The film originated in October 1945 as a project of actress Donna Reed and her high school science teacher, Edward R. Tompkins, who was a chemist at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Bob Considine wrote the treatment, which was sent to MGM scriptwriters. The title was supplied by PresidentHarry S. Truman. At the time there was a legal requirement that permission be obtained to depict living well-known public figures. Many refused, but others, such as J. Robert Oppenheimer, co-operated. Major GeneralLeslie R. Groves, Jr., the director of the Manhattan Project, was hired as a consultant for $10,000 (equivalent to $156,000in 2023).
Although the filmmakers put considerable effort into historical accuracy, particularly in details, the film is known for some key distortions of history. An entirely fictional sequence was added in which Truman agonizes over whether to authorize the attack; anti-aircraft shells are shown bursting around the Enola Gay on its bombing run over Hiroshima. The film received generally mixed reviews, and was a box office disappointment.
Plot
A prelude scene in the form of a Newsreel story suggests that the film is part of a package of information about the development of atomic energy and the atomic bomb being placed in a time capsule in California, to be opened in 2446.
Physicist and atomic scientist Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer (Hume Cronyn) praises the discovery of atomic energy but also warns of its dangers. American scientists such as Matt Cochran (Tom Drake), working under the guidance of Dr. Enrico Fermi (Joseph Calleia) and Dr. Marré (Victor Francen), have split the atom, and essentially beaten the Germans in the race to create an atomic bomb. With the assistance of Albert Einstein (Ludwig Stössel), they inform PresidentFranklin D. Roosevelt (Godfrey Tearle) that a monumental discovery has been made.
In 1941, with the United States at war, Roosevelt authorizes up to two billion dollars for the Manhattan Project to develop an atomic bomb. In December 1942, at the University of Chicago, under the watchful eyes of observers such as Lieutenant Colonel Jeff Nixon (Robert Walker) and international experts, scientists create the first chain reaction, under a stadium at the campus.
Nixon is assigned to General Leslie Groves (Brian Donlevy), who is placed in charge of the project. Groves has to bring together the scientific, industrial and defense communities to build the atomic bomb. In 1945, following the death of Roosevelt, the new president, Harry S. Truman (Art Baker), continues to support the atomic project, now moved to Los Alamos, New Mexico. Facing stiff resistance in the Pacific War, Truman orders the use of the atomic bomb against Japan in July 1945.
Cochran and Nixon are assigned to accompany the crew transporting the bomb to Tinian. While assembling the bomb, Cochran comes into contact with radioactive material and dies. The following day, on August 6, 1945, the Enola Gay, a Boeing B-29 Superfortress bomber, drops an atomic bomb on Hiroshima. After the mission, Nixon returns home to break the news of her husband's death to Cochran's wife.
The idea for The Beginning or the End originated in October 1945 with actress Donna Reed, and her high school science teacher, Edward R. Tompkins, a chemist at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory.[1] According to The Hollywood Reporter issues of December 1945 and January 1946, MGM, Paramount and 20th Century-Fox were all interested in making a film about the Manhattan Project. Paramount's Hal B. Wallis was already working on his own version, titled Top Secret, but agreed to merge his project with MGM's and hand over his story and research, offering to serve as an adviser on the MGM treatment in return for a fixed fee and a percentage of the box office gross.[2]
The Beginning or the End had a number of working titles, including Atom Bomb, The Manhattan Project and Top Secret. Bob Considine was hired to produce a treatment, which was submitted to MGM writers.[2] The script underwent a number of revisions, with Ayn Rand being one of the writers. Her contributions include the montage of Hitler's conquests, a sequence in which a dying informant sends a message to Albert Einstein, and the sequence in which President Franklin Roosevelt authorizes the Manhattan Project. Other writers involved with the script were Robert Smith, Frank "Spig" Wead, Norman Krasna, David Hawkins, John Lee Mahin and Glenn Tryon. Producer Samuel Marx wrote the opening narration.[3] Marx and Donna Reed's husband Tony Owen met with President Harry S. Truman to secure his approval. At their meeting, Truman is reported to have said: "Gentlemen, make a motion picture. Tell the people of this nation that for them it is the beginning or the end," thereby supplying the movie with its title.[1]
H. T. Wensel from the National Bureau of Standards, Tompkins, and W. Bradford Shank from the Los Alamos National Laboratory acted as technical advisers.[4] Relations between MGM and the scientists soon soured, as the scientists began asking for more accuracy which required multiple script changes, and Tompkins eventually resigned. Oppenheimer sent David Hawkins, a philosophy professor from the University of California to act as a mediator between Marx and the scientists.[5] Although the original intention was that a substantial sum of money would be donated to scientists' associations like the Federation of Atomic Scientists, in the end, no scientific organizations accepted any money.[6] Tompkins received payment of one hundred dollars. (equivalent to $2,000in 2023).[7] At the time, there was a legal requirement that permission be obtained to depict living well-known public figures in films.[7]Lise Meitner, Niels Bohr and Sir James Chadwick all refused to allow their names to be used in The Beginning or the End, which Marx regarded as unfortunate, as it made the film's Manhattan Project scenes look like an all-American affair.[5]
The loss of Bohr caused important sequences to be deleted. The script originally had Bohr, rescued from the Germans in Denmark, bring a shocked Oppenheimer news that the German nuclear weapon project was supplying expertise to its Japanese counterpart. A German submarine carrying a fictional scientist travels to Japan where he joins the Japanese project in Hiroshima.[8]Vannevar Bush objected to the way the script depicted him as having doubts about whether the atomic bomb could be built in time or could fit into an aircraft. Bush insisted that he never had any doubts. The script was changed to soften this. In the film, when Bush tells President Roosevelt that he has a top-secret matter to discuss, the President's dog Fala leaves the room.[9]
Oppenheimer raised no objection to the sequence in the film in which he informed Brigadier General Thomas Farrell that the odds of a runaway explosion destroying the planet were less than one in a million, although he told MGM that he never said this.[10] The cultured Oppenheimer's main concern was that the script was poor, with characters that were "stilted, lifeless, and without purpose or insight."[11]
Military technical advisers for The Beginning or the End included Colonel William A. Considine, Groves's assistant in charge of Security and Public Relations, Major Glen W. Landreth, Major Paul Van Sloun and Lieutenant Colonel Charles W. Sweeney, the pilot of Bockscar, the bomber that dropped the atomic bomb on Nagasaki.[4] Scientists were alarmed by reports that MGM leading man Clark Gable was being considered for the role of Groves, but were relieved when Brian Donlevy was cast instead. Donlevy usually appeared in villainous supporting roles [12] and indeed, most of the actors cast in the movie were best known for film noir: Hume Cronyn for The Postman Always Rings Twice; Joseph Calleia, for Gilda and Deadline at Dawn; and Ludwig Stössel for Fritz Lang's Cloak and Dagger.[3] The portly Groves apparently had no objection to his portrayal by the slim and handsome Donlevy, except for the way in which he was shown bossing industrialists around. He had a scene in which he warned Roosevelt that the invasion of Japan would be opposed by Japanese atomic weapons deleted.[8]
Eleanor Roosevelt objected to the casting of Lionel Barrymore as her late husband, due to political remarks that Barrymore had made about the president in 1944.[13][14] Marx delayed Barrymore's scenes while she had a chance to read and respond to a letter Barrymore sent her explaining that his remarks had been misinterpreted, but she was not placated, and Barrymore was replaced in the role by Godfrey Tearle.[2] The War Department and the White House reviewed the script, and both asked for changes. The Army had objected to a scene in which an Army major made a pass at a girl and it was cut from the film, as the Army felt that this was poor conduct for an officer.[14]
The casual way that Truman and Groves were shown to decide to use the bomb, with Truman stating that "I think more of our American boys than I do of all our enemies",[15] while accurate, troubled Walter Lippmann, who felt that it could lead to foreigners being fearful of atomic weapons being in American hands. It was replaced with a scene where Truman (shown from back only) agonizes over whether to authorize the attack or not.[14] In it, Truman asserts to his press secretary that dropping the bomb will shorten the war, and a "year less of war will mean life for... from 300,000 to half a million of America's finest youth".[15]
The motion picture censors asked for further cuts. Derogatory references to Mexicans were removed, as was an off-color joke about the effects of exposure to radioactive substances ("Is it true if you fool around with that stuff you don't like girls anymore?" "Not that I've noticed"), and one about politics ("I got it confidential−we're makin' the front ends of horses. We ship 'em to Washington to hook on to the other end.")[3][13]
Principal photography for The Beginning or the End began on April 29, 1946, and continued until July 25 with retakes beginning on August 9, 1946. The production premiered in Washington, D.C., on February 19, 1947, with the national release of the film following on March 7, 1947.[16]
Historical accuracy
The filmmakers put considerable effort into many details for historical accuracy, such as military uniforms, and the details of the Enola Gay and its crew.[3] Nine of the actors who portrayed the Enola Gay crew were actual veterans of World War II.[2]Guy Williams made his film debut as the bombardier who releases the weapon over Hiroshima. The correct names of the accompanying aircraft are shown, although the photography plane was only named Necessary Evil after the Nagasaki mission.
By comparison, the technical details of atomic processes and the bomb's design are wildly inaccurate by intention. In 1947, these details were highly classified. No mention was made of the rich source of pitchblende supplied from the Congolese Shinkolobwe mine, and all refining of uranium was portrayed as only coming from Canadian mines. Another inaccuracy, independent of necessary military secrecy, is the portrayal of anti-aircraft shells bursting around the aircraft on the bombing run, as the attack on Hiroshima was not opposed.[17][Note 1]
The film twice refers to supposed specific leaflet drops on the target for ten days in advance of the mission warning the citizens of the forthcoming raid. "We've been dropping warning leaflets on them for ten days now", one crew member remarks, "That's ten days more warning than they gave us before Pearl Harbor."[19] However, there was no leaflet specifically warning of an atomic attack.[19] In his review in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, physicist Harrison Brown called this "the most horrible falsification of history".[20] Historians have debated whether any leaflets were dropped at all.[21]
This incident in which "Cochran" receives a fatal dose of radiation while assembling the Hiroshima bomb is a highly fictionalized reference to the deaths of Harry Daghlian and Louis Slotin, members of the Manhattan Project who died after contact with radioactive material on 21 August 1945 and 21 May 1946.[22]
In his award-winning book, The Beginning or the End: How Hollywood—and America—Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb,(July 2020), historian and journalist Greg Mitchell explores “the shocking and significant story of how the White House and Pentagon scuttled an epic Hollywood production.”[23]
Release
Box office
According to MGM records, The Beginning or the End was made on a budget of $2,632,000 (equivalent to $41,124,000in 2023), but earned $1,221,000 (equivalent to $19,078,000in 2023) in the United States and Canada and $721,000 (equivalent to $11,265,000in 2023) elsewhere, resulting in a loss to the studio of $1,596,000 (equivalent to $24,937,000in 2023).[24]
Critical reception
Although The Beginning or the End was the first film to depict the story of the atomic bomb, both critics and the public were confused by the attempt to merge real events in a docudrama form. Bosley Crowther of The New York Times commented that "despite its generally able reenactments, this film is so laced with sentiment of the silliest and most theatrical nature that much of its impressiveness is marred."[25]Variety described the film as a "portentous tale in broad strokes of masterful scripting and production",[26] and a "sum credit of everybody concerned that the documentary values are sufficiently there without becoming static".[26]
Time was less positive, noting that, "even as entertainment ... the picture seldom rises above cheery imbecility."[13] In his Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists review, Harrison Brown considered the movie "poor", with a romantic angle "insipid in the extreme",[20] but was most troubled by way scientific equipment was "over-glamorized" in the film, which he felt gave "a completely false impression of how scientists work."[20]
The Enola Gay is a Boeing B-29 Superfortress bomber, named after Enola Gay Tibbets, the mother of the pilot, Colonel Paul Tibbets. On 6 August 1945, during the final stages of World War II, it became the first aircraft to drop an atomic bomb in warfare. The bomb, code-named "Little Boy", was targeted at the city of Hiroshima, Japan, and destroyed about three-quarters of the city. Enola Gay participated in the second nuclear attack as the weather reconnaissance aircraft for the primary target of Kokura. Clouds and drifting smoke resulted in Nagasaki, a secondary target, being bombed instead.
"Fat Man" was the codename for the type of nuclear weapon the United States detonated over the Japanese city of Nagasaki on 9 August 1945. It was the second of the only two nuclear weapons ever used in warfare, the first being Little Boy, and its detonation marked the third nuclear explosion in history. The first one was built by scientists and engineers at Los Alamos Laboratory using plutonium manufactured at the Hanford Site and was dropped from the Boeing B-29 Superfortress Bockscar piloted by Major Charles Sweeney.
The Manhattan Project was a research and development program undertaken during World War II to produce the first nuclear weapons. It was led by the United States in collaboration with the United Kingdom and Canada. From 1942 to 1946, the project was directed by Major General Leslie Groves of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Nuclear physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer was the director of the Los Alamos Laboratory that designed the bombs. The Army program was designated the Manhattan District, as its first headquarters were in Manhattan; the name gradually superseded the official codename, Development of Substitute Materials, for the entire project. The project absorbed its earlier British counterpart, Tube Alloys, and subsumed the program from the American civilian Office of Scientific Research and Development. The Manhattan Project employed nearly 130,000 people at its peak and cost nearly US$2 billion, over 80 percent of which was for building and operating the plants that produced the fissile material. Research and production took place at more than 30 sites across the US, the UK, and Canada.
J. Robert Oppenheimer was an American theoretical physicist who served as the director of the Manhattan Project's Los Alamos Laboratory during World War II. He is often called the "father of the atomic bomb" for his role in overseeing the development of the first nuclear weapons.
Leslie Richard Groves Jr. was a United States Army Corps of Engineers officer who oversaw the construction of the Pentagon and directed the Manhattan Project, a top secret research project that developed the atomic bomb during World War II.
Henry Lewis Stimson was an American statesman, lawyer, and Republican Party politician. Over his long career, he emerged as a leading figure in U.S. foreign policy by serving in both Republican and Democratic administrations. He served as Secretary of War (1911–1913) under President William Howard Taft, Secretary of State (1929–1933) under President Herbert Hoover, and again Secretary of War (1940–1945) under Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman, overseeing American military efforts during World War II.
William Sterling Parsons was an American naval officer who worked as an ordnance expert on the Manhattan Project during World War II. He is best known for being the weaponeer on the Enola Gay, the aircraft which dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, in 1945. To avoid the possibility of a nuclear explosion if the aircraft crashed and burned on takeoff, he decided to arm the bomb in flight. While the aircraft was en route to Hiroshima, Parsons climbed into the cramped and dark bomb bay, and inserted the powder charge and detonator. He was awarded the Silver Star for his part in the mission.
Fat Man and Little Boy is a 1989 American epic historical war drama film directed by Roland Joffé, who co-wrote the script with Bruce Robinson. The story follows the Manhattan Project, the secret Allied endeavor to develop the first nuclear weapons during World War II. The film is named after "Little Boy" and "Fat Man", the two bombs dropped on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, respectively. The film starred Paul Newman as Leslie Groves and Dwight Schultz as J. Robert Oppenheimer, with supporting roles filled by Bonnie Bedelia, John Cusack, Laura Dern, John C. McGinley and Natasha Richardson.
The Manhattan Project was a research and development project that produced the first atomic bombs during World War II. It was led by the United States with the support of the United Kingdom and Canada. From 1942 to 1946, the project was under the direction of Major General Leslie Groves of the US Army Corps of Engineers. The Army component of the project was designated the Manhattan District; "Manhattan" gradually became the codename for the entire project. Along the way, the project absorbed its earlier British counterpart, Tube Alloys. The Manhattan Project began modestly in 1939, but grew to employ more than 130,000 people and cost nearly US$2 billion. Over 90% of the cost was for building factories and producing the fissionable materials, with less than 10% for development and production of the weapons.
Hiroshima is a 1995 Japanese-Canadian war drama film directed by Koreyoshi Kurahara and Roger Spottiswoode about the decision-making processes that led to the dropping of the atomic bombs by the United States on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki toward the end of World War II. The three-hour film was made for television and had no theatrical release.
Above and Beyond is a 1952 American World War II film about Lt. Col. Paul W. Tibbets Jr., the pilot of the aircraft that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima in August 1945.
"Manhattan Project" is a 1985 song by Canadian progressive rock band Rush, named after the WWII project that created the first atomic bomb. The song appeared on Rush's eleventh studio album Power Windows in 1985. "Manhattan Project" is the third track on the album and clocks in at 5:07. Despite not being released as a single, it did reach #10 on the U.S. Mainstream Rock Chart.
On 6 and 9 August 1945, the United States detonated two atomic bombs over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, respectively. The bombings killed between 150,000 and 246,000 people, most of whom were civilians, and remain the only use of nuclear weapons in an armed conflict. Japan surrendered to the Allies on 15 August, six days after the bombing of Nagasaki and the Soviet Union's declaration of war against Japan and invasion of Japanese-occupied Manchuria. The Japanese government signed the instrument of surrender on 2 September, effectively ending the war.
Day One is a made-for-TV docudrama film about The Manhattan Project, the research and development of the atomic bomb during World War II. It is based on the book by Peter Wyden. The film was written by David W. Rintels and directed by Joseph Sargent. It starred Brian Dennehy as General Leslie Groves, David Strathairn as Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer and Michael Tucker as Dr. Leo Szilard. It premiered in the United States on March 5, 1989 on the CBS network. It won the 1989 Emmy award for Outstanding Drama/Comedy Special. The movie received critical acclaim for its historical accuracy despite being a drama.
Take Aim is a 1974 two-part Soviet biographical drama film directed by Igor Talankin.
The Manhattan Projects is a science fiction comic book series co-created by writer Jonathan Hickman and artist Nick Pitarra published by Image Comics. The premise is an alternate history near the end of World War II in which the Manhattan Project was a front for other more esoteric science fiction ideas. The series is a monthly ongoing and began in March 2012 to much critical acclaim.
Britain initiated the first research project to design an atomic bomb in 1941. Building on this work, Britain prompted the United States to recognise how important this type of research was, helped the U.S. to start the Manhattan Project in 1942, and supplied crucial expertise and materials that contributed to the project's successful completion in time to influence the end of the Second World War.
Trinity: A Graphic History of the First Atomic Bomb is the debut graphic novel written and illustrated by Jonathan Fetter-Vorm. It provides an account of the Manhattan Project and the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as well as mentioning the chain of events after. The title arises from the code-name, Trinity, given to the test site for the first nuclear weapon.
The Los Alamos Laboratory, also known as Project Y, was a secret laboratory established by the Manhattan Project and operated by the University of California during World War II. Its mission was to design and build the first atomic bombs. Robert Oppenheimer was its first director, serving from 1943 to December 1945, when he was succeeded by Norris Bradbury. In order to enable scientists to freely discuss their work while preserving security, the laboratory was located on the isolated Pajarito Plateau in Northern New Mexico. The wartime laboratory occupied buildings that had once been part of the Los Alamos Ranch School.
Enola Gay: The Men, The Mission, The Atomic Bomb is a 1980 American made-for-television historical drama film about the B-29 mission by the 509th Composite Group, the Army Air Force unit that dropped the first first atomic bomb to be used in combat on Hiroshima, Japan at the end of World War II.
References
Notes
↑ However, the raid on Nagasaki was engaged by Japanese anti-aircraft fire.[18]
Roling, B. V. A.; Cassese, A. (1994). The Tokyo Trial and Beyond: Reflections of a Peacemonger. Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishers/Polity Press. ISBN978-0-74561-485-4.
Sweeney, Charles; Antonucci, James A.; Antonucci, Marion K. (1997). War's End: An Eyewitness Account of America's Last Atomic Mission. New York: Quill Publishing. ISBN0-380-78874-8.
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