Santa Claus Is a Stinker (Le père Noël est une ordure)

Jean-Marie Poiré directed the 1982 French comedy Santa Claus Is a Stinker, known in French as Le père Noël est une ordure. The French title, which translates roughly as "Father Christmas is a scumbag", sets the tone at once: crude, mocking and deliberately provocative. The film adapts a stage comedy created by the Le Splendid troupe in 1979. Described as a burlesque and a Christmas film, the 88-minute picture is now regarded as a cult classic.

The story unfolds on Christmas Eve in a Paris apartment that houses a helpline for lonely and distressed people. Everyone who comes through the door or onto the phone that night is a caricature: the association's volunteers, a half-homeless couple (one dressed as Santa), a neighbour from an imaginary Balkan country, and a man in women's clothes struggling with loneliness and discrimination. The cast includes Thierry Lhermitte, Gérard Jugnot, Christian Clavier, Anémone, Roland Giraud, Josiane Balasko and Marie-Anne Chazel, with Martin Lamotte, Jacques François, Bruno Moynot and Claire Magnin.

Poiré, Balasko and Chazel wrote the screenplay together. Both play and film draw on 1970s Italian comedies, notably Ettore Scola's Affreux, sales et méchants and Dino Risi's segments in Les Nouveaux Monstres.