I dimly recall years ago coming across a clip of a goofy-voiced Martian awkwardly skiing across a snowy landscape with two children in tow. A quick glance at the printed TV guide (remember those?) revealed that this was from a 1971 children’s film from Québec, The Christmas Martian. Finding it amusing that there were TWO Martian-themed Christmas movies made within a decade of each other (the other being 1964’s Santa Claus Conquers the Martians), I filed this movie in the back of my mind and then more or less forgot about it until I noticed the title again on the cult film-rich Tub streaming service.
Young siblings Cathy (Catherine Leduc) and Frankie (François Gosselin) are out of school for the holidays and on a mission to find the perfect Christmas tree to cut down, but are distracted by mysterious green footprints in the snow. Turns out they belong to a wayward Martian (Marcel Sabourin) whose flying saucer is suffering from engine trouble, forcing him to land in an abandoned quarry.
After sneaking into his ship, the children are promptly buried in an avalanche of candy which kicks off a series of zany episodic misadventures that will see the kids attempt to help the Martian fix his saucer by engaging in an astonishing amount of petty theft. Needless to say, this alarms the locals who soon form a posse to take out this unwelcome guest. But unfortunately for them, our titular Martian has the power of hokey special effects up his sleeve. Don’t worry though, no one dies. They are merely slightly embarrassed as adults in children’s cinema are wont to do.
Clocking in at a mere 61 minutes, The Christmas Martian zips through a simple premise with positively bizarre execution. Sabourin certainly makes an earnest attempt at a good-natured, fun-loving alien, but having the countenance of an escaped mental patient and the costume of a Mad Max-reject do him no favours. The story is extremely episodic with little momentum beyond some wacky editing and a composer determined to make the most of his studio’s new synthesiser. There’s no real character growth or lessons learned here. Just an amusing ride with all the nutrition of candy floss.
Still, I didn’t go in expecting Miracle on 34th Street. So taken at face value, this holiday programmer from director Bernard Gosselin exudes enough Z-grade charm to allow some forgiveness of its admittedly many flaws. It captures the sort of wide-eyed innocence largely missing from family entertainment these days and never feels the need to be edgy or larger than life.
Martian is unlikely to ever become a beloved holiday classic, but it might prove diverting enough to keep the kids occupied for an hour while you get some Christmas baking done. May pair nicely with the aforementioned Santa Claus Conquers the Martians as well.
4/10
The Christmas Martian can be streamed on Tubi, but a much-improved restored version is also available on Blu-Ray from Canadian Independent Pictures