The story of Santa Claus is a very well known story. He lives in the north pole. That elves make his toys and that reindeer fly him on his midnight toy runs to all the children of the world.
Well who would have guessed that is all wrong.
According to a 1959 Mexican film Santa Claus the mythology gets a complete makeover. Santa lives in a floating castle in space. Its decked out in goofy telescopes and ear decorated radar used to spy on all the kids and their dreams. Santa apparently works for the NSA. Instead of elves he uses child slave labor. The children are forced to dress in the ethnic dress of the countries they were taken from. The African children get to wear leopard pattern loincloths and bones in their hair. Yes Santa is a diehard racist. The children sing songs that have the enthusiasm of getting socks from their aunt on Christmas.
The reindeer are actually mechanical windup machines and are the creepiest things you could imagine.
Oh and there are Merlin who looks like a lawn gnome. He makes magical powder that makes Santa invisible and another that gasses the kids. He loves to gas the kids. And there’s also Vulcan the Roman god of the forge up there. He makes Santa a magical key that can open any door.
The plot revolves around the eternal battle between Santa and Satan for the souls of the kids. Satan sends his main henchdemon Pitch to Earth. He threatens Pitch with the horrible punishment of being force fed chocolate ice cream if he fails in his mission.
Well the story involves Pitch’s attempts to get a young poor girl Lupita to steal a doll. He also cuts the bag of Santa’s bag filled with his magic powders. After being treed by a small little boxer dog he is in danger of being discovered. Luckily he escapes and rewards Lupita with a huge doll. We assume that Pitch is forced to chow down on a bucket of Ben & Jerry’s.
This was one mama-jama of a weird movie. It makes it a perfect movie to ring in the Christmas holidays. I can’t wait for comes next year.
THE BOOKS THAT TIME FORGOT. 
It’s a weird movie, sure, but I like that it’s got a Santa Claus that falls outside the … well, call it the Midcentury-Modern Rankin/Bass Santa. (Which I love, sure, but the figure is one of legend; there should be variations.)
Some of the touches, like the wind-up reindeer sleigh, strike me as ingenious. Having Merlin be one of Santa’s helpers is strange and novel but, what the heck, why shouldn’t Santa have a crazy magician helping him out? It’s a neat touch.