Let's Ask Nostradamus (Prophecies of Nostradamus #2)

Nostradamus is back in the second of MGM's "Prophecies of Nostradamus" series. The story starts with Nostradamus writing a letter to his young son about what he can leave his son after he's gone. His son, by the way, is asleep a few feet away as Nostradamus reads this letter aloud. He brags about how he's the only person in the world given the gift of prophecy. He teases that he could tell his son all the stuff that's going to happen for the next thousand years but that he has to be careful because people would freak out. So he says he wrote it all down for future generations to decipher. This is all fairly cute, particularly as the actor playing Nostradamus puts on a Shakespearean performance during the reading of this letter. Narrator Carey Wilson then goes into one of Nostradamus' predictions. He apparently predicted the French Revolution and the fate of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. It appears some stock movie footage is used here. This an amusing short. Regardless of how one feels about the validity of Nostradamus, I think you'll find this is an agreeable way to pass ten minutes.

Let's Ask Nostradamus (1953)

** (out of 4)

The second entry in MGM's "Prophecies of Nostradamus" series starts off with the famed visionist writing a letter to his young son saying how he wants to leave him a legacy. We then hear one of the most compelling cases where Nostradamus predicts the fate of Marie Antoinette and King Louis. MGM did over a dozen shorts of the predictions of Nostradamus and all of them were very hit and miss. This one here is sadly a miss but I think this has a lot more to do with the time that this was made than anything else. You can view countless documentaries on Nostradamus and his predictions but the problem with this film is that we're given what the man said and then we see a clip from the movie. There's really no rhyme or reason as to the connection between what Nostradamus said and what really ended up happening. If you believe that this man predicted the future then you're going to believe what is said. If you don't believe that he could see the future then you're going to hear his writings and say he could have been talking about anything. Carey Wilson does a nice job with the narration and he tries his best to sell it but in the end the stories being told just aren't that strong.

Carey Wilson narrates his umpteenth short about the amazing ability of Nostradamus to look into the future, and describe it in such obscure terms that no one could figure it out until after it had happened.

Anyway, Wilson goes on for what seemed like an hour to me, applying Nostradamus' vaguely worded quartrains to the French Terror and the deaths of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, which means that Wilson feels free to apply other verses that talk about the English to the United States, because why not?

Nostradamus also wrote a cookbook. People who have read it tell me the recipes are pretty good.