The Man Who Saw Tomorrow

Every time the world faces a disaster, somebody intones, self-righteously, "Nostradamus PREDICTED it..." Be it a flood, an earthquake, an assassination, or anything in-between, the sixteenth century French cleric wrote about it, somehow, in the midst of his hundreds of ambiguous quatrains. His writings have become the nonbelievers' Book of Daniel and the Revelations of St. John the Divine, reference works almost occult in stature about the future of the human race.

As a potential source for a 'cheap buck', his writings are invaluable, as they can so easily be twisted to mean ANYTHING, so low-budget documentaries pop up frequently with "definitive" interpretations, and THE MAN WHO SAW TOMORROW is, perhaps, the most famous of the lot. Best-known for having Orson Welles, looking suitably Satanic, as the Host/Narrator, pouring over ancient documents and looking up at the camera as if he were 'channeling' Nostradamus' spirit, himself (Once a ham actor, always a ham actor...), the documentary jumps to stock footage of natural disasters, the Nazis, Hollywood renditions of Napoleon, and newsreels of John and Robert Kennedy, all the while stating how dictators ('Anti-Christs'), Popes, Kings and Presidents' lives and deaths were foreseen with unerring accuracy.

The problem arises when the 'future' is predicted, using his writings. Whether our world survives or falls into chaos, there has NEVER been a 'fortuneteller' who predicted what lies ahead correctly. It is only AFTER the fact that one can 'interpret' the writings to 'fit' what has happened. It reminds one of the old joke about fortunetellers...if they are so accurate, why aren't they all rich from winning lotteries, horse races, and such? From Nostradamus to contemporary 'visionaries' like Jeanne Dixon, what HASN'T happened that was 'predicted' as coming to pass always trips them up...while their supporters quickly offer excuses that we simply 'misinterpreted' what was foreseen.

So don't face what lies ahead with fear, when watching THE MAN WHO SAW TOMORROW...just enjoy it for the cheesy spectacle it is, and perhaps mourn the fact that non-film fans may remember Orson Welles more from his overripe performance, here, than for CITIZEN KANE or TOUCH OF EVIL.

Nostradamus probably predicted THAT, too...

I guess my view of the prophecies of Michel de Nostradamus - the 16th century French prophet who is said to have written down accurate predictions of at least 2000 years of forthcoming human events – hold about as much weight as for me as something like The Da Vinci Code. There are a lot of holes in the Nostradamus' predictions so I tend to chalk it up as nothing more than an interesting curiosity.

The documentary The Man Who Saw Tomorrow doesn't see it that way. Here is a movie that offers a tiny bit of biography about the supposed prophet, and then cobbles together footage from every source under the sun in an effort to prove his accuracy. Did he have fore-knowledge of the future? Did he accurately predict The French Revolution? Napoleon? The American Revolution? The Civil War? The rise of Hitler? World War II? The Atomic Bomb? The Kennedy Assassination? The Moon Landing? Is he also right in his prediction about World War III and the end of the world? Well, I don't happen to think so, but I am confused about whether the movie does. It spends 90 minutes reiterating that Nostradamus wrote down 2000 years worth of prophecies that came true and then adds a tag at the end to tell us that the producers of this film are actually less convinced of his accuracy than I am.

Hosted by Orson Welles, who sits in his stuffy office behind a desk smoking a cigar, The Man Who Saw Tomorrow attempts to lay out all of the major turning points of history by way of Nostradamus' writing. Before diving head-long into his predictions, we learn that Nostradamus was a hard working student who had ambitions to be a doctor but after losing his family in the plague, turned his ambitions toward writing down his predictions in quatrains, hiding his verses in anagrams and secret code in an effort to avoid being prosecuted for witchcraft. Early on, we learn, he kissed the robes of a young Franciscan friar who would someday be Pope Sixtus V. Later he was invited to the home of a dignitary where he accurately predicted which pig they would be eating. Curiously, he forgot to jot those things down.

The historical predictions put forth by Nostradamus are interesting, but the methods in which the movie presents them are, in a word, baffling. Nothing is off limits here. There is footage of the Kennedy assassination, the holocaust, The Moon Landing, the revolution in Iran. Then, for events where there is no footage, sometimes actors are used in recreations and other times we get footage from old movies like War and Peace. Sprinkled into the mix also are old newsreels, short films, documentary footage, illustrations and cheap special effects shots from old science fiction movies.

The only center of logic in this chaotic jumble is a very brief interview with former astronaut Edgar Mitchell who argues that the future is nothing more than our summation of present events. I think I would have liked to have heard more from him and less from Jean Dixon, who appears absurdly satisfied that she predicted the deaths of both John and Bobby Kennedy. That's before Welles informs us that we can see Nostradamus' accuracy if we simply keep one eye on the quatrains and the other on our daily newspaper. For me, that's just too much work. I think I'll just let the future surprise me.

The movie keeps insisting over and over that Nostadamus laid out a historical time line the revealed three men who would try to take over the world – Anti-Christs he called them. The first was Napoleon, the second was Hitler and the third is said to be a future tyrant who will come from the Middle East. This man, it is said, will plunge the world into a catastrophic war that will last 4 and 20 years, whatever that means.

That prediction lays out the film's final act in which Nostradamus apparently predicted that a Middle Eastern Warrior in a blue turban would start World War III at or about May of 1988. That leads to an embarrassingly silly scene with cheap sets right out of "Battlestar Galactica", with the governments of both The Middle East and The United States firing nukes at each other until civilization is obliterated. After that, the movie helpfully reminds us that Nostradamus predicted a thousand years of peace before the world ends in 3797.

The Man Who Saw Tomorrow is nothing more than a curiosity. Any attempt to take it seriously the requires the kinds of fruitless insights than are often attached to things like The Da Vinci Code, Roswell or Bigfoot. I'm no skeptic but I had to smile at most of this. It is a professionally made film that probably takes its subject more seriously than it should. I find the predictions of Nostradamus to be a curious but not essential element to human history. He seemed to have a good track record even if he did predict that Ted Kennedy would become President of the United States in 1984. Hey, nobody's perfect.

I remember this being on Cinemax all the time back in the early 80s, I taped it, and when I was in high school, I mentioned it to a teacher, and she had me bring it in and the class watched it, and then the school library borrowed it and made a copy. I wonder if they still have it, they should be ashamed of themselves if they show it to any more classes, I was just a teenager, but these were educated adults taking this nonsense seriously. I saw it again recently, I remember being absolutely mesmerized by it at the time, I'm almost embarrassed that I was ever naive enough to take this for anything more than base entertainment. The whole production is just so cheap and silly looking, and most of the predictions haven't panned out, I'm sure Nostrodamus was a slick talking con man of his time, sort of like Sylvia Brown now, just say a lot of vague things and hope people overlook it when your wrong. All of that being said, Orson Wells has a great presence, and he almost makes this tripe seem plausible, if you close your eyes. If you saw it way back when, it's kind of fun to revisit it and goof on it, but you've never seen it, there's no need to.

Nostradamus. One of the most recognized historical figures of all time obviously did nothing in his life but make dire predictions about the world and its famous occupants. A high majority of his writings and sooth-sayings are never talked about because they were mindless babble that never took place. Other vague writings, many believe, tell of circumstances and events that did indeed occur decades and centuries after he walked the Earth. Yawn. "The Man Who Saw Tomorrow" is a dumb and immensely stupid documentary that recreates Nostradamus' dull life and also uses stock footage for past tragedies and potential events of the future. Yeah, Nostradamus' prediction of Ted Kennedy winning the 1984 U.S. Presidential Election was right on target (rolls eyes). In this day and age, this guy would likely be one of those morons who would get run over by a train while he was trying to foresee his future place in the world. Golden-voiced Orson Welles, at the twilight of his career, narrates effectively. 2.5 out of 5 stars.

Of course this documentary is now viewed with a certain amount of hilarity. However when it came out in 1980 it was received quite well. Chock full of stock footage from David L. Wolper past productions it tells the tale of the legendary Nostradamus and his predictions of the future. The tale of the three anti Christ make up a bulk of the film. The third (and yet still unknown) is the mysterious Blue Turbaned man from the middle east who will cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war in the 90's. The film is entertaining in it's own little way even though it is now obviously riddled with predictions that didn't happen. Then again who knows maybe the dates of the predictions are wrong. Orson Welles adds his special touch