A French black comedy that is set during the Yuletide period (one of the protagonists spends the entire time dressed up as Father Christmas) and can therefore be seen to have anticipated BAD SANTA (2003) by some 20 years! Unfortunately, I watched the film – which seems not to have been released outside its country of origin (and, in view of a potentially offensive title that means SANTA CLAUS IS A BASTARD, actually had trouble setting up a publicity campaign!) – in French without even the benefit of subtitles in that language (this practice used to be a given on the TV channel where it was shown but it has regrettably been dropped of late!), thus missing on a good deal of the dialogue (though I could still follow the plot). Most of the proceedings take place inside an apartment where a lonelyhearts helpline for the festive season is based; the two telephone operators (a man and a woman, both reserved, while she is a complete washout at knitting – making three-fingered gloves and presenting her colleague with a jacket which looks more like a pauper's rags!) are beset by numerous calamities and, amid all the fracas, realize they are attracted to one another. To begin with, their landlady gets trapped in the elevator for the longest time (she tries to grab their attention by incessantly blowing on a toy trumpet!), then they receive a visit by a wacky relative of the woman – who has ditched, and is being pursued by, her even more unbalanced hubby (the titular figure). Afterwards, one of the desperate callers presents himself on the spot, only he turns out be a transvestite!; later still, a tenant of Islamic descent repeatedly shows up at the door with various Oriental dishes which our heroes invariably find repugnant and try to get rid of (most hilariously, a log cake gets thrown out the window and plummets onto the rear windshield of a taxi-cab parked down in the street, smashing it!). The bickering 'intruders' cause the lion's share of the mischief: after the woman hits the man squarely in the face with an iron, they rush him to a clinic where he is to be treated there and then – unfortunately, the elderly owner was on the point of going to some party (with a much younger girl) and is all dressed up, but then his white suit gets covered with chocolate squeezed out of the afore-mentioned log-cake when someone inadvertently sits on it! That said, the most side-splitting scenes occur towards the end as the couple, still at each other's throat, fight amongst themselves for possession of a gun – first, they shoot the transvestite in the leg and then empty the cartridge in the direction of the entrance to the flat…except that, just then, the apartment block's handyman was calling and he drops dead inside as soon as the front door is opened! While the wounded party is bemoaning his fate in the bedroom and the telephone operators succumb to their passions in the bathroom (the woman needing a shower to be revived after feeling faint at the sight of the corpse), husband and wife are finally united in a common cause – disposing of the stiff in the kitchen, where they cut it all up and wrap the dismembered body parts as if they were Christmas gifts!; to wash their hands clean of the deed, the two then persuade the rest of the group to feed the unfortunate's remains to the various wild animals at the local zoo!! All in all, then, this is a pretty good farce – and, being much in the same vulgar vein as the box-office smash LA CAGE AUX FOLLES (1978), ought to be better known.

This is probably the first time I've read all the previous comments for a given movie and found not a single pan so far be it for me to go against the consensus. I've long been a fan of 'Splendid' both as a group and later as individuals (in fact I'm just about to add my comment on 'Monsieur Batignole' a comparatively new film by triple-threat Gerard Jugnot, the 'Felix' from pere noel) and this represents them at their very best, which is saying something indeed. I missed, alas, the original stage version of Pere Noel but the good news is it's now available on DVD so it's automatically on my 'must have' list. It's also going to be difficult to improve on the raves already posted here so really the best one can do is add to them. I think it's fair to say that this movie gives a new meaning to the old gag 'the Samaritans call ME', given that the main setting (it started out as a play, remember) is the run-down offices of SOS distresse amitie, the French equivalent of the Samaritans which is invaded - against the no-face-to-face contact Rule, natch, by three assorted fruitcakes - four, if you count Felix-and-how-could-you-not - the santa claus-suited, gun-toting boyfriend of the slightly enceinte Zezette (Marie-Ann Chaval). The most rational thing you can say about this is that it's difficult to separate the fruitcakes - Gerard Jugnot, Bruno Mayot, Marie-Ann Chaval, Christian Clavier, from the 'staff', Anemone, Thierry Lhermitte, Josiane Balasko, in fact the title of the pathetic American remake 'Mixed Nuts' says it all (but don't rush to see it, it's light years away from the original on the wrong galaxy side). Incredibly they pack all the mayhem into one hour twenty eight minutes and that includes the best part of a minute on Establishing Shots. To attempt to describe the labyrinthine plot is a new way to grow schizoid so suffice it to say this is THE surreal comedy they all have to beat. 10/10

From the comments it seems that English-speakers may not have seen this film in any great numbers - anyone who likes The League of Gentlemen should give this a go as there are some big similarities. It starts off as everything you would expect from a French farce, but gets far darker and horrific in the second half. The Canal+ DVD I saw has American English subtitles. Definitely worth a try if you like black humour.

There are some movies that you can watch several times and each time you find them better. Le père noël, after a play of the same name, is definitely among these. The dialogs are so rich (and always funny), that every watching reveal you a reply you didn't notice. Every character is well defined and written by/for the actor who plays it with a rare intensity. That's a movie you can't describe or quote out of its context and just have to watch. If you're French, you might already have seen it several times, so this movie is popular here, otherwise I suggest you to watch it, hoping you'll share this typical French "humour".