The Day the Earth Froze

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.

Finns have some problem with fantasy films. There are hardly any, and few that do exist are usually crappy. Even today most new movies are set in everyday reality. That's boring! I can't understand how our country that makes a lot of heavy metal music fails so hard in making cool movies.

Sampo has great source material - the national epic Kalevala. But even with great material like that the movie didn't happen until a Russian director grabbed the project. I've heard it caused controversy that a very Finnish theme was used by foreign filmmakers but I'm glad somebody - anybody - dared to make the movie in the first place.

The movie takes some liberties and is a bit disappointing if you know the Kalevala tales. But it's still a cool movie. It's visually stunning, many of the scenes are such pieces of art that I'd put them on my wall as still images. Not a perfect film by any means but definitely better than average Finnish movie.

Finns wake up now, grab your swords and grow your Väinämöinen-beards. This is what movies are about!

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.

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.

In the 1960s, some idiots bought this Finnish-Soviet production and brought it to the screen. The problem is that the plot involving a Finnish folk tale was confusing to Western audiences, so the film was chopped to pieces--and almost 30% of the original film was thrown on the cutting room floor. As a result, it's very dull and confusing--and not worth your time. There is LOTS of narration to fill in the gaps but the film never is interesting or coherent. HOWEVER, I am not maligning the original film--just this terrible dubbed mess seen in the States.

While bastardizing a movie like this seems odd today, American-International did this a lot--buying up Russian and Japanese films and creatively editing them into American films. Sometimes they inserted down-on-their-luck actors into the films (such as Basil Rathbone) and I sure would rather see the original movie--which MIGHT actually be pretty good. But, in the 60s, they rarely trusted foreign subtitled films--and sloppily dubbed them. Sad...and stupid.