The Beginning or the End?

[JackFavell]

Has anyone seen this movie?

I found the trailer on youtube and was absolutely fascinated with this movie. No one seems to have it, it doesn't seem to be available in dvd or even VHS format but a few IMDB users saw it years ago and said it was pretty good. I'd be curious if anyone knows anything about this movie or had seen it.

[youtube][/youtube]


Here is a link to the original press kit:
http://www.atomicbombcinema.com/english ... _intro.htm

[knitwit45]

WOW. Is there any character actor of the 50's who isn't in this film? The trailer alone would be a great trivia game, to see how many 'characters' you could name! Thanks for sharing, Jacks.

[Professional Tourist]

AM was supposed to be in The Beginning or the End as a scientist. She researched her part and filmed her scenes, but they had to be cut out because she was playing a real, living person and the studio had not asked for permission to portray her in the film. When they finally asked she declined.

[JackFavell]

WOW. Is there any character actor of the 50's who isn't in this film? The trailer alone would be a great trivia game, to see how many 'characters' you could name! Thanks for sharing, Jacks.

No problem, Nan! I just wish i could find a copy. I thought the cast list was incredible!.. apparently it's like taking a slice of life right out of the post war period, when no one was really certain that we weren't seeing the end of the world. I think seeing Hume Cronyn as Oppenheimer alone would be worth it, but to see all those other character actors...whew!

PT - It's such a shame AM was not in the final cut! That's a disaster - I wonder what ever happened to her footage?

[Rita Hayworth]

I've seen this movie back in my college days in one of many History Classes that I took. This movie refers to the "Manhattan Project" and the birth of the atom bomb. My Professor got a hold of a copy of this film in reel format and showed it in class entirely on a Friday Afternoon and we all had a film discussion about the consequences of Nuclear War when United States dropped two atomic bombs on Japan to end World War Two.

We were to write a review of that film (in handwritten form) and turn it in on Monday. He told us don't worry about correcting your English ... just write about what you think about the movie and share your thoughts to the rest of the class. My class only had 20 students and we all shared our thoughts. It was a tough assignment ... as I recalled doing.

This movie is an excellent movie as I recalled seeing and done quite realistically (MGM made it too outlandish, that's my opinion) and the acting wasn't too shabby at all. I would love to see this movie again because its has a profound effect on me ... regarding Nuclear War and later Cold War with the Soviet Union and its eastern bloc nations.

In closing, this movie ... is one of those rare movies made me think (too numerous to be mentioned here) about a lot of things; and that led to the creation of the "Doomsday Clock" and that's really scared me a lot when my I first heard about it in my History Classes that I took during my college years back in the late 70's and early 80's.

[JackFavell]

Thanks for posting your remembrances of the movie, kingme. I sure do wish I could see it. Even if the acting is a little heavy going, or MGM overdid it, I'd still like to see the picture, for the actors and for the feeling it gives of life right after the war.

[CineMaven]

Well...I spotted Clinton Sundberg and Barbara Billingsley...our average man-on-the-street moviegoers. Ha!

[moira finnie]

This movie has been shown on TCM and I've seen it, but thought it was not great--though it was amusing at times, as when that walking three dollar bill, Art Baker as Truman and Ludwig Stossel (!) as Albert Einstein heave into view. My memory of The Beginning or the End (1947) is as a very sincere movie that did suggest a deep ambivalence about Hiroshima while accepting that it was inevitable that someone would develop this weapon...so why not us?!

Robert Walker, playing the only wholly fictional character, had the best part in the movie. You can read more about the movie here in Life Magazine from March, 1947. The Wilson Quarterly here has some amusing sidelights on the production of the film, when Hollywood, the Manhattan Project scientists, and the Pentagon tussled over the liberties being taken in characterization and trying to avoid any national security slips.

Oh, now I see! You were intrigued by the idea of Joseph Calleia portraying Enrico Fermi!

I honestly don't remember Calleia in that movie, though I bet they didn't feature a recreation of a scene when Fermi actually bet his fellow scientists that the first nuclear explosion would set the world's atmosphere on fire. Even though he was a fine actor, I don't think that Hume Cronyn was nearly as charismatic as the real life J. Robert Oppenheimer. Montgomery Clift (after his car accident) could readily have played "Oppie."

I think that the atomic bomb might be too loaded a subject for a movie to encapsulate well. I've seen several that tried to capture that moment in time. Fat Man and Little Boy (1989) featured Paul freaking Newman playing that very large commanding officer who often looked like an unmade bed, General Groves, and Dwight Schultz (The A Team nerd) was Oppenheimer! Robert Taylor was good in Above and Beyond (1953), but probably only the Japanese could or should make any movie about what it's like to experience a nuclear explosion. As we mentioned a few days ago on these boards, Godzilla movies as well as Kurosawa's heartfelt I Live in Fear (1955) and the British made Seven Days to Noon (1950) certainly were films that reflected the emotional toll of atomic power's existence within a decade of this event.

Just my opinion, but a recently aired program on The American Experience on PBS, called The Trials of J. Robert Oppenheimer (2009), a documentary that blended factual footage with the gifted David Strathrain as Oppenheimer reading the scientist's own eloquent words, came pretty close to conveying the import of that moment in history. You can see this doc and more info here on PBS.org.

[JackFavell]

I watched that Oppenheimer doc and it was splendid, if scary, and very depressing, as Oppenheimer's life was. I will watch or read almost anything about him, but then I always feel a little sick afterwards. The real man was incredibly fascinating, one of the most intriguing men of the twentieth century, to me. He was rather charismatic for a thinker, which is death to a man dealing with political forces.

I guess the Oppenheimer documentary and the fact that Joseph Calleia was in it gave me the impetus to research a little on the movie, and it seemed like it might encapsulate in a strange way that time period, with some fear and doubt showing through, as well as some ridiculous speculation on atomic power. It seemed like a good mix, and apparently Tom Drake gives a splendid performance as the first casualty of the Atomic Age, if you don't count Oppenheimer.

Yes, of course I was looking for more Calleia performances! I can't get enough.

Thanks for the info on the film, maybe it will turn up again on TCM sometime. BTW, Monty Clift would have been PERFECT.

[moira finnie]

apparently Tom Drake gives a splendid performance as the first casualty of the Atomic Age, if you don't count Oppenheimer.

I am very partial to Tom Drake who played decent men so credibly without being icky. He plays Robert Walker's friend and the pair of them give the film the warmth and humanity it needed.

[JackFavell]

Drake is one of the few actors I can think of who can make me turn around to look, just hearing his voice.