User reviews

The idea for this film was brought to the studio(MGM) by Donna Reed, whose high school science teacher had written to her about the secret WW11atomic bomb research project at Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Later, Donna and her husband, Tony Owen, received a $50,000 finders fee for this contribution. Always a contentious project, cooperation came from the army, including General Groves, manager of the Manhattan Project and from top scientists including J. Robert Oppenheimer, at Berkeley, and Albert Einstein, at Princeton. President Truman knew about the film and met with the producer. The script went through a lengthy development with columnist/screenwriter Bob Considine, and Clark Gable was originally in mind for the Robert Walker part. The Tom Drake scene, scattering a "going-critical mass" with his unprotected hand, is based on an actual incident, and the scientist who did it at the Chicago research lab (and possibly saved a good section of the city), died as a result.

Not successful at the box office, the studio rationalized the picture was too soon after the war and too realistic: audiences were not able to assimilate a story about nuclear energy in the late '40s, they were terrified of the bomb, of radiation fallout; pictures of Hiroshima were still in the news..

The film walks a fine line between fact and fiction (it received an Academy Award nomination for best documentary), but how effective was softening a docu-drama with a fictionalized love story?. The atomic "pile" was constructed on a sound stage, and the shots of the B-29 formation seem an appropriate metaphor for the film's subtext, the power of the nascent military/industrial relationship... moving forcefully ahead into the unknown.

The aforementioned reviewers have some interesting things to say about the screenplay, direction and the cast. Unfortunately, no mention has been made about the cinematography (first-rate) and the excellent music score composed and conducted by Daniele Amfitheatrof. The composer employed the services of an augmented orchestra, which in some cues numbers in excess of 100-players. In one scene (unfortunately cut from the release print) Amfitheatrof composed a dissonant motif in a syncopated dance-band rhythm, over which an electric violin plays a bittersweet theme. The great Andre Previn worked as one of the copyists on the score.

Although the far more realistic Fat Man And Little Boy deals better with this subject, The Beginning Or The End still is a fine interpretation of the events leading up to the bombing of Hiroshima. No really big star names are in this film probably for the better giving it a nice ring of authenticity.

Playing the parts of General Leslie Groves and scientist J. Robert Oppenheimer the partnership of the military and science that created the atomic bomb are Brian Donlevy and Hume Cronyn. Both bear more than a passing resemblance to the real people.

The Manhattan Project, the overall name for the effort to create a super weapon to bring a short end to World War II and get it before the Axis did was probably the best kept secret in all of a human history. I have to say it because it involved the efforts of a few thousand people at the various sites at White Sands, Oak Ridge, UCLA, Chicago and of course Manhattan. My father did his wartime service at Oak Ridge and he was just a regular GI and still had no real idea himself what he was doing there.

Fat Man And Little Boy is far more introspective dealing with the moral decision to use the bomb on a live target. The Beginning Or The End comes down very hard and unquestionably on the rightness of Truman's decision to drop the bomb. Both presidents Roosevelt and Truman are here and played by Geoffrey Tearle and Art Baker respectively.

The peaceful uses of atomic energy are also discussed and trumpeted. Four younger players Robert Walker, Tom Drake, Beverly Tyler, and Audrey Totter represent a quartet of idealistic young people working on the project who talk about a much better world that atomic energy can create. One of them dies in this effort. As for the better world we've reassessed atomic energy in the wake of Chernobyl and Three Mile Island. With our dependence on oil however, nuclear energy is once again being reassessed as an alternative.

The Beginning Or The End still holds up well today with Donlevy and Cronyn heading an impeccably cast ensemble.

Americans were almost as shocked by the emergence of the terrible new atomic weapon as anyone. Naturally as the surprise wore off the public became curious about the bomb's backstory since the development was one of the most closely guarded secrets of the war. This MGM production was one of the first to bring that secret history into neighborhood theatres.

Of course, being Hollywood and concerned with box office, liberties were taken as the credit crawl states. Nonetheless, the account seems a reasonable one from tentative beginnings to worrisome testing to final delivery. The movie gives some attention to the moral reservations involved, but these are over-ruled by the belief that if we don't get the bomb first, the Nazis will.

The film was made during that brief interval between the end of the World War and the onset of the Cold War with the Soviet Union. As a result, the script is freed from political constraints that would have colored the account had it been made, say, five years later. Thus there's a hopeful air that the new technology will be used for peaceful purposes now that war has become "unthinkable".

Perhaps the film's chief value lies in just that sort of comparison between the onset of the nuclear age and present day. In fact, war was not made obsolete by nuclear technology, but limits were placed on how far the combatants should go in pursuing their aims. Even so, the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 came apparently within a hair's breadth of a nuclear outbreak, while civil defense drills of the 1950's emphasized surviving a nuclear exchange. Clearly, the Cold War had not fulfilled the hopes expressed in the film.

Note also the welcoming line accorded the moguls from America's major industries, e.g. General Electric, who were being recruited to help with the project. Cynics might regard the coming together of big government and private industry as the symbolic beginning of the now notorious "military-industrial complex" that dominates so much of the contemporary economy. Note also how easily government seizes property and relocates its owners to other locales. Here the seizure is portrayed in a cooperative and problem-free manner for understandable reasons. The subtext, however, clearly implies the growth of government in the name of national security.

The film itself understandably plays up a human interest angle by inserting the two young men, Walker and Drake, and their girls at various points. Actually, the screenplay does this pretty skillfully without interrupting the flow, that might otherwise become a distraction. My one complaint is the final scene which really is spread on with an unnecessary ladle, replete with heavenly choir, etc. It's clear that the producers wanted the audience to exit on a decidedly reassuring note following the distressing scenes of a nuclear-devastated Hiroshima and the onset of a threatening new age.

Too bad that the film has become so obscure. Critics largely dismissed the film because of its sentimental side, especially the last scene. However, as an historical artifact, the movie may outrank the value of any other of that year. On the whole, the screenplay puts difficult events in a positive light, but by no means does it overlook the moral dilemmas that arise at key points. In short, it's no whitewash of the complex decisions taken.All in all, whatever one's views on the ethical issues, the film provides an important snapshot of how the nuclear age was first presented to an anxious audience in a popular forum. And in that important sense, the strip of film amounts to more than just another movie.

As a window on 1947society's attitudes toward the making and use of the atomic bomb it is wonderfully revealing. Opie is a hero, not the unfairly hounded"commie" of the McCarthy era. GE, Dumont, and other major firms are surprisingly prominently featured and treated as essential partners of the professors drawn from around the world. The rationale for using the bomb is presented with some tentativeness and includes the intention of saving Japanese lives by avoiding a prolonged war. An "Oath" to protect the secrecy of the project is placed in a legal context, not a political or loyalty test context. Even the "propaganda" noted by other reviewers is of historical interest. Cheers to TCM for showing it. For a comprehensive history of the Manhattan Project the pulitzer prize- winning book by Richard Rhodes is the gold standard.

"The Beginning or the End" is a film that is shot documentary style about the Manhattan Project...the WWII project behind the creation of the first atomic bombs. But unlike a real documentary, some of the facts have been changed...such as the omission of the contributions of the non-American scientists as well as a subplot involving the death of one of the scientists. If you read the IMDB trivia, it explains the first problem....though they still should have emphasized their contributions even if the actual scientists didn't want their names used. As such, it's not a perfect history lesson....but it still is interesting and well worth seeing. It helps that MGM used some of their top character actors in this film...though interestingly the film DID lose money...a lot of money. Perhaps audiences were so afraid of the bomb that they didn't want to see the film and be reminded of this!

By the way, there is only one bad part of the film...the very ending. It's schmaltzy and ridiculous (especially occurring right in front of the statue of Lincoln at the Lincoln Memorial in DC)...and was very badly handled...especially since this never actually occurred...a reason I am only giving the film a 7.

I saw this movie years ago and hope that it still exists somewhere. I am not optimistic about this as it has never appeared on the History Channel or some other likely place.

This was the first of several films about the Manhattan Project and was perhaps the best one. It is the only one that shows the full scope of the project. The others are either about Los Alamos or the 509th Composite Group that dropped it.

This was also the only one that had some of the real people as advisers. General Groves was a technical adviser and Leo Szilard may also have been one (althought I'm not sure about Leo).

This is an important historical film and deserves preservation and re-publication.

For a 1947 release, it wasn't a bad film. Lots of propaganda, especially at the end, but until then it the film moves along.

Brian Donlevy plays a passable Gen. Groves although Donlevy was much trimmer than the real Groves.

Many technical inaccuracies, although they were probably intentional, such as the amount of fissionable material used and the size and shape of the Trinity unit and the "Fatman" bomb used on Hiroshima.

TiVO rating gave it three stars out of four, but I'd rank it just a shade below average because of the shmaltzy letter from the dead young husband at the end.

If you know your character actors, you'll love the film. They must have used every male character actor in Hollywood at the time. You'll recognize faces from such diverse roles as heavies in Three Stooges shorts to actors with recurring roles in Hopalong Cassidy films.

It has been about 25 years since I last saw the movie, but I throughly enjoyed it, and wanted to see it again. I thought is was a well done docu-drama. It may have some Hollywood in it, but I thought it was a reasonably accurate account on the development of the A-bomb. I hope that some day it will be printed for home viewing.

"The Beginning or the End" is a tense, well-acted, fascinating document on the development of the atomic bomb.

This film opens with a newsreel explaining how the MGM movie is being buried in a "time capsule" to be opened in 500 years. Before being killed off by television in the 1950s, the newsreel was how Americans received visual news reports. Members of the cast show unintentionally amusing reactions during the ceremony; for unexplained reasons, they appear shifty-eyed, sneaky, fidgety and/or stone-faced. The buried film is immediately unearthed for our viewing. It tracks the three-year development of the Atomic Bomb. This is a reaction to Nazi Germany's atomic plans for World War II. History is full of speculation, but we can safely (or unsafely) assume Adolf Hitler would have used the weapon to annihilate not only his adversaries, but also those he considered undesirable. In one of many keen decisions, President Franklin D. Roosevelt proactively decided the US should be the first to acquire atomic weaponry...

Highlights include actor Godfrey Tearle portraying President Roosevelt, and seeing war veteran Bobby Jordan outperform dozens of other "bit" players...

However, the film is unremarkable in most respects. The dramatization includes much scientific silliness; but, it has some hints which could point toward rediscovering The Bomb, should the film's supposition be realized. The starring role is not given to top-billed Brian Donlevy (as Leslie R. Groves), but to brilliant Columbia University student Tom Drake (as Matt Cochran). Filmmakers do not make it easy for Mr. Drake to shine. "The Beginning or the End" is simply not very exciting. He would have had a better chance in a better story. Drake's co-stars are best pal Robert Walker (as Jeff Nixon) and pretty bride Beverly Tyler (as Anne). The "People of 2446" might be more amazed at Ms. Tyler's purely decorative role in the film, along with pretty Audrey Totter (as Jean O'Leary), than they would be at how the USA ushered in the Atomic Age. She never passed Algebra, but Tyler knows how to cry and kiss.

**** The Beginning or the End (2/19/47) Norman Taurog ~ Tom Drake, Robert Walker, Brian Donlevy, Hume Cronyn

I was very young when I saw this film but I remember the drama of it and the dirt and mud in the scenes where I think they were constructing what I now know to be the Los Alamos site. There was a scene where Tom Drake became exposed to the radiation by catching some equipment and saving many lives which described radiation sickness as "I feel dizzy, etc." I understood that very well. I also fell in love with Robert Walker! I do not remember anything about actual bombing, etc. I think I was too interested in the personal side of the story. This is an historic movie because it was one of the very first about the bomb. I wish it were available anyplace?

This film deserves a better overall rating. Perhaps modern audiences are becoming too far removed from the WWII era to appreciate the plot? Its a no-nonsense film for the most part dealing with a complicated subject. Many familiar faces, perhaps a touch too much Hollywood here and there, including a love story sub plot to slow things down and make it feel more story than documentary. Good use of original test footage and actual bombers. There is more emphasis on the negatives of atomic weapons than the fact the two bombs actually saved lives in the long run, but to some that is just fine.

It's a docudrama of the historical Manhattan Project, the creation of the atomic bomb. The premise is a film buried with the time capsule to be opened in the 25th century. It tells the political story as well as the actual research and manufacturing of the bomb. It's more revealing than I expected for those post-war times. The science is not explained that well. I doubt that the layman of those days would come close to understanding the science anyways. As a movie, it's functional and that's more than enough.

When I was 10 years old, I saw this unforgettable movie. For years I have tried to see it again, but no one was showing it. This movie made a huge impact on my life as a young girl on into adulthood. This movie should never be put on a back burner, but shown at least once a year so that today's young people can experience how the bomb came to be. The acting is good, story is especially unforgettable. Tom Drake is still one of my favorite actors, along with Beverly Tyler. The script is written with a casual yet informative flavor - thus the docudrama style. However the script also brings a building tension. Certainly, a worthy movie. It has stuck with me for 67 years!

Passable as a drama, but anyone with a passing familiarity on the subject knows that much that is presented as fact in this movie is complete fiction.

My god, what a propaganda film. The docu-movie glances over all things negative that really happened during the '39-'45 war and puts a unbelievable holyer than thou attitude of deploying nuclear arsenal twice over Japan. I felt sad and frustrated watching this very poorly biased American film.

I agree I want to have this film to see again. I agree with the review about remembering the mud and dirt and I also fell in love with Robet Walker. I was about 11 when I saw it. I just recently read about an actual case of radiation poisoning that occurred there so the incident in the movie was based on truth. I have never forgotten the movie and much of it was excellent in every respect. Please bring it back in some form! Maybe the studio has a copy or the families of Robert Walker or Guy Williams since this was his first movie. There is a great deal of history in this movie and I have never seen one like it about that era since. I really enjoyed reading all the information and great reviews!

MGM was the most Egotistic of the Major Hollywood Studios. The Film starts out with a Staged Event about this Movie being Buried in a Time Capsule for 500 Years so that Future Generations would know what Really Happened. Really. Talk about a Distorted View of Self-Importance.

That Hubris aside, this is a Straightforward Docudrama that has been Little Seen over the Years and most Folks are Unaware of its Existence. It is not a Bad Recreation of Events, the Making of the First Atomic Weapon, interspersed with some Romantic Interludes to make it more Audience Friendly.

There is Surprising Very Little Propaganda here, but that is Most Likely due to the yet to Emerge "Communist Threat" or "Red Scare" that would Peak with the McCarthy Era Hearings. Notably even Robert Oppenheimer, Justifiably Portrayed in the Film as one of the Creators of the Bomb, was called before Congress and Grilled about His Left Leanings.

After the War He Famously Quoted the Bhagavad Gita as He spoke in a Documentary..."Now I have become death...the destroyer of Worlds".

This is Worth a Watch for its place in History as a Hollywood Attempt, the First, to Approach the Subject and is mostly Free of Sermonizing and is quite well done.