Beginning of the End

[(not required)]

I saw this film a couple of years ago on "Mystery Science Theatre 3000".  Boy is it great.  It was directed by Bert I. Gordon, the man who pioneered sticking an insect in front of a postcard and calling it terror.  He used rather similar effects in "Earth vs. the Spider" and "Empire of the Ants" as well.  His movies pop up on the Sci-Fi Channel all the time so keep an eye out for them.

BTW the MST3K version of "Beginning of the End" is being released on home video in March.  Buy it, you won't be dissapointed.  

[Meowlin]

What I learned from this movie:
- There are mountains in Illinois.
- You can't drop an atom bomb on Chicago.

[ralarson@uiuc.edu]

I think it is appalling that the role of the University of Illinois, my home institution, in this terrible environmental tragedy has never been acknowledged!  Some ill-considered agricultural research on growing giant crop plants by exposing them to radiation went horribly astray -- with the result that photographs of Chicago skyscrapers were at risk of being destroyed by nuclear explosions.  The story has obviously been coverd up by the authorities.  Also, I'd like to know where those movie mountains are, supposedly somewhere near Ludlow.  I certainly have never seen any rising from our flat, flat plains!  More cover-ups.  I'm shocked, shocked!  I must rush off now, to defend the suburbs of Paxton.

[aufngr86@mindspring.com]

This movie is fun, I love it.  The sight of giant grasshoppers walking all over pictures of "tall buildings" in Chicago is hysterical. You can actually see the grasshopper's feet "standing" on air.  The best line in the movie comes when the Army decides that the only way to stop these beasts from devouring mankind is to drop an atomic bomb on the city. Quote - Ed: "You can't drop an atom bomb on Chicago!"    

[ro828@hotmail.com]

I saw BEGINNING OF THE END when I was in the fifth grade.  We thought the fact that the mutant grasshoppers could walk off the side of a skycraper onto thin air was a power gained through radiation.  Forty years have passed; we're older and wiser.  Read my review of BEGINNING OF THE END on the Internet Movie Database.  

I enjoyed this movie and taped it years ago.  I thought eating the mute guy was sad too. When will Sci-Fi science ever learn....

[pgavila@mediaone.net]

An example of my favorite sub-genre of 50s SciFi: giant mutant insects.  Bad acting, cheesy special effects, in short ... a masterpiece.   I saw this movie on television about a jillion times as a kid.  

[Marty Busse]

Actually, car phones were around in 1956: they used
radio telephony. They were all "push to talk" devices,
and were only able to send a message or recieve it.
I'd have to see the film to tell you what's going on
here, but think of a CB radio inside what looks like
a phone and you've got the general idea.  These were
pricey and experimental: the system had a lot of
money invested in it, but never caught on past a very
small set, in large part due to the cost and low bandwith
associated with radio telephony.  Ma Bell never distributed
them too far after initial tests with selected customers
showed that they weren't all they were cracked up to be,
but there had been heavy advertising of the system
circa 1955.  

[Levi]

If you watched this movie then you should watch Mystery Science Theatre 3000, they do a little take on the movie, way funny. I got it from teh library so you should too. "Oh my Gahndi, they've killed Frank!"

[Cham]

Ah, Bert I. Gordon. The man who later made Food of the Gods. A true American hero. This is one helluva bad flick and I liked it. Giant grasshoppers! Ahhhhhh!!! I give it 3/5.

Cham

[Thema]

Killing of Frank was not cool.

[len]

I have relatives in the mid-central part of Illinois, dangerously near to the towns mentioned, and from what I've seen, I think that this movie was really a documentary rather than a cult sci-fi!

[AlphaWoolf]

I saw this on the "Creature Feature" when I was *really* small.  I was so young, in fact, that the atrocious special effects were actually convincing.  The threat of giant grasshoppers was all too real to me.  Shame on me!  A classic bad film courtesy of the one and only Bert I. Gordon.

The thing about this movie that bothers me the most is a huge, gaping, giant locust-sized flaw in continity. How come flamethrowers, tanks, and heavy artillery didn't hurt them at Ludlow, yet at least two locusts are killed by rifle-fire? I mean, Dr. Wainwright's just firing that tiny pistol, and it falls over dead! Come to think of it, why do scientests in these movies *always* have a pistol in their desk? And Audrey covered the Korean War, for crying out loud! Why does she scream and cower at the hint of a locust! AAAAAAAAAARRRRGGGGGGGHHHH! I should stop before I smash my copy of this otherwise enjoyable movie!

[Carl B.]

I`ve seen bad movies in my time, but this movie was baaaaad! The acting of Peter Graves and all the other human actors was so awful that I was rooting for the grasshoppers through the whole film. What`s next-giant dung beetles?