Prophecies of Nostradamus

Prophecies of Nostradamus
Directed by	Toshio Masuda
Produced by	Osamu Tanaka Tomoyuki Tanaka
Written by	Tsutomu Goto (story) Toshi Yasumi (earlier screenplay) Yoshimitsu Banno
Narrated by	Kyōko Kishida (Japan) Jack Ryland (US)
Starring	Tetsuro Tamba Toshio Kurosawa Kaoru Yumi Yoko Tsukasa
Music by	Isao Tomita
Cinematography	Rokuro Nishigaki
Editing by	Nobuo Ogawa
Distributed by	Toho United Productions of America (UPA) (USA)
Release dates	Japan: August 3, 1974 United States: July 13, 1979
Running time	114 min. (Japan) 88 min. (US)
Country	Japan
Language	Japanese

Prophecies of Nostradamus (ノストラダムスの大予言, Nosutoradamusu no daiyogen) also known as The Last Days of Planet Earth or Catastrophe: 1999 is a 1974 disaster film by Toshio Masuda, inspired by the prophecies of Nostradamus. The film credits Toshio Yasumi as principal screenwriter, though Yasumi did not actually work on the film. Instead, Yoshimitsu Banno revised his script for The Last War (1961) and Yasumi was credited out of respect.

The film is notorious for its rarity. After complaints from a "No Nukes" group in Tokyo, Toho pulled the film from circulation in 1980.^{[citation needed]}

Synopsis

The film centers around the family of a scientist, Dr. Nishiyama (Tetsuro Tamba), who are essentially the same roles as those in the 1961 film. While the former film emphasized family melodrama, the new film reduced these scenes to a string, concentrating on hallucinogenic international imagery in a manner looking forward to such films as Koyaanisqatsi and Baraka.

In the film, scientific advances cause an outbreak of giant slugs, oversized bats, children with genetic mutations enhancing their physical or mental abilities, and bizarre changes in weather, such as snow falling on the pyramids. The film gets bleaker and bleaker, until Dr. Nishiyama hypothesizes a scenario that re-edits the climactic war footage from The Last War, augmenting them with a scene of the surviving humans, looking like sufferers of neurofibromatosis, fighting over who gets to eat a snake.

Also notable in the film is the symphonic score composed and conducted by Isao Tomita, with Tomita overdubbing his performances on a synthesizer as a solo instrument.

Although the film does utilize stock footage, primarily drawn from the film's little-seen ur-film, the film has its own unique special effects. One shot in particular, featuring a chain reaction of exploding vehicles, can be seen in The Return of Godzilla, where the shot was printed in reverse. In this film, the shot is intercut with scenes of human tragedy, as a mad driver tries to force his way through a traffic jam.

Cast

• Gentetsu/Gengaku/Dr. Ryogen　Nishiyama - Tetsuro Tamba
• Akira Nakagawa - Toshio Kurosawa
• Mariko Nishiyama - Kaoru Yumi
• Nobuo Nishiyama - Yoko Tsukasa
• Orin(Gentetsu's　wife) - Kaoru Taniguchi
• Genbu(Gentetsu's　son) - Minoru Dendou
• Errand of the Shogunate - Shirou Kuno
• Errand of the Shogunate - Kunji Harada
• Errand of the Shogunate - Gou Ogasawara
• Major Kashiwao, Imperial Japanese Army - Yoshirou Aoki
• Oone - Masaru Ryuuzaki
• Yoshihama - Katsuhiko Sasaki
• Ihara - Akio Mutou
• Kida - Jun Hamamura
• Kida’s　Wife - Kumeko Otowa
• Daughter of Kida - Tomoe Mari(Yasuko Agawa)
• Daughter’s husband - Kousei Torii
• Captain of Self-Defense Force -Tappei Shimokawa
• Botanist - Akihiko Hirata
• Zoologist - Hiroshi Koizumi
• Bus guide of Shikoku - Sayoko Katou
• Sanji，Nakagawa's　Father - Mikizou Hirata
• Katsuko，Sanji's　Wife - Tatsu Nakamura
• Hospital Director - Takashi Shimura
• Tayama - Masahiko Tanimura
• Hamako - Kazuko Inano
• Scholar - Kazuo Katou
• Scholar - Kuniyasu Atsumi
• Scholar - Akira Kitazawa
• Scholar - Keisuke　Yukioka
• Western country representative - George・A・Grim(Voice actor：Ichirou Murakoshi)
• African representative - Willie Dorsey(Voice actor：Tetsuya Kaji)
• New Guinea investigating group members - Tony Cetera, Rolf Jeter, Franz Gruber, Riner Geshman, Ousmane Yusef
• Policeman - Haruo Suzuki
• Policeman - Toshio Aoki
• Nantai-Ningen - Isamu Sugii
• Nantai-Ningen - Nobuyuki Nakano
• Prime Minister - So Yamamura
• Development Minister - Syoutarou Sera
• Secretary of Environmental Agency - Mizuho Suzuki
• Chief Cabinet Secretary - Taketoshi Naitou
• Voice of the Prophecy - Kyoko Kishida
• Narrator - Shinji Nakae
• Kazuo Oota(TV Anchorman) - Gorō Naya
• Announcer　-　Osamu Ichikawa
• Narrator (US version) - Jack Ryland

Release history

Prophecies of Nostradamus is infamous for its depiction of mutated human beings. After the film was released, a protest group lodged a complaint with the Eirin (the Japanese film ratings board), citing the New Guinea sequence and the post-climactic scene featuring two mutated children. Toho publicly apologized and cut the movie down to 90 minutes before putting the movie back into circulation for the rest of its theatrical run. After its theatrical release and a 1980 television broadcast, the uncut version of the film was officially pulled from circulation by Toho. The 90-minute re-cut does occasionally make appearances in re-releases and it is this version which is on file at the Library of Congress.^[1]

Despite all the negative publicity, Toho created an international version of the film dubbed in Hong Kong, which was also 90 minutes long like the re-edited Japanese cut. This version was released on home video in Eastern Europe as well as theatrically in the United States (New York and Los Angeles only). This dubbed version deletes many scenes including ones connecting the Nishiyama family to the prophecies, and a subplot about Nishiyama's assistant's baby who turns deformed.

Henry Saperstein's UPA Productions picked up the film and released another edited version to American television in the early 1980s. Titled The Last Days of Planet Earth, UPA's version runs 88 minutes long and features scenes from both the international and Japanese versions.^[2] Much of the semi-graphic violence, including the cannibalism of one of the researchers during the New Guinea Expedition and the peeling of skin of the corpse in the cave which originally revealed the bone, is deleted from the cut version. The Last Days of Planet Earth was released by Paramount/Gateway Home Video in 1995 on VHS and Laserdisc.

References

External links

• Prophecies of Nostradamus at the Internet Movie Database
• Prophecies of Nostradamus at allmovie
• The Last Days of Planet Earth at allmovie
• Last Days Of Planet Earth at Manor on Movies