Beginning of the End is a 1957 American science fiction film produced and directed by Bert I. Gordon. It stars Peter Graves, Peggie Castle, and Morris Ankrum. Dr. Ed Wainwright, an agricultural scientist, played by Graves, successfully grows gigantic vegetables using radiation. Unfortunately, the vegetables are eaten by locusts (the swarming phase of short-horned grasshoppers), which quickly grow to a gigantic size and attack the nearby city of Chicago. Beginning of the End is generally known for its "atrocious" special effects, "and yet," writes reviewer Bill Warren, "there is something almost compellingly watchable about this goofy little movie".Warren, Keep Watching the Skies! American Science Fiction Movies of the Fifties, 1997, p. 325-326.
Beginning of the End is the most popular film at the Insect Fear Film Festival at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, according to the National Wildlife Federation's magazine in 1995.
The film was released on June 16, 1957, and played on a double feature with The Unearthly (1957)."City Locale for Science Fiction Film," Chicago Daily Tribune, June 16, 1957.Bill Warren, Keep Watching The Skies! American Science Fiction Movies of the 1950s, Vol.1 (New York: McFarland & Co, 1986), pg 410.
Plot The film opens with newspaper photojournalist Audrey Aimes accidentally stumbling upon a small town (Ludlow, Illinois) which has been inexplicably destroyed. All 150 residents are missing, and the evidence indicates they are dead. Incredibly, the local fields are also barren, as if a swarm of locusts had eaten all the crops. Aimes suspects that the military is covering something up, and travels to a nearby United States Department of Agriculture experimental farm to learn what creature might have caused the agricultural destruction. She meets Dr. Ed Wainwright, who is experimenting with radiation as a means of growing gigantic fruits and vegetables to end world hunger. Wainwright reports that there have been a number of mysterious incidents nearby, and that locusts have eaten all the radioactive wheat stored in a nearby grain silo.
Gigantic mutant locusts rampage over the countryside. Wainwright and Aimes begin to track down the source of the mysterious occurrences, and quickly discover that the locusts which ate the grain have grown to the size of a city bus. The monsters have eaten all the crops in the area, and now have turned to human beings as a source of sustenance. It is also clear that they are headed for Chicago. Wainwright and Aimes meet with General John Hanson, Colonel Sturgeon, and Captain James Barton to try to come up with a solution. Machine gun and artillery fire seem ineffective against the creatures, and there are far too many to effectively deal with all at once. The United States Army and Illinois National Guard are called upon to help protect the city. However, the monsters quickly invade Chicago, and begin to feast on human flesh, as well as several buildings.
General Hanson concludes that the only way to destroy the beasts en masse is to use a nuclear weapon and destroy Chicago. However, Wainwright realizes that the locusts are warm-weather creatures. He concludes that he might be able to lure the locusts into Lake Michigan using a decoy locust mating call, generated electronically with test-tone oscillators. There, the cold water will incapacitate them, and they will drown. The plan works at the last possible moment. The monstrous locusts drown, but Wainwright and Aimes wonder if other insects or animals might have eaten other radioactive crops.
Cast
Peter Graves as Dr. Ed Wainwright Peggie Castle as Audrey Aimes Morris Ankrum as General John Hanson Than Wyenn as Frank Johnson Thomas Browne Henry as Colonel Sturgeon Richard Benedict as Corporal Mathias James Seay as Captain James Barton John Close as Major Everett Don Harvey as Lab Guard Larry Blake as Patrolman Eilene Janssen as Necking Teenager Hylton Socher as Frank Frank Wilcox as General John T. Short Douglas Evans as Norman Taggart Lyle Latell as Lieutenant MacKenzie Hank Patterson as Dave Rayford Barnes as Chuck Patricia Dean as Red Cross Representative James Douglas as Sentry Joseph Cranston as Soldier
Production
Beginning of the End was financed by American Broadcasting-Paramount Theatres (AB-PT). The company had been formed in February 1953 when the American Broadcasting Company and United Paramount Theatres merged.Gould, "A.B.C., United Paramount Merge in $25,000,000 Deal," New York Times, May 24, 1951; Loftus, "Paramount, A.B.C. Cleared to Merge," New York Times, February 10, 1953. In September 1956, AB-PT (sometimes also called "Am-Par") announced the formation of a movie studio, and revealed a slate of six films a year in January 1957."AB-PT to Enter Film Prod'n At Same Time Goldenson Predicts 8,000 Houses to Fold," Variety, September 24, 1956; "Filming Planned by Theatre Chain," New York Times, September 22, 1956; Pryor, "6 Films Planned by Am-Par Corp.," New York Times, January 28, 1957. The studio's focus was on low-budget features which it could place in its theatres in the Northeast and South.Heffernan, Ghouls, Gimmicks, and Gold: Horror Films and the American Movie Business: 1953–1968, 2004, p. 71. AB-PT hoped to expand to a yearly slate of 20 pictures, and signed a distribution deal with Republic Pictures to get them into theatres.Ryfle, Godzilla: The Unauthorized Biography, 1998, p. 67.
Beginning of the End went into production in 1956, the first of the "boom years" for science fiction films in the United States.By one count, there were 25 science fiction-themed motion pictures released in America that year, followed by 34 in 1957 and 36 in 1958. After 1958, the number of releases tapered off, until by 1963 there genre was uncommon again. See: Warren, Keep Watching the Skies! American Science Fiction Movies of the Fifties, 1997, p. xv. Its production was a direct outcome of the success of Them!Everman, Cult Horror Films: From 'Attack of the 50 Foot Woman' to 'Zombies of Mora Tau', 1993, p. 205
AB-PT announced on November 29, 1956, that it had approved production of its first film, Beginning of the End"AB-PT Starting Prod'n Sans Gov't Greenlight," Variety, November 30, 1956. and announced on December 2, 1956, that production would begin immediately.Scheuer, "ABC-Paramount Starts Production Experiment," Los Angeles Times, December 3, 1956. The company said it had hired 34-year-old Bert I. Gordon to direct and produce.Hardy and Gifford, The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction Movies, 1986, p. 166.Young, The Encyclopedia of Fantastic Film: Ali Baba to Zombies, 1997, p. 43.Lucian and Coville, Smokin' Rockets: The Romance of Technology in American Film, Radio, and Television, 1945–1962, 2002, p. 214. Gordon had gotten his start as a supervising producer for televised commercials and network TV shows, had produced his first feature film (Serpent Island) in 1954, and directed his first feature film (King Dinosaur) in 1955.Berry, The Dinosaur Filmography, 2002, p. 178; McGee, Fast and Furious: The Story of American International Pictures, 1984, p. 75; Wright, Horrorshows: The A-to-Z of Horror in Film, TV, Radio and Theater; 1986, p. 110.Johnson, Cheap Tricks and Class Acts: Special Effects, Makeup and Stunts From the Films of the Fantastic Fifties, 1996, p. 89.Gordon claims he neither directed nor produced Serpent Island, but there is much evidence to the contrary. Additionally, while Tom Gries is credited with being the director by some film historians, others argue that Gordon was the director and Gries only had input. See the discussion in: Dixon, Lost in the Fifties: Recovering Phantom Hollywood, 2005, p. 119-120.
The story was already set, according to press reports, with Variety claiming that Bert I. Gordon had already completed the script."Graves, Peg Castle in Am-Par's 'Beginning'," Variety, December 3, 1956.This is confirmed by at least modern source as well. See: Hardy and Gifford, The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction Movies, 1986, p. 166. Press sources noted that the studio was clearly attempting to cash-in on the science fiction movie craze. However, the final screenplay is credited to Fred Freiberger (a veteran writer of B movies) and Lester Gorn. The screen story bears a striking resemblance to the 1904 H. G. Wells novel The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth (Gordon would adapt this novel twice, once for Embassy Pictures in 1965's Village of the Giants and again for American International Pictures in 1976's The Food of the Gods).
Casting was complete within two weeks of the start of production. In late November, AB-PT said actress Mala Powers was being considered for the female lead. But on December 2, the studio revealed that Peter Graves and Peggie Castle had been cast as the leads. Three days later, AB-PT announced that Don C. Harvey, Morris Ankrum, Pierre Watkin, Ralph Sanford, and Richard Benedict had also been cast.Scheuer, "John Beal Back in Film," Los Angeles Times, December 6, 1956. The studio also said that Pat Dean, its "sexboat" discovery (and a former dancer at the El Rancho Vegas hotel and casino in Las Vegas, Nevada) would also appear in the picture. Larry Blake, Duane Cress, James Douglas, Eilene Jannsen, Joseph Cranston, Ann Loos, and Jeanne Wood were added to the cast a few days later, though Cress, Loos and Wood do not appear in the final film."'Beginning' for Seven," Variety, December 12, 1956. Ankrum, Thomas Browne Henry, and James Seay were cast because they usually played military men in B movies, roles they portrayed in Beginning of the End as well.Young, The Encyclopedia of Fantastic Film: Ali Baba to Zombies, 1997, p. 61; Warren, Keep Watching the Skies! American Science Fiction Movies of the Fifties, 1997, p. 33.
John A. Marta, a veteran cinematographer, and Aaron Stell, a long-time film editor, also worked on the film. Marta had shot close to 150 B movies for Republic Pictures by this time,"New DVD's" New York Times, July 1, 2008. which is probably why he was hired (given AB-PT's relationship with that studio and Marta's fast-and-quick shooting style). Albert Glasser composed the musical score. Glasser worked in the same office building where Gordon had his offices, and Gordon admired his score for the 1956 war film Huk! (a B movie from Pan Pacific Productions).Larson, Musique Fantastique: A Survey of Film Music in the Fantastic Cinema, 1985, p. 81. Gordon had already used Glasser to score his 1957 monster movie The Cyclops. Glasser wrote the musical score for Beginning of the End as well as five more of Gordon's films. Glasser was paid $4,000 for his work on The Cyclops, which may indicate how much he was paid for the musical score for Beginning of the End.Weaver, Brunas, and Brunas, Science Fiction Stars and Horror Heroes: Interviews With Actors, Directors, Producers and Writers of the 1940s Through 1960s, 2006, p. 104. The musical soundtrack included the song "Natural, Natural Baby" by Lou Bartel and Harriet Kane. The art director was Walter Keller.
It is not clear what the budget for the picture was, although descriptions often use the term "low budget" or "ultra-low-budget." According to a statement by AB-PT President Leonard Goldenson in 1957, the average cost of the AB-PT pictures greenlit to date was $300,000."ABPT Plans Shift to 'Quality' Prod's; $1,000,000 Budgets," Variety, September 24, 1957. In comparison, Invaders From Mars was budgeted at $150,000,Rickman, The Science Fiction Film Reader, 2004, p. 60. The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms cost $400,000,Kalat and Kaisha, A Critical History and Filmography of Toho's Godzilla Series, 2007, p. 12. It Came From Outer Space cost $532,000,Payment, Introducing "It Came From Outer Space", 2007, p. 26. Them! came in at under $1 million,Fischer, Science Fiction Film Directors: 1895–1998, 2000, p. 165. and 1953's The War of the Worlds cost $2 million.Cornea, Science Fiction Cinema: Between Fantasy and Reality, 2007, p. 71.