(L’assassinat du Père Noël, Christian-Jaque, France 1941, 105 min., DCP, French with English subtitles)
The first film produced by Continental Films, the Nazi-controlled French film production company during World War II, Who Killed Santa Claus? is nonetheless a story of resistance against collaboration. In an isolated village in the French Alps, Christmas has come again, bearing the expectation of traditions, such as local globemaker Gaspard (Harry Baur) dressing up as Pere Noel to deliver presents to the village children and becoming increasingly inebriated along the way. The assassination doesn’t take place until halfway through the film at which point we have gotten to know the townspeople, their suspicions, and their finger-pointing. As the authorities try to find their way through the snow, the villagers must put aside their prejudices to solve the mystery.
DCP from The Film Desk.
Upcoming Events in this Series
Film Screenings | The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (35mm)
Joyeux Noel | Holidays One of the most beloved and cherished of all musicals is this colorful, romantic, and bittersweet study of love and chance.
Film Screenings | My Night at Maud's (DCP)
Jouex Noel | Holidays In the brilliantly accomplished centerpiece of director Éric Rohmer’s “Moral Tales” series, Jean-Louis Trintignant plays Jean-Louis, one of the great conflicted figures of sixties cinema. A pious Catholic engineer in his early thirties, he lives by a strict moral code in order to rationalize his world, drowning himself in mathematics and the philosophy of Pascal.
Film Screenings | Joyeux Noël (DCP)
Jouex Noel | Holidays In the first year of the Great War, soldiers line the trenches, French and Scotsmen on one side and Germans on the other. Among the Germans is opera singer Nikolaus Sprink (Benno Fürmann), who has been pulled away temporarily to perform with his fiancee, Anna (Diane Kruger) to perform for Crown Prince Wilhelm.