422-The Day the Earth Froze

Film Year:  1958
Genre:  Fantasy, Adventure
Director:  Aleksandr Ptushko, Risto Orko
Starring:  Urho Somersalmi, Ivan Voronov, Ana Orochko, Andris Osins, Eve Kivi
MST Season:  4
Featured Short:  "Here Comes the Circus"

The Short

THE CIRCUS IS HERE!  Yes friends, animals forced into degrading situations, clowns doing stupid things, and people bouncing around in mid-air all for your amusement!  You won’t remember it tomorrow, but who cares when you have popcorn and cotton candy?

The short’s amusement factor relies heavily on an individual’s reaction to the circus.  I like trapeze acts, so this short did provide some entertainment value.  In fact, women flipping back and forth, landing on men’s feet, simultaneously getting kicked in the ass has become my personal sexual fetish after seeing this short.

The rest of it doesn’t do it for me.  The trained animals depress me with their broken spirits and the clowns aren’t funny.  Luckily this circus didn’t get my dime.

The Movie

Our first of several delightful Russo-Finnish fantasy films tells us the tale of a witch who desires a magical wind mill called a Sampo, which will create an assortment of riches for her.  The witch threatening his love, Lemminkainen quests to retrieve the mystical Sampo for her but he returns empty handed, causing the witch to black out the sun.

Originally titled the far more straightforward “Sampo” (I suspect “The Day the Earth Froze” was an attempted cash-in off of The Day the Earth Stood Still), regardless of one’s opinion of the movie in general you can’t say it’s unimaginative.  Hell, I don’t even think you can say it isn’t well made.  I think it’s mostly the style of story that becomes lost in translation during importing and dubbing.  This movie probably means so much more to the Finnish market than it does to our eyes.

It’s hard to knock a fantasy film that tries this hard and does a lot of cool and creative things with its limitations.  The ultimate knock I can make against it is that I didn’t find it particularly interesting.  Though take note that ultimately I don’t find Lord of the Rings very interesting either, so consider the source on that.  Fantasy lovers will probably have a good time with this one, while I’m more prone to enjoy the cool visuals and not much else.

The Episode

The inherent fault of Mystery Science Theater’s format is that by having our comedians latch onto a movie as a gateway for their material there is a constant war between the two for our attention.  Because of that there is always a chance that we miss aspects of either one in our efforts to keep up with the other.  The Day the Earth Froze is a fairly prime example in this is because one of the stronger aspects of the episode is Joel and the bots’ confusion over what a Sampo is, even though the movie does tell us (they’re just riffing during the explanation).  Coherency is the price we pay for good comedy, and their guesses as to what a Sampo is are pretty funny, so we allow it.

Other than Sampos, The Day the Earth Froze offers up a more elaborate and high-scale film than our boys are used to and they latch onto it.  This movie takes them for a wild ride, so they set their sails and let the wind take them where it pleases.  They welcome it.  They play with it.  They laugh at it.  They even seem charmed by it.  There’s little doubt why they came back to this genre several more times in the future, yet they never oversaturated it.  This type of movie is like candy.  Too much might give you a tummy ache.

The short on the other hand is a pleasing if pedestrian affair.  The short does little to make our gang creative, as it’s just a rather standard showcase of an actual circus.  Laughs are to be had, including one brilliant precision gag during a lion taming sequence where Servo whispers “Stella!” during just the right moment.  Other than that, the short doesn’t outshine the feature by any definition.

Highlighting the host segments is our discussion as to what exactly a Sampo might actually be.  We also have a couple of solid contenders surrounding them, with Tom and Crow planning their own circus and Gypsy’s one-woman show.  I also dig the invention exchange, as Joel presents some kung fu inspired candy and Dr. F’s equally useless and ingenious Unhappy Meals.

The Day the Earth Froze offers a benchmark selection of a movie with excellent riffing to go alongside it.  With a good if not great short and decent host segments to go along with it, this frozen Earth is chilled to perfection.

Classic

The DVD

The Day the Earth Froze was one of the lucky episodes selected by Shout Factory to represent the show in their 25th Anniversary Edition box set.  Picture had a few slight blinks, but sound was good, and special features included Return to Eden Prairie Part II:  The Locations.  This is a thirty minute recount by Joel, Jim, Trace, and Kevin about the origins of the show on KTMA and the move to the Comedy Channel, a lot of which is repeat info from other special features Shout Factory has offered.  Despite the title, very little of it is devoted to locations, however whenever a location is referenced we do see a shot of what said location looks like today.

Also included are Mystery Science Theater Hour wraps and a startlingly black and white trailer for the movie (which ironically proclaims “SEE the amazing RED HORSE created before your very eyes!”).