Ho, Ho, Ho ！ Cut!

The quote comes from the first installment of the Santa Clause series, starring Tim Allen and directed by Michael Lembeck. And make no mistake about it: Santa does exist for many, and among the most ‘delusional’ are not the kids, but the money-makers calling the shots within the Western film industry.

Each year, Hollywood welcomes the lucrative holiday season with open arms, making certain it capitalizes on it to the fullest. Filmmakers realized that Christmas simply means money — from times you can trace back to as early as the silent film era — and have accordingly, ever since, been cashing in on Santa. And it isn’t that difficult either: All they’ve had to do is release tailor-made productions that suit the ambience that comes with the already prevalent Christmas spirit.

One of the first Christmas movies ever made was a 1911 silent short called A Reformed Santa Claus that starred Dolores Costello and Charles Kent.

More recently, came a children’s comedic Christmas series simply entitled The Santa Clause. The first installment of what has so far become a trilogy was released in 1994, with Tim Allen playing the main character named Scott Calvin. The unorthodox story revolves around Calvin inadvertently killing Santa on Christmas Eve only to find he’d been magically recruited to take his place. Eight years later, in 2002, Santa Clause 2: The Mrs. Clause was released with Allen once more in the lead role of Calvin. The second part of the Clause series sees Calvin-turned-Santa on a search for a Mrs. Clause. This year, Calvin (still played by Allen) makes a comeback in Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause. In this latest part in the holiday-season franchise, Calvin is faced with the double duty of keeping his new family happy while trying to keep Jack Frost from taking over Christmas.

The intersection between Christmas and show business has never been limited to film. Bing Crosby sang the title song for the classic White Christmas back in 1954 and it has been a Christmas staple ever since. This season, we have a remake of the 1974 horror movie Black Christmas. It is doubtful however that a suitable title song can be written and made popular through a remake of this gore fest.

There was even a Santa Clause Versus the Christmas Vixens released in 2002. Don’t even ask what that was about; thank heavens it went straight to video. Christmas in western drama also often served as the catalyst in films where the prodigal son returns, or the lead character leaves the big city and returns to the small town where he grew up and rekindles an old flame. How better to express the theme of loneliness than Christmas time and nobody to celebrate with?

Enough about Christmas: Ever wonder why Egyptian films rarely capitalize on parallel festive topics like, for example, Ramadan or either of the two Eids?

Fi Baytena Ragol (A Man in Our House, 1961) was an exception. Based on a novel by Ihsan Abdel-Kodous and directed by Henri Barakat, it starred a young Omar Sharif playing a member of an underground resistance movement plotting against the British occupation and the monarchy. Fearing arrest, he hides in the home of a middle class family. The story takes place throughout the month of Ramadan and dramatically ends with the hero being killed on the first day of Eid.

Throughout the film, while all members of the family residing in the house are fasting, Sharif’s character, without sufficient explanation, doesn’t. It’s odd how the girl in the house, who has obviously fallen in love with him, serves him food during the day. That being said, this type of free behavior can hardly be found in films nowadays, not with clouds of religious pressure hanging over filmmakers ready to shoot lightning bolts at any moment.

When the late Atef El-Tayeb, Khairy Beshara and myself were asked to make short films for a family planning campaign, it was El-Tayeb who managed to come up with the most moving film idea. It told the story of a boy accidentally being left behind by his parents while shopping for Eid. The boy spends the night at the doorstep of a shoe shop, hoping for a new pair of shoes for himself.

It remains an open question: Why do writers shy away from these events? Even though there are films that fall on either Eid or Ramadan as background, they remain too few to mention. On the other hand, Hollywood is hard at work. Latest title mentioning Santa? A flick directed by and starring Jerry G. Angelo entitled Let’s Kill Santa Claus.