The Night Before Christmas (1946)
*** (out of 4)
This here is just one film version that takes the poem and tries to do something new with it. The one difference here is that this mixes live action and animation to tell the story of the night before Christmas. If you've seen one version of this poem then you've pretty much seen them all as it seems there's not too much that hasn't already been done. I found this version here to be worth watching because it has a somewhat creepy feel to it and especially the Santa Claus. I'm sure nothing bad was meant but just take a look at the sequence where the jolly old Santa is just laughing away. Again, I know this is part of the poem but the laughing Santa here seems more like a madman than just a jolly old guy. It was also interesting that they wanted to mix the live action with the animation but the only animated sequences are basically when Santa is flying through the air. I'm going to guess that it was a little cheaper to do animation over a special effect of him flying. Either way, fans of Christmas shorts will want to check this one out and especially if they want to see one of the weirder ones.