The Christmas Martian () is a Canadian children's Christmas comedy film, directed by Bernard Gosselin and released in 1971.Gerald Pratley, A Century of Canadian Cinema. Lynx Images, 2003. . p. 42. The film stars Marcel Sabourin as Poo Flower, an extraterrestrial being from Mars who lands his spaceship near a small town in Northern Quebec during the Christmas season, befriending the local children but alarming their parents."Filmmaker sees young as mischievious". Saskatoon Star-Phoenix, October 6, 1971.
The film's cast also includes Catherine Leduc, François Gosselin, Guy L'Écuyer, Roland Chenail, Paul Hébert, Louise Poulin-Roy, Paul Berval, Ernest Guimond, Yvan Canuel, Yvon Leroux and Reine Malo, as well as narration by Marc-André Coallier.
It was the first children's film ever made in Canada by a commercial studio independently of either the National Film Board of Canada or the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. After producer Rock Demers launched the Tales for All series of children's films in the 1980s, the film was retroactively incorporated into that series.Ralph Lucas, "Canadian Film Remakes". Northern Stars, July 30, 2019.
Reception Canuxploitation, a film blog devoted to Canadian B-movies, wrote that the film was "easily the most insane example of Canadian children's cinema ever conceived. Nonsensical and embarrassingly low-budget, Le Martien de Noël wildly bounces from wacky action sequences to unrelated tangents, all highlighted by special effects even the most distracted seven year-old could see through. In other words, it's great!".
Availability The film has occasionally been rebroadcast on television during the Christmas season, most commonly on science fiction channels.Tony Atherton, "It's Christmastime on television". Ottawa Citizen, November 28, 2003. RiffTrax released a version with a mocking audio commentary track on December 15, 2023.
See also List of Christmas films
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