The Christmas That Almost Wasn't
1966 film by Rossano Brazzi
The Christmas That Almost Wasn't (Italian: Il Natale che quasi non fu) is a 1966 Christmas musical fantasy film directed by Rossano Brazzi in his feature directorial debut and written by Paul Tripp, who also star in the leading roles. The cast also features Alberto Rabagliati, Mischa Auer, and Sonny Fox. The film offers a whimsical account of the origins of department store Santa Clauses.
Plot
Sam Whipple, a broke lawyer who is nevertheless young at heart, meets Santa Claus and learns that he is upset because he has a new landlord named Phineas T. Prune, to whom Santa owes a great deal of rent. Prune has threatened to confiscate Santa's toys and have him, Mrs. Claus and the elves evicted. In order to raise money, Sam and Santa get jobs at a department store, where working for two days will somehow earn enough money to pay all of the rent that is due. Santa is nervous at first, but when the children arrive, they naturally gravitate to him and he becomes a big success.
Prune schemes to thwart Sam and Santa's plans. He buys the department store, has his butler destroy several of the toys and takes the damages out of Santa and Sam's paychecks.
“The Christmas That Almost Wasn't” enters the record as 1966 film by Rossano Brazzi. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Christmas, Almost and Wasn't can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Reception evidence should be dated and situated: later canonical status may differ sharply from the work’s initial circulation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 12, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4396237. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1966.
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This entry incorporates text from “The Christmas That Almost Wasn't” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.