{"id":4217,"date":"2011-12-10T21:00:11","date_gmt":"2011-12-11T03:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.micro-film-magazine.com\/cublog\/?p=4217"},"modified":"2014-09-06T14:53:11","modified_gmt":"2014-09-06T20:53:11","slug":"iow-wild-santas-for-the-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.micro-film-magazine.com\/cublog\/?p=4217","title":{"rendered":"IOW: Wild Santas for the win!"},"content":{"rendered":"

During the Christmas season of 2007, I was surprised after stopping in the former downtown Champaign<\/strong> merchant Old Main Book Shoppe<\/strong> to see the following collectible hanging from the ceiling:<\/p>\n

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A single yellowed one-sheet for an obscure fantasy film, obviously displayed by proprietor Steve Kysar<\/strong> due to the jolly gift-giving fellow depicted in the title and art work, held numerous meanings for your humble editor. Behold then, dearest readers, a back story that will come at you from several directions \u2026 not one<\/em> of which you will guess in advance!<\/p>\n

First we begin with the advertised Mexican opus, SANTA CLAUS<\/strong> (1959), imported into the United States<\/strong> by the late B-grade impresario K. Gordon Murray<\/strong> and then dubbed into English and distributed across the nation where it played limited theatrical engagements in afternoon-only time slots. So successful was this tactic, effectively inventing the \u201ckiddie matinee,\u201d that Murray would release numerous other kid-friendly movies from Mexico<\/strong> and Germany<\/strong> in the same manner, circulating his more popular titles for many consecutive years. This accounts for the late Sixties copyright date on the one-sheet; Murray\u2019s Americanized SANTA CLAUS<\/strong> originally opened in late 1960.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The same winter Kysar displayed the one-sheet, I began to interview a Tennessee<\/strong> filmmaker named Daniel Griffith<\/strong> who was in post-production on a Murray documentary called THE WONDER WORLD OF K. GORDON MURRAY<\/strong>, a title taken from film packages the entrepreneur would offer theaters to establish a brand name a la<\/em> Walt Disney<\/strong>. Amongst his efforts to acquire material and footage for WONDER WORLD<\/strong>, Griffith ventured to Murray\u2019s boyhood digs in Bloomington-Normal, Illinois<\/strong>, where travelling circuses often pitched camp during the hard Midwest winters. Murray\u2019s brand of showmanship would be inspired by those circuses as well as his equally entrepreneurial father.<\/p>\n

While THE WONDER WORLD OF K. GORDON MURRAY<\/strong> is not yet released due to rights issues with clips \u2013 presumably complicated by both the imports and Murray\u2019s own exploitation films produced through his Florida<\/strong> offices \u2013 Griffith promises movement soon via the project\u2019s Facebook<\/strong> page<\/a>. (You can also learn more through this official Web site<\/a> and our own 2008 interview with Griffith<\/a>.) Another development I learned from skimming Facebook is that, after many years represented by battered prints such as the one used for MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000<\/strong>, SANTA CLAUS<\/strong> has been digitally restored by VCI Entertainment<\/strong> which just issued Blu-ray and DVD editions<\/a> this past Tuesday, December 6<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

<\/object><\/p>\n

Down further on the Facebook page, I caught one additional item that truly saddens me. It\u2019s not surprising Griffith posted about Ross Hagen<\/strong>, the actor and B-movie producer who passed away in southern California<\/strong> on May 7 at age 72<\/a>, having befriended many \u201cold school\u201d filmmakers through his work on THE WONDER WORLD OF K. GORDON MURRAY<\/strong> as well as DVD extras created for labels such as VCI, Synapse Films<\/strong>, and Shout! Factory<\/strong>. Hagen appears in and narrates WONDER WORLD<\/strong>, although to my knowledge he never played a part in a Murray production.<\/p>\n

I interviewed Hagen and his wife Claire<\/strong> in 2000 via telephone about one of his own independent films, BAD CHARLESTON CHARLIE<\/strong>, possibly the only Hollywood<\/strong> based production to shoot on location in the Champaign-Urbana<\/strong> area during the Seventies. With a gravelly voice and upbeat spirit, Hagen told me all about filming his comedic take on the real-life Illinois<\/strong> gangster Charlie Birger<\/strong> in 1970; well-documented financial troubles held up its release until 1973 and today it is difficult to view. After the article appeared in MICRO-FILM 3<\/strong>, I discussed bringing the Hagens to C-U for a workshop and CHARLIE<\/strong> screening using their personal print, but our plans never materialized.<\/p>\n

Speaking of materializing, my very first question for Old Main\u2019s Kysar upon seeing the SANTA CLAUS<\/strong> poster was, of course, \u201cWhere did this come<\/em> from?\u201d Kysar would frustrate me over a two-year period with stories about acquiring a collection of vintage Sixties and Seventies era one-sheets \u2013 apparently rescued by the set’s previous owner from the former Illini<\/strong> and Co-Ed<\/strong> movie theaters of Champaign \u2013 but never formally offering them for sale. I did manage to buy a SANTA CLAUS<\/strong> duplicate from him after taking the above photograph, but the total contents of that collection \u2013 and their whereabouts since Kysar was forced to vacate his store front in 2010 \u2013 remain a mystery.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Whereas the Mexican SANTA CLAUS<\/strong> pits a gadget-laden Kris Kringle against a rascally demon named Pitch, the 2010 Finnish-Norwegian-British fantasy RARE EXPORTS: A CHRISTMAS TALE<\/strong><\/a> draws from the earliest European lore featuring a goat-horned \u201cdark half\u201d named Krampus<\/a> who punishes the naughty children of the world! Deceptively straightforward and fiendishly entertaining, this TALE<\/strong> involves Finnish villagers who encounter a feral \u201cSanta Claus\u201d surrogate unleashed from an excavation site just across the Russian border. Champaign\u2019s Art Theater<\/strong> will present RARE EXPORTS<\/strong> one final time on Thursday, December 15<\/strong>, at 10 p.m.<\/strong>, so don\u2019t miss it!<\/p>\n

Additionally, the Art has booked a low-budget affair often mentioned alongside SANTA CLAUS<\/strong> in terms of filmmaking ineptitude, an unfair comparison since the latter is lavish (if undeniably cheesy) by any standards. SANTA CLAUS CONQUERS THE MARTIANS<\/strong> (1964), on the other hand, deserves its \u201cso-bad-its-good\u201d reputation as Martians kidnap Santa Claus in their quest to make Red Planet moppets happy at Christmastime faster than you can say, \u201cHey, that kid is Pia Zadora<\/strong>!\u201d Retro distributor Holland Releasing<\/strong><\/a> has packaged MARTIANS<\/strong> with vintage cartoons and shorts as \u201cSanta\u2019s Cool Holiday Film Festival<\/strong><\/a>,\u201d which the Art will show beginning Friday, December 23<\/strong>, in the (St.) Nick of time for the holiday. Ho ho ho!<\/p>\n

~ Jason Pankoke<\/p>\n

[Updated 12\/12\/11, 5:30 a.m. CST]<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From the \u201cImages of the Week\u201d Dept.: Santa Claus-derived madness erupts from MFHQ, stemming from the discovery of an American one-sheet for the Mexican fantasy SANTA CLAUS in a Champaign, Illinois used book store that no longer exists.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[376,19,13,31],"tags":[140,139,845,844,842,843,138],"class_list":["post-4217","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gone-hollywood","category-images-du-cu","category-public-events","category-the-old-school","tag-daniel-griffith","tag-k-gordon-murray","tag-old-main-book-shoppe","tag-rare-exports-a-christmas-tale","tag-santa-claus-1959","tag-santa-claus-conquers-the-martians","tag-the-wonder-world-of-k-gordon-murray"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.micro-film-magazine.com\/cublog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4217","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.micro-film-magazine.com\/cublog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.micro-film-magazine.com\/cublog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.micro-film-magazine.com\/cublog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.micro-film-magazine.com\/cublog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4217"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.micro-film-magazine.com\/cublog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4217\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.micro-film-magazine.com\/cublog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4217"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.micro-film-magazine.com\/cublog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4217"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.micro-film-magazine.com\/cublog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}