THE WORST WE CAN FIND - Christmas Advent Calendar: Day 6 - THE DAY THE EARTH FROZE

 

Day 6 of the WORST WE CAN FIND Christmas Advent Calendar takes us back to the Joel years of MST3K, and since we just looked at a movie with a clown and snow, we’re doing the same today with an episode from season 4, The Day the Earth Froze, along with the short, Here Comes the Circus

The Day the Earth Froze (1959; released in the U.S. July 1963) and Here Comes the Circus (1946)

Program: Mystery Science Theater 3000

Air-Date: January 16, 1993

  

Three posters for The Day the Earth Froze - including the AIP poster and the one used for MST3K

Plot: Here Comes the Circus focuses on a performance by what appears to be the Cole Bros-Clyde Beatty Circus, which would push the footage back to probably 1940 or 1941, as we see both Clyde Beatty and Emmett Kelly at the same circus and by 1942 Kelly had moved on to Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey. The focus is namely on the clowns, the acrobats, and a handful of the animal acts.

Yikes

Meanwhile, in another part of the world for The Day the Earth Froze, Lemminkainen, who is just the start of names my spellcheck is going to strangle on and is played by Andris Osins (listed as Jon Powers in the U.S. credits) appears to be a lumberjack of sorts in the land of Kalevala. He is smitten with Annikki (Eve Kivi/Nina Anderson), who has magical powers over nature and can make plants grow where she walks (hence the later scene where Louhi is glad to be rid of her because of the flowers growing on his land). Annikki is the sister of a blacksmith named Ilmarinen (Ivan Voronov/Peter Sorenson), who also has magical abilities, as he can forge pretty much anything.

Ilmarinen’s abilities attracts the attention of Louhi (Anna Orochko), a witch who lives in Pohjola. She decides to kidnap Louhi with the objective of forcing Ilmarinen to retrieve her, whereupon she would make him build her a sampo. A sampo confuses the MST3K gang, but it’s pretty much exactly as seen in the movie: a magical mill that creates money, salt, and flour in abundance, thus making rich and happy those that have one. After a few tasks by Louhi, which sees the blacksmith forge a living horse and a steel boat, Ilmarinen is instructed to make the sampo, which he does. Annikiki is released to Ilmarinen, but Lemminkainen is determined to retrieve the sampo for their village. The edit of the movie makes it vague, but he managed to gain the sampo, only to be killed by Louhi on his way back to Kalevala.

Lemminkainen’s mother discovers his death and asks the road, the trees, and the sun to help her. The MST3K cut simply has them whining to her, but the full-edit of the movie has them coming together to and answer her prayers by reviving Lemminkainen. He awakens on the beach, but the sampo is destroyed. Nevertheless, even a piece of it is seen as a good sign by the people of Kalevala, and Ilmarinen agrees for Lemminkainen and Annkiki to marry. There is a festival in honor of their marriage, but it ends when Louhi swings by and steals the sun. Darkness and a blizzard descends on the land, leaving to a group of men going to Pohjola and steal back the sun. They do this with lutes to lull Louhi’s trolls to sleep. Louhi backs away in fear without her trolls to save her and is turned into stone as she reaches the cave where the sun is being held. Lemminkainen uses his powerful sword to break open the door, killing Louhi in the process, and setting the sun free.

Thoughts:  As annoying as the MST3K guys found it to see Emmett Kelly only eating the entire time he was on-camera, the eating bit was part of his act (just as sweeping the spotlights would later become) and had been part of the act that got him noticed when appearing on Broadway back in 1939.  Thus, it wasn’t just Kelly phoning it in. I suspect some of the clown makeup seen would not have looked quite as nightmare-inducing if we saw them in color, but that’s just my opinion. Joel is right, the horses should come AFTER the band in a march, for obvious reasons. Clyde Beatty was exactly as seen here – a famous lion-tamer and would become best known for his own circus, which lasted for many years. And, finally, the acrobatic clown bit is very odd and rightly ridiculed.

This movie was produced as a Russian-Finnish co-production based on a well-known poetic study of two mystical lands, their creation, and feuds, which is called Kalevala. A portion of the poem, collected by Elias Lonnrot, is where much of the plotting for the movie was used to create the script.  The movie, better known in other parts of the world as Sampo, was directed by Aleksandr Ptushko, who is remembered for his fantasy film work, including films that we know better as The Magic Voyage of Sinbad and The Sword and the Dragon. While all three films were riffed on MST3K, both Paul Chapman and Kevin Murphy are on record as saying they really liked the films. Consider the amazing effects work in each it is easy to see why.

Our heroes with the horse created from the fires to deal with the snakes.

As a co-production, the movie was shot in both a Russian and Finnish version, as well as shot using different camera ratios, which results in varying versions of the film.  There is a good comparison of the thee best known cuts (Finnish, Russian, and AIP) to be found on YouTube. The MST3K cut is based on one done by American International Pictures for release in 1963, which used the Russian version of the film and then edited it down nearly 25 minutes to make the film little more than 60 minutes long. Trimmed was much of the storyline involving the death of Lemminkainen, his mother’s search for him, and his being brought back to life. The AIP version is also very hazy about Annkiki affiliation with nature, making Louhi’s anger over all the flowers appearing while Annkiki seem out of nowhere, and the sadness Annkiki has over the bird’s death near the end of the picture not as poignant as it should have come across.

Keep in mind, it was 1963 and a good time to avoid names that sounded too Russian, so most of the cast got an Americanized name in the credits, with Marvin Miller (Michael Anthony of The Millionaire and not the Michael Anthony of Van Halen). To MST3K fans, he also narrated King Dinosaur, The Deadly Mantis,  and The Phantom Planet.  The movie was immediately at the bottom of the bill when it began playing around the country; usually with Disney movies; but that opened up into 1965 and onward, where it would pop up playing with just about anything, whether the pairing made sense or not.

 

Two ads from 1964 showing that The Day the Earth Froze was showing up pretty much with anything. I'm sure the audience wanting to see the STD-driven drama Damaged Goods were thrilled with the Finnish fantasy world of The Day the Earth Froze.

Favorite Riff: “Are you with the bride or the failure?”

The Riffing: The movie were becoming more diverse in nature during season four after the previous three seasons, moving away from the monster movies of the 1950s and 1960s and various Japanese giant monsters to showcase more mainstream recent movies (Space Travelers, aka Marooned, City Limits, Being from Another Planet), Hercules movies, and darker films like Manos, Monster a Go-Go, Attack of the Giant Leeches, and Tormented. With a series of AIP pictures at their fingertips, it was understandable that this movie would pop up for them to look at for the show. The effects are incredible, but the action seems a bit odd when viewed from the perspective of an audience that doesn’t know the material it is based on. The editing, whether in the original cut, handled by AIP, or by the MST3K gang, works against the movie as well. For example, the version we see here suggests that Lemminkainen has gotten lost at seas, but not killed as we know was in the original cut and a major subplot to the film. Why does Louhi turn into stone in the end? What is the purpose of a sampo and why didn’t the blacksmith build one for his land before Louhi forced him to build one? (In the original edit, he swore he would only build one once Annkiki had found true happiness and married.)  Why is everyone happy that Lemminkainen came back with a broken sampo? (Hence all the happy “failure” gags.) Why play music to the trolls? (Well, of course, we find out why eventually, but could they have explained it better beforehand?)  Mix in a bad, muddy print of the film and the blandness of our heroes, and you have a good recipe for confusion and boredom at times.

The Gang wanting your insight into the mystery of the sampo.

Which is what you want in a movie for MST3K. This was considered a golden era for the show, not just for the cast and writers at the time, but behind-the-scenes as well as the program was in the middle of a multi-year contract with Comedy Central that saw 24 episodes a year being produced. The show starts well with a traditional Joel trying to be a “father to the robots” gag (taking a family photo) and moves directly into a good Invention Exchange where Dr. Forrester shows off his “Unhappy Meals” and Frank gets a rare change to be rightfully angry about losing his 401K money. Best of all, is the one-woman show, written by Mary Jo Pehl, that makes up a break late in the show, giving us a rare chance to see Gypsy be a bit more “on the ball” and part of the show than typically available. Understandably, some fans of the film were upset over this and the other movies Aleksandr Ptushko directed appearing on MST3K, but at times there are even comments made to suggest the effects are nothing to sniff at and it allowed viewers who never would have given these films a chance the opportunity to see amazing work from another part of the world.

And a circus short with grown-men going at it “clown-style.”