Six Pix presents a sextet of movie posters representing a particular actor/director/genre/theme. You pick the one you feel is visually the most artistic or best sums up the topic.
Ho, ho, ho, readers! It’s Christmastime, and this year MovieFanFare and Six Pix are celebrating the season with a Santa-filled selection of film posters spotlighting good old St. Nick himself:
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Included are: Santa Claus (1959), Santa Claus Conquers the Martians (1964), Santa Claus: the Movie (1985), Miracle on 34th Street (1994), The Santa Clause (1994), and Arthur Christmas (2011).
Okay, I know what you’re thinking; Where in the North Pole is the original Miracle on 34th Street? Well, I deliberately kept it out of the competition because when the film was first released in May of 1947, 20th Century-Fox’s publicity department did everything it could to downplay the picture’s Yuletide theme, assuming that audiences wouldn’t want to see a Christmas movie in the middle of Spring. Don’t believe me? Here, check out one of the theatrical posters.
See how Edmund Gwenn gets pushed into a small illustration in the center, alongside young Natalie Wood and in a regular suit instead of his red-and-white “work duds”? Meanwhile, romantic leads Maureen O’Hara and John Payne are prominently featured as if to suggest that the film is some sort of generic boy-meets-girl comedy. Luckily, the film proved to be a hit well into the holiday season, despite the studio’s best attempts to mislead the public, and would go on to be a perennial favorite. But, let’s face it, there’s nothing all that Santa-like about this artwork.
That being said, the poster from the 1994 remake with Richard Attenborough as Kris Kringle certainly conveys the story’s sense of wonder and magic. Speaking of magic, you also have to give it up for the 1959 made-in-Mexico kiddie film Santa Claus, where St. Nick gets help from Merlin the Magician as he battles a rather annoying devil, and who can forget the 1964 cult favorite Santa Claus Conquers the Martians (even if the “Christmas Fun” the poster advertises seemed to be Santa having Martian children make toys in a computerized workshop)? 1985’s Santa Claus: The Movie, whose tagline should have been “You’ll believe a man and eight reindeer can fly,” has a nice vintage Christmas card feel to its art (although the Santa pictured doesn’t look much like title star David Huddleston). Tim Allen managed to make himself a fairly convincing St. Nick in The Santa Clause and its sequels. And while Santa’s son Arthur gets title billing in Arthur Christmas, the jolly old elf himself is still front and center.
While I myself am a big supporter of the ’47 Miracle on 34th Street as being the definitive holiday film (see my reasons why here), in this case my vote for the most evocative Santa-themed poster goes to its ’90s counterpart.
Which one do you think is the winner? Should we have included something else? Tell us about it below!