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Beginning of the End
USA 1957
produced by Bert I. Gordon for AB-PT Pictures/Republic
directed by Bert I. Gordon
starring Peter Graves, Peggie Castle, Morris Ankrum, Than Wyenn, Thomas Browne Henry, Richard Benedict, James seay, John Close, Don C. Harvey, Larry J. Blake, Eilene Janssen, Hylton Socher, Frank Wilcox, Douglas Evans, Paul Grant, Richard Emory, Hank Patterson, Steve Warren, Frank Connor, Don Eitner, Rayford Barnes, Kirk Alyn
written by Fred Freiberger, Lester Gorn, music by Albert Glasser, special technical effects by Bert I. Gordon
Bert I. Gordon's giant creature films
review by Mike Haberfelner
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Rather by accident, journalist Audrey Aimes (Peggie Castle) stumbles
upon a story of a whole village being destroyed and all people gone
missing. The military grant her special access to the area, but otherwise
they have to admit they're as baffled as she is by the whole situation.
But her inquisitive mind lets Audrey track down a science lab of the
ministry of agriculture that works with nuclear material, and there she
meets a friendly scientist, Dr Wainwright (Peter Graves), who tries to
grow fruit to gigantic size to quench world hunger. He, actually an
entomologist, is interested from square one (even though it's less than
clear why at first) ... and then his assistant (Than Wyenn) is killed by a
giant locust (that probably accidently developed out of one of
Wainwright's experiments). Wainwright and Audrey of course have
difficulties to convince the military they are fighting giant (8 foot at
least) locusts, but when several soldiers are attacked and killed, the
military decides to handle the situation their way - with firepower. Thing
is, the locusts are by now a few thousand strong, and are not all that
vulnerable to gunshots (though at a later point in the story they are), so
they have soon overcome the army and now head to Chicago. The city can be
evacuated with only minimal loss of life mind you, but now the locusts are
occupying Chicago. Military top brass does what it does best: Plan a bomb
drop to make things go boom, but Wainwright and Audrey actually want to
save Chicago, so they with a few soldiers capture one of the locusts, find
out what the duck call for locusts is, and then, in a recipe learned from
the early settlers, lure them all into Lake Michigan to drown them - and
just in time to save the city from being bombed, too. An uncredited Kirk
Alyn plays the bomber pilot by the way. Now Beginning of the
End is by no means a great movie, its story was quite derivative of
quite a few giant monster movies from its era (most notably probably Them
and Tarantula), the scietific
foundation of its story is ridiculous not only from today's point of view,
and its special effects, the backbone of a movie of this ilk, aren't
always great. At the same time though, the movie is fun, and in all its
seriousness, too, it moves ahead at a decent pace, and is deeply enough
rooted in pulp traditions to be totally likeable to any 1950's trash
afficionado.
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