliver to because there are cameras watching), his spectacularly creepy mechanical flying reindeer are wound up and he goes about his rounds, with Mexico City being the only place of importance. 
Throughout the night, Pitch attempts to ruin everything for Santa, convincing the naughty three brothers to stay up and try to capture Santa, stealing Santa's magic sleep inducing dust and his magic flower that turns him invisible, but Santa, that clever guy, consistently prevails.  Lupita gets a doll, Billy's parents give him the time of day and Pitch gets doused with a fire hose (and presumably is tortured with chocolate ice cream in Hell).  The end.
Sounds good, huh?  No it doesn't, and no, it's not.