The Magic Voyage Of Sinbad / The Day The Earth Froze

Starring:Sergei Stolyarov, Alla Larionova, Yelena Myshkova, B. Surovtsev, Mikhail Troyanovsky, Nadir Malishevsky, Nikolai Kryuchkov, Ivan Pereverzev, Yuri Leonidov, Lev Fenin, Mikhail Astangov, Lidiya Vertinskaya, Stepan Kayukov, Olga Vikland, Sovol Martinson, Andris Oshin, Eve Kivi, Anna Orochko, Ivan Voronov, Urho Somersalmi
Director: Aleksandr Ptushko, Risto Orko
Studio: Image Entertainment
Product Type: DVD

Editorial Review:
Description
It's a double feature of fantasy and spectacle from American International Pictures, which imported a series of foreign films in the early 1960s packed with eye-popping special effects, strange storylines and breathtaking color. Thus came The Day the Earth Froze, in which a witch freezes the world until she achieves her evil desires. Producer Roger Corman also recruited director Francis Ford Coppola to redub and recut a Russian film into The Magic Voyage of Sinbad, a feast of miraculous visuals and lavish settings bound to please every fantasy enthusiast.

The Magic Voyage Of Sinbad / The Day The Earth Froze
Average customer rating:

Sword and Sandal flicks

Fairy Tales for the Eyes

Sampo

My Fifteen Minutes

Wrong movie reviewed

The Magic Voyage Of Sinbad / The Day The Earth Froze
Starring: Sergei Stolyarov , Alla Larionova , Yelena Myshkova , B. Surovtsev , and Mikhail Troyanovsky
Director: Aleksandr Ptushko
Manufacturer: Image Entertainment
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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ASIN: B0006QAIEG
Release Date: 2005-02-08

Description

It's a double feature of fantasy and spectacle from American International Pictures, which imported a series of foreign films in the early 1960s packed with eye-popping special effects, strange storylines and breathtaking color. Thus came The Day the Earth Froze, in which a witch freezes the world until she achieves her evil desires. Producer Roger Corman also recruited director Francis Ford Coppola to redub and recut a Russian film into The Magic Voyage of Sinbad, a feast of miraculous visuals and lavish settings bound to please every fantasy enthusiast.

Customer Reviews:

Sword and Sandal flicks.......2007-01-16

Poor quality special effects and wooden acting.Not much better than an amateurish school pantomine.Possibly due to dubbing.

Fairy Tales for the Eyes.......2006-10-07

A little necessary background:

SADKO is a Russian fable about a harpist living in Novgorod who charms the Sea King and winds up rich. He also winds up sailing overseas to sell wares and, during a storm, is forced overboard where he once again charms the Sea King with his harp and is compelled to chose a wife from among the King's maidens before finding his way home to happily-everlasting-ness. (This has been turned into a famous opera by Rimsky-Korsakov called SAKDO.)

KALEVALA (pronounced: kah-lay-vah'-lah) is a Finnish epic poem compiled by Finnish poet Elias Lönnrot. It is at the heart of the Finnish culture and very familiar and dear to them. A few characters crop up thru out the poem. As does the magical Sampo which would spare the owners the rigor of work.

Which brings me to the movies:

THE MAGIC VOYAGE OF SINBAD was a Soviet Union's filming of SADKO dubbed by American Capitalist running dog Roger Corman into a Sinbad story. So now Sinbad is a tall, stocky blonde with heavy fur clothes to keep out the heat. The city of Novgorod substitutes for an Arabic city. But, even more ludicrious is the effort by the Soviet filmmakers, halfway thru the country's failed experiment in Socialism, to turn Sadko into a self-sacrificing proletariat (christians and liberals will be turned on by the message, too).

I can still recommend this film because the cinematography perfectly evokes a fairy tale, and the story can be enjoyable if you manage to put away your sophistication and see it thru a youngster's eyes. I saw it as a young teenager, and the scene with the Bird of Happiness with Rimsky-Korsakov's SONG OF INDIA filling my ears is one I recalled for all these years and caused me to search for the film until I finally found it again.

While the Finnish poem, KALEVALA, has very little plot spread diffusely thruout the enormous length, THE DAY THE EARTH FROZE pulls the threads together. There's something uneven about the plot. It is slow in spots, then engrossing in other spots. It is however, like the movie above, a visual delight, despite the (very obvious) skimpy production values.

I saw part of this film mocked by the Mystery Science Theater folk, but I kept thinking how I'd like to see the film without the intrusive teasing. I was very happy to find it on DVD and see it in its pristine form.

However, the cast credits are a hoot. They actors listed in the movie must be the voice dubbing actors (or they're entirely made up). Curiously, Amazon lists a different and more authentic-sounding cast (altho, they say the story is based on "Norse/Scandanavian mythology" -- which would be a surprise to the non-Scandanavian Finns).

Sampo.......2005-08-30

The Day the Earth Froze is a Finnish fantasy given the MST3K treatment in season 4... I don't know if this is on any of the MST3K Rhino compilations but it should be, it was in my top 3 best Mystery Science Theaters ever. This is the famous Sampo movie... any MSTie would know that Sampo was referenced in many of their subsequent rips (this and Manos Hand of Fate), but this flick is actually quite good on it's own, if not bizarre and Finnishly surreal. The Sampo is a mythical device, sort of a cornucopia, that looks like an overwrought espresso machine, that dispenses gold, flour and salt... all the Finnish neccesities! (classic Tom Servo comment, "You'd be surprised that the line for the gold isn't that long") This was acquired by Roger Corman at one point and re-editted by Francis Ford Coppola, for redistribution in the states for cash. I believe the Sinbad movie was similarly reworked, as noted by the other reviewer. I haven't seen it so I can't comment on it, but for a very bizarre Wizard of Oz via Finland flick, the Day the Earth Froze is worth the price of admission.

My Fifteen Minutes .......2005-03-05

"The Magic Voyage of Sinbad" was originally a lovely Russian film, based on Rimski-Korsakov's opera, "Sadko", which Roger Corman bought for AIP back in the early 1960s and then hired Jack Woods to write a dubbing script which transformed the whole thing into an Arabian Nights fantasy. This in an effort to cash in on the popularity of such fare at the time ("The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad", etc.) I was directly involved in the whole process of improving upon the original material. At the time I was an aspiring actor of sixteen and Mr. Woods was my agent. He worked mostly as an editor, but got to know Corman at some point, who persuaded him to go into the dubbing business. He completed a few projects which did reasonably well as matinee fillers and drive-in make out movies, such as "Pirate of the Blackhawk" and "Atlas". When he came to "The Magic Voyage of Sinbad", I was called in as an editing assistant and dubbing actor. I provided the voice for young Hadabad, who runs away with the famous Sailor on his quest for the ... um ... "Bird of Happiness". In the course of my own adventures behind the scenes I met Mr. Corman (he held up his hand to shake in such a way that I thought he meant me to kiss his class ring, which I did), even worked with him directly in the editing room and on the dubbing stage, where he hung out and himself filled in voices for crowd scenes. It is unfortunate that it cannot be distinguished from any of the others, for he had a lovely voice at the time, together with a quite ironed and pressed and neatly parted collegiate look that was then quite the chick magnet (he appears in the same guise for "Godfather II", where he plays a member of the Senate Committee). When the film was completed, it was sneak previewed (with "Breakfast at Tiffany's", possibly a greater work: certainly the lip synching was more believable, and there was this Audry Hepburn goddess in it that bested all the women in our effort), yes, sneak previewed, as I say, at a second run house in West Hollywood, forget the name of the place. But, well, in it's original form, Sinbad comes into town, takes a look around and says, "I have come!" This brought on laughter which did not stop for the other 79 minutes of the show. Mr. Corman took Jack aside in the lobby afterwards and said, "Looks like we have a few problems." I, myself, by this time had skulked away into the night, trying to change my voice. Later, I guess Corman hired Francis Coppola to pull the thing into better shape because, having recently bought the DVD from our host here and viewed it for the first time in ... what? forty years? ... well, a long time, anyways, I have to say it is not as bad as it was when it first came out. Seems to have been all pulled together with a narration and some of the dumber lines have been removed. Mine, sad to say, remain intact. My salary provided me with the price of a SAG card, which I never needed to use, for I didn't work again as an actor but went on to fail at other things until I finally settled on becoming the great novelist that I am today. Jack Woods subsequently did fine work as an editor for John Cassavetes ("Husbands", etc.), even did some directing and acting for "Equinox", a film that was well reviewed by Rolling Stone ... um, you see, man, at that time it was fashionable to alter the consciousness in certain ways and things which would otherwise look quite ordinary became exceedingly groooooooovy!

Wrong movie reviewed.......2005-02-15

All of the above reviews are obviously for a movie other than the Russian fantasy MAGIC VOYAGE OF SINBAD.

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