From: mg@cambot.ac.duke.edu (Michael Grubb)
Newsgroups: alt.tv.mst3k
Subject: Aleksandr Ptushko--Sampo--The Day the Earth Froze
Keywords: Hey! Zack Norman *is* 'Sammy' in _Chief Zabu_!!
Date: 25 Jan 93 23:36:41 GMT
Organization: Circus on Ice
Originator: mg@cambot.ac.duke.edu


     Although in an interview Joel has said that the Best Brains crew
are not Video Watchdog-type fanatics, it is an interesting coincidence
that one year after Video Watchdog does a feature on the celebrated
Russian director Aleksandr Ptushko, MST3K sends up an abominable
import of one of his films.  In the excellent Video Watchdog article, 
which discusses _Sampo_ (the original Russian title of TDtEF) and other
films at lenth, there is a lengthy sidebar on The Day the Earth Froze, 
reprinted below without permission:

From Video Watchdog, No. 9 (Jan/Feb 1992), article apparently copyright
1992 by Tim Lucas (the author)--

THE DAY THE EARTH FROZE
(Shock Theater Video, $22.50 ppd.  Order from M. Longley,
2752 N. 60th Street, Milwaukee, WI 53210)

     THE DAY THE EARTH FROZE -- the American version of _Sampo_ (1959),
arguably Ptushko's finest work -- appears to be available on video only
in a grainy telecast version sold by Shock Theater Video, a Milwaukee-
based mail order service.  This title (now in the public domain) runs
67m, 2m shy of its official US running time... and *32m* shy of its
original (99m) Russian length!

     With no original print available, we can only surmise that the
bulk of the missing footage is musical in nature (the film's end
titles offer a glimpse of Anniky ["Nina Anderson"/Eve Kivi] dancing
in a scene not included earlier).  Other missing scenes may elaborate
on the efforts of Lemminkainen ["Jon Powers"/Andris Oshin] to destroy
the Sampo and make his escape, the details of which are vague in
domestic prints.

     Ironically, the voice of Marvin Miller figures prominently in
THE DAY THE EARTH FROZE, as it does in THE SWORD AND THE DRAGON 
[_Ilya Muromets_ (1956) -- mg].  By the time DAY appeared in theaters,
Miller had found fame as the star of the CBS-TV series THE MILLIONAIRE,
and was actually given star billing in the film's advertisements... over
the names of fictitious acting leads "Jon Powers" and "Nina Anderson"!
(In THE MILLIONAIRE, Miller starred as Michael Anthony, the emissary of
unseen millionaire Beresford Tipton, who instructed Anthony each week to
present $1,000,000 to a different beneficiary.  Tipton's face was never
shown, but his voice was provided by... Paul Frees!)  Miller is heard --
never seen, of course -- as the greatly condensed film's narrator (and
occasional sense-maker).

     Alas, sense does not always prevail.  THE DAY THE EARTH FROZE opens
with shots of the statues erected in various countries to the memories of
the world's great storytellers.  We are shown the sculpted likenesses of
Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm in Germany, Hans Christian Andersen in Denmark,
and another sculpture of two storytellers beside a lake in Finland --
at which point Miller identifies the two men as the *singular* Elias
Lonnrott, author of THE KALEVALA!  (To make matters worse, Lonnrott's
distinguished name is misspelled in the film's pressbook as "Lenrot",
and is similarly mispronounced by Miller.)  The soul shudders at what
less obvious liberties might have been taken with language in the rest
of Ptushko's film.

     _Sampo_, like all of Ptushko's later works, was filmed in
widescreen, but was evidently reformatted for its US release in Roger
Corman's notorious, non-anamorphic "VistaScope" format.  At the
point when Lemminkainen dives from a homebound ship to destroy the
Sampo forged for the witch Louhi, there are two cutaway shots of
torrential waves crashing against a craggy shoreline; these images
are anamorphically squeezed, suggesting that they were filmed in a
wider ratio than the performance footage.

     Despite its compromised presentation and the coarse image
quality of Shock Theater's transfer, THE DAY THE EARTH FROZE is
nonetheless rewarding viewing and an ideal introduction to the 
splendid work of Aleksandr Ptushko.  Sinister Cinema expects to
release a superior transfer of the film in the Fall of 1992.

 ---------------------------------------------------------------


--     
"Bad movie?  You're soaking in it!"
Michael Grubb <mg@cambot.ac.duke.edu>