How bad is it? The original is an average film, but it's been badly altered, for the worse.
Should you see it? If you can find the original, but don't expect much.
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds."
Wednesday, April 9, 2014
The Day the Earth Froze (1959)
aka The Sampo
How bad is it? The original is an average film, but it's been badly altered, for the worse.
Should you see it? If you can find the original, but don't expect much.
This films a story from the Finnish classic "Kalevala," which is not well known in the United States, so American Int'l. Pictures, when they purchased it, rewrote the dialogue and edited it, removing continuity of plot and ruining it. Mystery Science Theater 3000 ran it with their usual commentary and now it's been listed as a terrible film - but it's not. Paul Bunyan and Pecos Bill would seem just as ludicrous to Finnish audiences. The plot:a witch steals the warmth of the sun and must be overcome. Why there's a dancing bear, I admit, I don't know.
How bad is it? The original is an average film, but it's been badly altered, for the worse.
Should you see it? If you can find the original, but don't expect much.
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I knew it was masterfully campy when I first saw the USA-edited version, at age 12, on NYC TV station WPIX. It has always remained vividly in my memory these, many years later, for reasons I can't fully explain, and I now often use the screen name "Lemminkainen" when posting political opinions on left wing websites.
ReplyDeleteFWIW: Finnish classical composer, Jean Sibelius had, much earlier than the 1959 movie, written the Lemminkainen Legends for full orchestra -- strangely beautiful pieces, evocative of magical journeys through the lands of the remote High North Woodlands of Finland & Lapland.
Too bad the movie makers didn't include any of Sibelius's amazing music in the soundtrack. <><><> Alex Grimsson. Montana, USA