Jack Frost (1979)

Too many fans seem to be blown away

A bit overrated, but still an amazing film

This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

As I really like/love so much of Rankin/Bass' output, I realised that I had not seen Jack Frost. Being intrigued by the story concept, I knew I wanted to see it. And I really liked it on the most part, it is not a classic in the vein of Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer, Santa Claus is Comin' To Town, Frosty the Snowman, The Little Drummer Boy and The Year Without a Santa Claus, nor did it need or try to be and it is much better than it's given credit for. If there was anything I wasn't crazy about it was the groundhog Pardon-Me-Pete, who I find a trite character who fills the role of narrator but with not much personality or warmth(I know not all Rankin/Bass narrative characters have to be like Sam the Snowman for example but still). By all means Buddy Hackett does try hard but his character doesn't really allow him to play to his strengths and he does have a couple of jokes that fall flat.I personally much enjoyed the music though, the scoring is whimsical and dynamic. The songs are also lovely with the exception of the train-wreck that is I've Got a Day Named After Me. I found that the lyrics were really uninspired, the melody forgettable and stylistically jarring to the rest and Hackett's vocals consisted of singing painfully out of tune when he wasn't talking his way through the song. It's Lonely Being One of a Kind and There's The Rub were the ones that stood out to me the most, the latter as a matter of fact is in my head right now. The animation is beautifully crafted, every bit as accomplished as the earlier Rankin/Bass classics with backgrounds full of intricate and atmospheric details and colours that positively leap out at you.When it comes to the writing, Jack Frost is not one of the best in this regard(the best written for me is still Santa Claus is Comin' to Town) but it does at least maintain interest and is well-intentioned and sweet. The story didn't bore me in any way, there are some great ideas here, such as with the ice money, snowflake makers, snow gypsies and a knight in golden armour, and I was too engrossed in the story's imagination, charm and fun to really care about whether it made sense or not or whether it was propaganda(as I've seen it cited). The ending is different to what you'd expect, but it was refreshing to not have a "sugarcoated" ending once in a while and it was really quite touching. The characters are memorable apart from Pardon-Me-Pete, I found myself immediately liking and identifying with Jack, Dummy is hilarious and Kubla Kraus looks and sounds like Burgermeister Meisterburger as a cossack but is lots of fun all the same.The voice acting is very good, Paul Frees as Kubla Kraus, Father Winter and Dummy is simply genius. Robert Morse brings an appealing chirpish charm to Jack and Debra Clinger a youthful sweetness to Elisa. All in all, very under-appreciated if not one of the studio's very best. 8/10 Bethany Cox

This is the story of Jack Frost. You've probably heard of him: guy who turns fall to winter. Well there was a time when he wanted to be human, and for a brief period, he was. Interesting story that, and it's told by Pardon-Me Pete, celebrity groundhog. How does he figure into all this? Wait and see. So the story really begins in a poor town called January Junction. The folks are poor because the evil ruler, Kubla Krouse. This man is so petty he'll even steal a kaputnik (which has less value than a penny) from someone who has nothing else. However, the town is only broke 9 months out of the year, because come winter, they saw icicles into coins, which is an accepted currency...and yet, they still seem dirt poor. But anyway, these folks love winter and ice, courtesy of Jack Frost. There's one person in particular who is quite fond of the little fellow. This would be Elisa, a pretty girl and a dreamer with a monster crush on ol' Jackie Frost, and it would appear the feeling was mutual, so Jack goes back to Winterland and tells Father Winter that he wants to be human. It seems all these years of being around the people down there and always unable to interact has been making him yearn for something more. Father Winter reluctantly grants his request, but only until the first day of Spring, and if he accumulates a house, a horse, gold and a wife, the bare necessities of life, he will be human forever. And so Jack becomes human and sails down to earth... um, shouldn't he have waited until he landed to become human? What if he fell too fast and died on impact? Well, he didn't, and as luck would have it, he ran into Elisa at the frozen lake and introduces himself as Jack Snip, the tailor. Snip coming from his friend of the same name who makes snowflakes and gave him a pair of his scissors as a keepsake. Elisa brings her new friend home for dinner, and instantly, he wants to seek out a house and all that, but Mama and Papa inform him that all the houses, horses and gold are owned by Kubla Krouse, and he wasn't about to give any of them up. The obvious solution: overthrow him.Ol' Kubla was a lonely man, as his original kingdom had skipped out on him, so all he had for company were mechanical beings he'd made himself: iron horse Klaimstomper, a clockwork orang...er, butler, and Dommy, a dummy. He's still a jerk though and deserves what he'll ultimately get. Now, to keep Jack out of harms' way so he doesn't screw up royally, Father Winter makes Snip and Holly, a snow gypsy, human as well to keep an eye on him. They track Jack down to Mama and Papa's house. Papa sees Holly and says, "what is she, an almost?" Um, what the heck is an almost? and Snip introduces himself as Fernando Leonardi Kratski Dopopolopolis... worst name I've ever heard. Come next morning, Jack wanted to make good his threat to overthrow Kubla...but couldn't climb the icy mountain. Now that he's human, ice is no longer his friend. As if things weren't already a mess for him, into Jack's tailor shop comes the dashing, handsome Sir Ravenaugh Rightfellow (forboding name), looking for someone to mend his cape. Seems Elisa took quite a shine to Mr. Right...fellow. Next day was Christmas, and the household exchanged the same gift: a dream present, whatever you think it is, it is. I guess those ice coins ran out sooner than expected. They skipped Snip and Holly, for some reason too. So, Sir Rightfellow continues to put the moves on Elisa, and then she finds herself kidnapped by Kubla Krouse! Her rescuers set out instantly. The knight slays his mechanical warriors, while Jack, Snip and Holly find themselves captured. Only thing to do now was for Jack to give up his humanity and become frosty again to snow in Kubla and stop him from unleashing a devastating garrison of mechanical knights onto January Junction, and it worked. Until February, when the end of winter would be determined by a groundhog of all things. Jack creates a shadow to scare it off, and thus, Groundhog Day is born. But by March, winter had to end, and a very patient Kubla was ready for his attack. He's knocked unconscious by a falling roof, and clever Jack, now human again, imitates Dommy to get the knights to fall off a steep slope. Kubla charges at Jack, only to jump out the window and get blown away by Father Winter to a presumable death. So Jack moves into Kubla's castle and takes his horse and gold as his own, and now for a wife. Sadly, he's too late. Elisa is marrying Sir Rightfellow, and so, broken hearted, Jack Frost returns to the clouds. So the moral of our story is: women! Whatcha gonna do? Now, something doesn't make sense: during the scene of Jack Frost creating the groundhog's shadow to scare it, it's obviously Pete in the scene, and in the present day, he says he's been letting Jack scare him ever since. Now unless Pete is 800 years old, I don't see how that's possible. I think he should have said, "and we've been letting him scare us to this very day," since there are more groundhogs in the world besides him. But anyway, Jack Frost is a very well done holiday special, both for Christmas and Groundhog Day. Terrific voice acting by Robert Morse, Don Messick, Debra Clinger, Larry Storch, and of course Paul Frees, as well as Buddy Hackett as our narrator. While not one of Rankin/Bass' masterpieces, it's still fun and entertaining. I say, check it out.

**DEFINITE SPOILERS AHEAD**This tale of Jack Frost's brief foray into human existence and unrequited love is charming but has genuine heart, providing no simplistic answers about poverty or the plight of loving someone who does not love one back, but approaching the delicate issues of life's unfairness with compassion. A wonderful story.Even today, I will remember the pretend game, in which people pretend they have been given exactly the gifts they would want, whenever I feel stressed about fiscal difficulties.This Christmas special doesn't really fit in with the "literary folklore" of the rest of the Rankin/Bass winter holiday tales -- for example, this Jack Frost has nothing in common with Paul Frees's Jack Frost villain in "Frosty's Winter Wonderland" -- and I think that may be one of the reasons it hasn't done quite as well as it ought. Many Rankin/Bass stories tie in to each other so that seeing one of them will remind viewers of other stories as well, and that doesn't work for this story.The one flaw is the groundhog character: no offense to Buddy Hackett, but even his voice acting wasn't able to save the groundhog character from being trite.Worth seeing overall for the way Jack responds to his first experiencing of first material need and then emotional need.

I still cannot believe they do not play this movie on TV every year like they do Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. It is just as funny and even more beautiful. I love this movie to pieces and will treasure it forever.