Elf Abuse

By RICHARD CORLISS

'T was the night before Christmas, when all through the Balkans/Not a brain cell was stirring--not even the Salkinds'. Alexander and Ilya Salkind are clever producers who love to make movies about sweet, heavily padded people who can fly: Superman and Supergirl. A big-budget fantasy about Santa Claus (the myth) might seem as natural as raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens, but it's more like coal in Christmas stockings. As presented in this "nondenominational" version, Claus was a 13th century woodcutter who died and went to the North Pole, where he was greeted as the Chosen One and given a couple hundred elves as his assistants. Stars shine in the north; a UNESCO chorale ladles Bosco over Henry Mancini's syrupy score; Dudley Moore, the chief elf, actually says, "If you give extra kisses, you get bigger hugs." The movie plays like a W.C. Fields nightmare: to drown in a vat of whimsy.

The script (by David Newman, who knows better) goes heavy on "elf" puns; the direction (by Jeannot Szwarc, who doesn't) is in a style that could be called International Mystical. Moore does an excruciatingly ingratiating Shirley Temple impression; as Santa, David Huddleston (Bad Company) says ho ho ho a lot, apparently at knife point; stalwart John Lithgow is amusing as a Nixon-like baron of the toy industry who figures to capitalize on gift giving by establishing a new holiday on March 25: Christmas II. There is little likelihood of a Santa Claus II, forcing the Salkinds to turn to the Easter Bunny or Guy Fawkes.

Dear Real Santa: We've behaved ourselves this year. Please send us a good movie this Christmas. --R. C.