A Visit to Santa

I was a kid of the 1960's and I found this pretty amateurish film a great walk down memory lane...sure the acting and plot were lame, but the stock footage was great...the decorations and Animatronics they showed reminded me of what it was like to be a kid that age living in the Midwest in the 1960's...for that reason alone I really liked it...the kids reminded me of my sister and me at that age and the house they lived was a lot like the house we grew up in at that time. I do have to agree that the color of the film left a lot to be desired it was terribly faded and reminded me of old stag films from the 1960's...the sound was scratchy but somehow I found that it added to the quaintness and nostalgic feel of the film...for a short film which was obviously shot on a little to no budget it was not that bad, something that I think those of us who remember that time will like for the memories alone, and for those born at a much later time, they might like it for the history aspect.

Review Date 1/14/2018

PLEASE BEWARE OF SOME REVIEWERS THAT ONLY HAVE ONLY ONE REVIEW. WHEN ITS A POSITIVE THERE IS A GOOD CHANCE THEY WERE INVOLVED WITH THE PRODUCTION. NOW I HAVE NO AGENDA! I REVIEW MOVIES & SPECIALS AS A WAY TO KEEP TRACK OF WHAT I HAVE SEEN! I HAVE DISCOVERED MANY GEMS IN MY QUEST TO SEE AS MANY " C H R I S T M A S " MOVIES AS I CAN.

Now Someone keeps reporting my reviews. I guess they are jealous because I do tell the truth. I want to point out that I never make snide remarks about actors weight or real life sexual orientation. If there acting is terrible or limited "I talk about that". If a story is bad "I will mention that" So why am I being "picked on"? IMDB? When one of my reviews gets deleted IMDB will not even tell me what someone found offensive. Well on to this review.

A Visit to Santa is a 12-minute live action American children's Christmas film produced for distribution at the end of 1963. Other than the opening text, "CLEM WILLIAMS FILMS presents A Visit To Santa", there are no other credits.

After "Jingle Bells" melody, played on a calliope, is heard during the brief opening credits, two children, who appear to be five or six years old, are seen in a bunk bed, saying goodnight to their mother. The boy, Dick, is in the upper bunk and the girl, Ann, who is in the lower bunk, says, "oh, Dick, I wonder if Santa ever got our letter.

Well of course he does. However this is a boring look at Santa and his workshop!

This short is just terrible - and I wouldn't miss it for the world at Christmas. I came across it on one of those low-level free streaming Roku channels along with all manner of other old and odd Christmas movies and programs. Its depiction of Santa's home as a modern early-60's pad with a sunken living room gets it off to a great start and sets just the right tone. What follows is so overwhelmingly boring that you can't look away waiting for something to happen. But as Santa shows Dick and Ann the inner workings of the North Pole, you wonder how they kept the kids' attention during filming. But presumably a lot of people worked hard on this project, so good for them. I wouldn't miss the silly innocence of this film during the Christmas season.

Mercifully short rock-bottom cheapie shot on a budget of probably $20. A young boy and his sister write Santa a letter, and when Santa reads it he decides to send one of his elves to yank the kids out of their homes, bring them to the North Pole (which appears to be somebody's badly decorated living room) and give them the tour of "Santa's Happy Land", which seems to be a fairly small toy store. Much of the film's running time consists of stock footage of Christmas parades, which is nice because it gives you a break from the hilariously inept sound (fuzzy), photography (washed out), acting (wouldn't pass muster in a fourth-grade Christmas play), music (sounds suspiciously like a cheap Casio keyboard) and "script"--for lack of a better word--of the new footage. This seems to have been made as a promo for the toy store that passes for "Santa's Happy Land"--I can't think of any other possible reason for it to exist--and I guess needs to be taken in that spirit. It's still lousy, though. Enjoy.

Two kids named Ann and Dick (of course) write a letter to a cheap-looking Santa Claus, letting him know they would like to pay him a visit. Santa sends an elf to get them and gives them a guided tour of the North Pole. Very very amateur production appears to have been shot mostly at some guy's house, with a sprinkling of stock footage thrown in. There's nothing even remotely professional about this. It's pretty awful but will provide some laughs for some. Ultimately it's all very harmless stuff. But also not the slightest bit entertaining and I wonder who wanted to get rid of $10 so bad they decided to finance this thing.