Sampo

Warning! The original version of "Sampo" lasts over 90 minutes, and is a beautiful, atmospheric and awe-inspiring retelling of the Finnish legend of the Sampo, from their national epic, "The Kalevala". In many ways it was the great director Alexander Ptushko's most ambitious film: the idea of the Sampo itself goes far beyond the search for a mere object, touching on the mainsprings of desire and humanity's questing spirit (in much the same way as does the Holy Grail in Arthurian literature).

Sadly, the American release as "The Day the Earth Froze" more or less destroyed the director's structure, his epic time scale, and the sense of mystery to the plot itself, sacrificing everything subtle in a brainless attempt to turn the film into helter-skelter action and swashbuckling excitement. Almost one third of the original film disappeared, and much of the rest was barbarically recut.

The result is a travesty - please, if you watch and rightly condemn "The Day the Earth Froze", do not confuse this farago with the beautiful and profound original film which is (or was) "Sampo"!

One of my sci-fi/horror/fantasy reviews written 50 years ago: Directed by Aleksandr Ptushko; Produced by Gleb Kuznetzov; a Finnish-Soviet co-production for Suomi-Filmi and Mosfilm, released as 'The Day the Earth Froze" in America by Renaissance Films, then TV syndication by American-International TV. Screenplay by Viktor Vitkovich and Grigori Yagdfeld; Photography by Gennadi Tsekvyj and Viktor Yakushev; Music by Igor Morozov. Starring: Urho Spmersalmi, Anna Orochko, Ivan Voronov and Ada Voytsik.

Taken from a story in Elias Lonnrot's classic "The Kalevala", the great poetic cycle of classic Finnish folktales, this prettily photographed period fantasy is incredibly childish. Nominally, the title is truthful, since herein the witch of the shadowy land, with the aid of the enchanted one -Sampo, changes the sun's course and causes the world to freeze.

Sampo......who can get that word out of their head??? It seems to be an infernal machine that makes gold, or salt, or flour, or something but whatever it does, everybody wants it and will go to any lengths to build one. This Scandanavian film has an unusual look to it but it appears that the print is faded, hence the washed out look. Or maybe it's because of all the snow and ice. But I must admit that I found it rather fascinating.

The lead actors play it pretty much without emotion except for the witch who is a total pain in the butt. It took me a while to figure out if it was a man or a woman; regardless he/she was irritating. It moves along pretty slowly and there are times when it is difficult to figure out exactly what is going on.....that may be due to the terrible dubbing. I hate dubbing.....give me sub-titles anytime.

The ending with the harps is insane. We should advise our military that harp music can be deadly and is a lot less messy than live ammunition. However, there is something rather endearing about this film that makes it worth watching. Of course, you need to see the MST3K version.... it is a lot more fun. Can you say Sampo?

My only exposure to Sampo (aka The Day the Earth Froze) comes by way of Mystery Science Theater 3000. I have an extensive collection of MST3K movies (almost 200) and of those the Russo-Finnish movies (Sampo, The Sword and Dragon, Jack Frost, et al) are among my favorites. They lend themselves to Mystification but are entertaining and, (dare I say it?) absorbing in and of themselves. They contain a quaint charm and stark moral values and despite their quirkiness, are entertaining. In a day and age in which we find serial killer 'good guys' and ambiguous moral lessons the old Russo-Finnish fairy tales are the preferred entertainment for this century's jaded child. This review is not about The Day the Earth Froze SPECIFICALLY but is merely a comment on the simple moral tales of the good-old-days. R.I.P.

I can only remember seeing this movie once, back in my schooldays in the early 70's. The tile being "The Day the Earth Froze". What most comes to mind was the fantastic atmosphere it had, very dark, gloomy almost surreal. It was about a Sampo (as far as I could make out or remember, it was a machine for making either money or gold). Everyone in the movie seemed old, dirty and poor. I think it was their quest to find the sampo or retrieve it or something like that. I would love to know if the movie ever made it to video.