Santa Visits the
Magic Land of
Mother Goose
(aka THE MAGIC LAND OF MOTHER GOOSE)
With: Roy Huston (Merlin)
Plot Outline: In Fairy-Tale Land, Old King Cole and Raggedy Ann enlist the aid of a warlock to rid themselves of an evil witch.
***
This astoundingly dull monstrosity redefines the word "minimal," as it is essentially just the lackluster filming of a faulty piece of children's theatre, on an echoey stage, replete with bad acting, static camera, murky sound and threadbare costuming.
Certainly, SVMLMG is a unique creation, an unwieldy combination of children's cabaret theatre and magic show, woven into a most threadbare fairy tale "melodrama". It is badly theatrical, being essentially a filmed stage production.
In fact, the scenario unfolds in such a primitive theatrical way, the film looks like something that could easily have been made in the early 1930's, at the very dawn of sound film. Much of the film is told in drab establishing shots, as if we were sitting in the third row of the theatre itself.
King Cole and his minions talk to the invisible theatre audience, and studiously avoid engaging the camera. This further undermines any attempt to turn this film-record into "cinema". In fact, the absolute lack of cinematic aesthetic in the film constantly reminds us that a "Bad Movie" is not the same thing as "Bad Theatre", badly filmed...
What's worse, Santa Claus has the gall to introduce this sad tale of woe. Oddly, he seems either drunk or consumptive as he slouches in his easy chair, wheezing and guffawing maniacally in a 60-second prolog and 60-second epilog.
The film "proper" focuses on an anemic and mute life-sized Raggedy Ann, and King Cole, who does most of the talking. Characters pop out of a crude "Mother Goose" book prop, and act out some truly abominable faux-nursery rhyme dialogue.
The presence of the intense, creepy Roy Huston (who soon would dismember reality itself in Lewis' magnum opus, THE WIZARD OF GORE) makes SVMLMG even more bizarre and unearthly. Huston, with his evil smirk, beady eyes and monstrous forehead, comes across as threatening, not magical. And leave it to creepy filmmaker Lewis to feature a literal Warlock in an American children's film (shades of Harry Potter!).
The other characters, including King Cole, Princess Beauty, Prince Charming, Little Bo Peep and even Mother Goose herself, all act within the strict stock theatre milieu; i.e., hamming. And what crappy Fairy Tale would be complete without the required folks in full animal costumes? Here we have a Lion, a Bear, a Bunny, and a Frog.
And the music! Over-dubbed, wildly inappropriate "canned" music such as an Irish Jig, a French Can-Can, and a Strauss waltz. Plus, a most amazing thing: one original song! Prince Charming walks dutifully to center stage, and warbles the horrible love dirge, "Never Before, Never Again," accompanied by a tinny piano. As this is recorded live on stage, it has all the attendant dance-hall ambience.
Everything proceeds fairly without conflict, until the film changes to a crimson tint, and some woefully familiar spooky music is heard: Enter the Witch. (Her proclamation, "I Hate Everybody!", could easily be Lewis' own credo.)
The Witch (who models herself very much after Margaret Hamilton's Wicked Witch of the West, in MGM's classic THE WIZARD OF OZ) paralyzes everyone into beautiful statues.
Now, one wouldn't think that one could overact the part of a Wicked Witch in a Fairy Tale, but the unknown actress who plays the villainess does the impossible, and creates a foe who is over the top, even for evil.
Merlin and the Witch try to zap each other, in a scene probably intended to look like a battle twixt good and evil. With its overt creepiness, however, it looks more like two demons vying for territory in damned souls.
Merlin eventually hypnotizes the Witch, drags her to a portable crematorium, and burns the poor wretch alive! This shocking scene shows director Lewis at his most depraved and subversive, as he manages to insert not only gore, but the violent destruction of a woman, into a Kiddie film. Regardless of your politics, this is some sort of malefic achievement.
There is one five-second close-up, showing the Witch's skeleton aflame, which has to be the most gruesome, horrific image ever committed to a children's film. Hopefully, this horrific shot, depicting flames shooting out of the woman's genital region, was seen by relatively few children. But the fact it even exists in the Kiddie Matinee canon is significant, and disturbing. It shows that the independent Kiddie Matinee market of the mid-1960's was an arena as wild and unregulated as the sexploitation market, a veritable free-for-all of style and content.
This stomach-churning scene also illustrates perfectly Lewis' inarguably anti-social agenda. Yet, ironically, like the storytellers of yore, Lewis here carries on the time-honored tradition of using fairy tales to scare the wits out of kids.
To pad out the meager running time of this kiddie torture test, Merlin does some stage magic, silly stuff like flying handkerchiefs and levitating girls. These familiar magic show trademarks are somewhat impressive because they appear to have been filmed live, without post-production retouching. We are thus reminded yet again that we are watching stage tricks, not special effects, and theatre, not film.
The finale ensues when King Cole (for no apparent reason), starts molesting Raggedy Ann, screaming, "You've been nothing but a disobedient, recalcitrant rag doll all afternoon, and I won't stand for it!" Merlin, obviously all too willing to torture females, makes the poor scapegoat disappear posthaste.
At film's end, King Cole fades away via a crude lap dissolve, the first "filmic" technique in the whole picture, leaving us to wonder, was this merely bad theatre, or absolutely minimal cinema?
Curiously, the lesson of this fairy tale is: "Happiness Comes From Love for Others... ", a lesson which filmmaker Lewis did NOT learn! Lewis' lesson seems to be "Happiness is torturing and traumatizing others!" Leave it to the world's most misanthropic filmmaker to foist such a barbaric concoction upon the wee ones.
Perhaps the audience's lesson is more simple. Beware what one wishes for: In this case, the sly promise "See all your favorite fairy tale characters come to life, through the magic of motion pictures!" is not a good thing!
SANTA VISITS THE MAGIC LAND OF MOTHER GOOSE is one of those legendary films that you can't imagine possibly exists. Fascinating in its sheer audacity and unrestrained depravity, SVMLMG reveals Kiddie Matinee filmmaking at its most base and cynical. It is undoubtedly the worst film ever made expressly for children, and is a film society should be aware of, and ashamed of.
Video/DVD availability: VHS, DVD (Something Weird Video)
(1967, U.S.) color 60 minutes
Herschell Gordon Lewis Productions / Mayflower Pictures
Produced by J. Edwin Baker
Cinematography: Herschell Gordon Lewis
Directed by Herschell Gordon Lewis
