MOVIE MUSIC UK

THROWBACK THIRTY

Original Review by Jonathan Broxton

The Santa Clause is a Christmas fantasy comedy movie starring Tim Allen as Scott Calvin, a divorced father who accidentally causes Santa Claus to fall from his roof and die one Christmas Eve. Scott unwittingly agrees to a “contract” – the titular “Santa clause” – by putting on Santa’s suit, and magically transforming into a new Santa Claus. This sets off a series of transformations in Scott’s life, as he gains weight, grows a white beard, and develops a love for milk and cookies. However, his transformation strains his relationship with his young son Charlie (Erik Lloyd), and his ex-wife Laura (Wendy Crewson), who thinks he’s endangering Charlie with fantasies of being Santa.

The film was directed by John Pasquin, and was Tim Allen’s debut movie role, as he sought to capitalize on his then-recent small-screen success as the star of the TV sitcom Home Improvement. Upon release, The Santa Clause was a massive commercial success, grossing nearly $190 million worldwide, and finishing 1994 as the fourth highest-grossing film of the year behind only Forrest Gump, The Lion King, and True Lies. Audiences enjoyed Allen’s sarcastic humor and the movie’s warmhearted, family-friendly spirit, although some critics had mixed reactions. Over time, The Santa Clause gained a lasting fanbase and is now considered a holiday classic, sparking two sequels and a Disney+ series, The Santa Clauses, which debuted in 2022.

The score for The Santa Clause was by composer Michael Convertino, who in the mid-1990s was still writing film scores with notable regularity; his work in the years immediately prior to The Santa Clause included writing for acclaimed films like Bull Durham in 1988 and Randa Haines’s The Doctor in 1991, and he would later go on to score Guarding Tess, Bed of Roses, Things to Do in Denver When You’re Dead, and another Tim Allen comedy, Jungle 2 Jungle, among others. It’s always been a bit of a mystery to me why Convertino essentially disappeared from the film scoring world at the end of the 1990s, and why he remains such an enigmatic figure today – of all the American composers who were reasonably prominent in the 1980s and 90s, he is the one about whom I know the least. It’s a shame, too, because he was really good. Convertino’s score for The Santa Clause is particularly notable for its whimsical, magical sound, combining traditional orchestral elements with playful touches that enhance the film’s lighthearted, family-friendly tone.

Music from films about Christmas are more often than not of the same ilk, the same style, using the same orchestrations and containing lots of overt sentimentality. A lesser composer would probably not have deviated in the slightest from these tried and tested methods, but to his credit Convertino chose to go off on a slight tangent on The Santa Clause by being a little more subtle and a little more mature, while still maintaining a sense of wonder and a timeless romantic quality. The whole score is played to give off a feeling of almost childlike innocence, and is written mainly for strings, with backing from light and airy woodwinds, gentle pianos, and the essential sleigh bells.

The main theme is introduced in the opening cue, “Let’s Go,” and is just superb, a fun, bouncy piece for the full orchestra which has a traditionally rich and classical flavor, with a vague hint of Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker, or perhaps one of Strauss’s more fulsome and florid works. Later cues like “Elves With Attitude” come back to the theme, but personally I think this theme is under-used in the score proper. One thing that’s notable about this cue – and about the score as a whole, really – is how fascinating Convertino’s orchestrations and arrangements are; there is something very sophisticated about them, the way the instruments layer up against each other in elaborate ways, and this is something that makes this score in particular stand out from other stereotypical ‘Christmas comedy’ scores of the same type. A lot of credit should go to Convertino’s orchestrators John Neufeld, Conrad Pope and Bobby Muzingo here.

A lot of the rest of the score deals with the sense of awe and amazement Scott and Charlie experience as he is learning to become Santa Claus. “Believing is Seeing” underscores the scene where Scott and Charlie look out on Santa’s grotto for the first time, them having been transported to the North Pole after the original Santa’s ‘accident,’ and it is suitably charming and wondrous, with a gorgeous romantic string theme at its core, and an expressive sequence of frisky pizzicato in its second half. This cue also features the first incarnation of a little five-note chime motif which reoccurs throughout the score, and which is used by Convertino to establish the father-and-son bond, and the magical secret they share about Scott being the new Santa; later cues like “Goodnight, Goodnight… Don’t Forget The Fire Extinguisher” and “Visitation” feature this motif prominently.

Other cues revisit this ‘magical North Pole’ sound with excellent effect, notably “The Sash Completes The Ensemble” which blends those orchestrations with a heartfelt rendition of the main theme for woodwinds, the effervescent scherzo “Flight,” and the charming piano textures in “Weightless.” The playful “Away to the Window” contains an unusual synthesized piano texture to illustrate some of Scott’s bumbling first steps as the new Santa and sounds decidedly off-key, but eventually swells to encompass the full orchestra in a hugely satisfying way. Some listeners may find the tone of these cues to be a little on the saccharine side, and some may recoil at some of Convertino’s forays into mickey-mousing, but I think they are wholly lovely.

“Listen” is just superb, a complete orchestral rendition of the warm theme introduced in “Believing Is Seeing,” in which Convertino allows himself to reach for all the emotional heartstrings; later cues like “The List” come back to this theme too. The aforementioned “Goodnight, Goodnight… Don’t Forget The Fire Extinguisher,” besides having one of the most bizarre cue titles ever, is probably the score’s most amusing track, an expanded take on the ‘Flight’ scherzo with prominent pizzicato textures and sleigh bells. There is a darker and more serious edge to the strings in “Visitation,” acknowledging the real-world consequences of Scott becoming Santa, whereas “Someone in Wrapping” arranges the theme for a pretty music box.

The finale of the score, encompassing the cues “Comfort and Joy” and “Not Over Any Oceans,” underscore the conclusive scenes when, having finally reconciled with his ex-wife and son, Scott flies away into the night sky to deliver presents to the children of the world and fulfil his destiny and responsibilities as the new Santa. Here Convertino revisits all the score’s main recurring thematic ideas and motifs and performs them at their most fulsome, allowing his orchestra to build to a quite rapturous climax.

The soundtrack album also includes several songs. Swiss pop group Yello’s techno version of “Jingle Bells” is an absolute hoot (“Beautiful! Even more beautiful!”), “The Bells of Christmas” is one of those lovely seasonal ballads performed with gusto by Loreena McKennit and a children’s choir to Convertino’s underscore, and no album of this sort would be complete without a rendition of the classic “White Christmas” – this time it’s The Drifters’ Motown version.

The 1990s were awash in outstanding fully orchestral Christmas scores, from John Williams’s Home Alone to Bruce Broughton’s Miracle on 34th Street, David Newman’s Jingle All the Way, among many others, and Michael Convertino’s The Santa Clause is one of the best of its type. If there was to be a little quibble, it may be that all the cues are so short (most, if not all, are under two minutes), but this really would be nit-picking of the worst kind. This is the sort of album that you could play in the background while you open your gifts on Christmas morning, or when you’re trimming your tree. It’s lovely, seasonal stuff, and listening to it now, thirty years down the line, makes me miss Michael Convertino’s voice in film music all the more keenly.

Buy the Santa Clause soundtrack from the Movie Music UK Store

Track Listing:

• Jingle Bells – Movie Version (written by Boris Blank and Dieter Meier, performed by Yello)
• White Christmas (written by Irving Berlin, performed by The Drifters)
• Let’s Go (1:03)
• Believing is Seeing (3:24)
• The Sash Completes The Ensemble (1:04)
• Flight (0:46)
• Weightless (1:33)
• Away to the Window (2:11)
• The Bells of Christmas (written and performed by Loreena McKennit) (2:21)
• Listen (3:05)
• Goodnight, Goodnight… Don’t Forget The Fire Extinguisher (1:08)
• Visitation (2:19)
• Rose Suchak Ladder (1:29)
• The List (1:24)
• Elves With Attitude (0:50)
• Someone in Wrapping (1:31)
• Near Capture (0:46)
• Comfort and Joy (2:10)
• Not Over Any Oceans (1:50)
• Christmas Will Return (written by Jimmy Webb, performed by Brenda Russell and Howard Hewitt) (4:05)

Milan 74321-32364-2 (1994)

Running Time: 40 minutes 26 seconds

Music composed by Michael Convertino. Conducted by Artie Kane. Orchestrations by John Neufeld, Conrad Pope and Bobby Muzingo. Recorded and mixed by Dennis Sands. Edited by Ken Wannberg. Album produced by Michael Convertino.