Released in 1959, Santa Claus was billed as bringing viewers “an echanting world of make-believe.” In reality it’s known in some circles as the worst movie of all time, and was even given the MST3K treatment for its ridiculous story about a grumpy, kinda scary Santa battling an inept demon. Here’s the breakdown from the Wiki…

On December 24, Santa prepares for his yearly journey at his Toyland castle in space.[1] He plays the organ while his children helpers from all over the world sing. Meanwhile, in Hell, Lucifer instructs his chief demon Pitch to travel to Earth and turn the children of the world against Santa.

In a busy marketplace, Pitch attempts to convince five children to “make Santa Claus angry”: Lupita, a poor girl; Billy, the son of wealthy but negligent parents; and three troublemaking brothers. Pitch fails at convincing Lupita to steal a doll from a vendor but succeeds in convincing the brothers to break a shop window…

Unable to travel to Earth before nightfall on Christmas Eve, he instead uses equipment to watch Pitch and the children. One device allows him to view Lupita’s dream, induced by Pitch, in which she is tormented by life-sized dancing dolls who entice her to steal. He also listens as the three brothers plot to break into Billy’s home and steal his presents. They also attempt to write a letter to Santa claiming they have been good, but Santa’s voice informs them that he can see all they do.

Merlin the Wizard, Santa’s most trusted assistant, gives Santa a sleep inducing powder and a flower that allows him to disappear. He then retrieves a magic key that will open any door on Earth from Vulcan and prepares his mechanical reindeer. On Earth, the three rude boys plot to capture and enslave Santa. Meanwhile Lupita and her mother say a prayer and Lupita says that she has wished for two dolls, one of which she will give to Baby Jesus.

During Santa’s journey, Pitch makes several unsuccessful attempts to sabotage Santa’s delivery of toys in Mexico City. Santa succeeds in reuniting Billy with his parents, who had left him alone to go to a restaurant. On a city rooftop, the three brothers prepare to capture Santa and steal his toys. They see Santa’s sleigh in the sky and hurry indoors to find that they have only received coal. After a failed attempt to steal the sleigh, Pitch succeeds in emptying Santa’s dream powder bag while Santa drops the disappearing flower.

Santa’s trip is nearly complete when he is chased by a vicious dog outside a large house in Mexico. Finding himself without the powder or the flower he climbs a tree to escape the dog. Pitch appears and proceeds to wake the household and calls the fire department to report a fire at that location, so Santa will soon be seen by many people. With dawn approaching, Merlin assists with a last-minute escape and Pitch is defeated after being doused with the spray from a fire hose.

Before returning to the castle Santa makes one final stop, leaving a doll for Lupita. His labors now completed, Santa steers the sleigh back to the castle, content in the knowledge that he has brought happiness to all of the Earth’s children.

Given the title of this post and the general nature of this blog, you’d've been right think this was going to be a blurb connecting the ancient god Saturn with Santa and Satan. If you want to know more about that click here. If you’d rather just watch this whacked-out movie, have at it…

Stay Awake!

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One of the weirdest cult music movies of all time, Space is the Place (1974) is a fictional film written by Joshua Smith and composer, poet, keyboardist and cosmic philosopher Sun Ra.

Born Herman Poole Blount in Birmingham, Alabama in 1914, Ra’s music ultimately found him following his muse all over the country from Chicago to Florida to Philadelphia, New York and beyond. In 1937, in a deep state of prayer, Ra claimed that he even took a trip to Saturn. According to the Wiki:

… my whole body changed into something else. I could see through myself. And I went up … I wasn’t in human form … I landed on a planet that I identified as Saturn … they teleported me and I was down on [a] stage with them. They wanted to talk with me. They had one little antenna on each ear. A little antenna over each eye. They talked to me. They told me to stop [attending college] because there was going to be great trouble in schools … the world was going into complete chaos … I would speak [through music], and the world would listen. That’s what they told me.

Following his vision, Ra took to his music with a fanatical devotion. It was a commitment he shared with the various incarnations of his band the Arkestra. The group often lived together communally and grew to include as many as 30 musicians, singers and dancers.

In 1973, Ra was appointed Artist in Residence at the University of California, Berkeley where he taught a course entitled “The Black Man in the Cosmos.” The reading list for the class included the works of Madame Blavatsky and Henry Dumas, the Tibetan Book of the Dead and assorted titles exploring Egyptian hieroglyphs, African-American folklore, and other topics. It was during his time at Berkeley that Ra met film producer Jim Newman who approached Ra about making a film based on his lectures at the university.

Space is the Place is a musical of sorts that mixes sci-fi time travel tropes with a Seventh Seal-esque struggle for the fate of the black race, pitting Ra against the evil Overseer in a winner-take-all card game. Of course, Ra is also chased by hapless, white government agents who try to kill him.

Featuring vintage performances of Ra and band in their heyday, the film’s Afro-Utopian themes provide an entertaining primer to both Ra’s cosmic poetry and his intergalactic world view.

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