The Day the Earth Froze
Sampo (Sampo)

Finland 1959 colour 91min Mosfilm, Suomi-Filmi Oy

*½

Fantasy

cast: Urho Somersalmi (Väinämöinen), Anna Orotsko (Louhi), Ivan Voronov (Ilmarinen), Andris Osin (Lemminkäinen), Ada Voitsik (his mother), Eve Kivi (Annikki), voices [äänet]: Aune Somersalmi (Louhi), Mauno Hyvönen (Ilmarinen), Kauko Kokkonen (Lemminkäinen), Hilkka Helinä (his mother), Anneli Haahdenmaa (Annikki)
credits: dir. Aleksandr Ptusko, prod. G. Kuznetsov and Risto Orko, assistant director Holger Harrivirta etc. (also edit.), script Viktor Vitkovits and Grigori Jagdfeld, based on a Finnish book called Kalevala

A huge and ambitious production. The story is taken from Kalevala, the book in which Elias Lönnrot collected many years ago old people's songs of Finnish history. Sampo is a machine that Mrs. Louhi wants to be build for her. This mysterious machine is a somekind of money-maker and only one guy can build it: Ilmarinen. Evil Mrs. Louhi kidnaps Ilmarinen's sister and promises to set her free if he builds the machine.

The movie is as stiff as a corpse. It smells like anything that has been made with too big ideas. We can see the attempt, the passion and the brilliance of some scenes but that all makes the movie too heavy and dull. It sinks into the swamp of poor B-movies. Let's hope it also stays there. Filmed in Sovcolor.

TRIVIA: Urho Somersalmi was only Finnish actor in this movie. His own voice can be heard also on Russian version.
TRIVIA#2: The Day the Earth Froze is only partly the same movie (according to Suomen Kansallisfilmografia). This 67 minutes long version has also partly different cast and it's directed by Gregg Sebelious and Herman Erkko (possibly fake names).
TRIVIA#3: This was Urho Somersalmi's last movie.

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