The Day The Earth Froze

I've been watching the 1980s TV serial adaptation of the Kalevala, Rauta-aika [Iron Age], being shown in 4 parts on Tuesdays on YLE2. I've never really liked adaptations which may be due to having been forced to sit through a torturous production of Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing that was set on a tennis court and featured something I could only describe as valley girls with big hair and bubble gum. The actors were lucky we didn't start throwing things and booing. Rauta-aika isn't all that bad even though the actors speak prose and some of the costumes are pretty over the top. A few days ago I mentioned the show to Chip Salzenberg, the human movie quote database, who immediately asked, "The Day the Earth Froze?" No, the Kalevala, not some bad sci-fi flick. As it happens, Chip and Jeff Goff are MST3K devotees who provided me with the MST3K episode featuring the absurdly bad The Day the Earth Froze which, in spite of the misleading title, is a 1959 movie of the Kalevala.

The movie was titled Sampo everywhere else but the US without explanation as to who thought the B-movie sci-fi title would be a brilliant replacement. The US version is also about 30 minutes shorter although, judging by what wasn't cut, it likely was an act of mercy. The Ministry of Culture in the then USSR apparently funded and commissioned this entertainment bomb for some deeply mysterious reason. The US version changes many the Russian and Finnish names to sound, presumably, less like commies and the opening credits manage to misspell Lönnrot's name. The MST3K guys often mock the Swedish in the episode but I think the Finns wouldn't bother to correct them and let the Swedes take all the credit for this total suckfest. The English dubbing over the original Russian is spectacularly bad, too, as I guess no one bothered to ask how the Finnish words and names were pronounced and, after a while, I think they just started making shit up. One of the more hilarious moments of heckling is when Crow makes fun of the actress who plays Louhi by saying, "Marty Feldman in a role that won't surprise you!" :)

It was good for a laugh but it was like watching a Paris Hilton version of Walden Pond set in a luxury tourist resort where you begin to wonder if you haven't slipped into a parallel and alternate reality. It's a pity that no one has actually done a full movie production of the Kalevala or a film of the people who kept the stories alive before they were finally collected by Lönnrot and written down. I think even a low-budget "Blair Witch" style Kalevala movie would suck less than this movie does. I have a new appreciation for Rauta-aika now. :)