Toho’s epic 1974 disaster-a-minute masterpiece needs no introduction to anyone familiar with this site, where our review of it remains one of our top-read month after month. Directed by Toshio Masuda (Tokyo Blackout) and starring Tetsuro Tanba (Bohachi Boshido: Code of the Forgotten Eight), Toshio Kurosawa (Evil of Dracula), Kaoru Yumi (ESPY) and Yoko Tsukasa (Yojimbo), the film was pushed into production after the box office superstardom of 1973′s Submersion of Japan and took top honors in its release year of 1974. Prophecies of Nostradamus: Catastrophe 1999 (original title, Nosutoradamusu no Daiyogen) remains a picture well ahead of its time in terms of concept, predating the nonsense mega-disaster hits of Roland Emmerich by several decades.
Though sold to me as a lobby card, this Mexican poster measures in at a considerably larger 16.5 x 21 inches. Prophecies of Nostradamus: Catastrophe 1999 is another Toho effort produced with international distribution in mind, and included a lengthy English language sequence set in New Guinea, in which an investigative team goes out to hunt for one earlier lost only to discover that they have been reduced to a state of putrid living-death by a lingering radioactive fog. This sequence would cause Toho considerable trouble shortly after release, when the shocking nature of both it and a late-film look into a post-apocalyptic future enraged advocates for survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The offending footage was subsequently cut from Japanese release prints, with Toho banning the picture from screenings entirely after its initial theatrical run.
Nevertheless, the film made a pretty penny in international markets and left an indelible impression on my young mind when it finally made its way to domestic television in the early ’80s in its truncated The Last Days of Planet Earth form. This poster showcases one of the film’s most memorable moments, featuring two stills from the controversial New Guinea sequence. The rest of the artwork, including a ship on a frozen sea, a Concorde SST, a desolate war-ravaged Earth and a chillingly reflected cityscape, are culled from the original Japanese one-sheet design. The title translates to The End of the World: The Prophecies of Nostradamus Fulfilled! (El Fin del Mundo: ¡Las Profecias de Nostradamus se Cumplen!).
