Clear attempt by the Disney people to produce something in the It's a Wonderful Life area; something that might reappear yearly and make the studio a tidy little Christmas bonus; something that might disseminate annual ennui and inspire a few extra seasonal suicides. Certainly more time and conviction go into the "bah humbug" stuff than into the "Merry Christmas" stuff. The story asks you to consider, in essence, that if you don't like Christmas now, imagine how you'd like it if your husband was shot dead in a bank holdup and your two children were drowned in the getaway car. On the merrier side, the trip to the mythical North Pole is somewhat underimagined, but there's a nice detail of shelves and shelves of shoe boxes of Santa's old correspondence. With Mary Steenburgen and Harry Dean Stanton; written by Thomas Meehan; directed by Phillip Borsos. (1985) — Duncan Shepherd