The 1957 film, Beginning of the End, is perhaps the ultimate horror film for people who dislike Illinois.
Because it’s a Bert I. Gordon film and Gordon took his “Mr. Big” nickname seriously, it deals with giant monsters. In this case, the monsters are a bunch of locust who ate all of this radioactive grain that was being stored in a silo. The locusts grew to giant size and then they went on a rampage.
Fortunately, the rampage appears to be localized to Illinois. Apparently, the locusts have enough respect for state boundaries that they know better than to hop into Indiana, Missouri, or Wisconsin. Instead, the locusts take out the farming community of Ludlow and then start making their way to Chicago, perhaps hoping to battle the Chicago Outfit for control of the city’s politics. Do they seriously think Mayor Daley is just going to sit back while a bunch of locusts overrun his city?
The government wants to cover up the locust rampage because they don’t want to risk a mass panic in the 47 states that they actually care about. (This film came out before Alaska and Hawaii joined the Union.) However, when enterprising reporter Audrey Aimes (Peggie Castle) comes across the remains of Ludlow and discovers that the U.S. military has taken over the area, she is determined to discover what happened. She hooks up with Dr. Ed Wainwright (Peter Graves), whose work in making food bigger led to the giant locust attacks in the first place. In most movies, Ed would shoulder most of the blame for the locust attack but Beginning of the End seems to understand that these things happen when you’re dousing food with radiation and then keeping the food in a poorly secured silo.
Of course, the main reason why it’s not Ed’s fault is that Ed is played by Peter Graves and seriously, who could blame anything on Peter Graves? Graves was one of those actors who could deliver even the silliest of dialogue with a straight face and he certainly gets to do that in Beginning of the End. He seems to be taking the situation seriously, even if no one else is.
One reason why it is a little bit difficult to take the situation seriously is because it’s about giant locusts. Now, make no mistake about it. I’m enough a country girl that I know how destructive locusts can be. The problem is that locusts may be destructive but they don’t look all that menacing. Even giant locusts just look like really ugly grasshoppers. This film uses a lot of rear projection and still photography to create the idea of giant locusts crawling over buildings and threatening the soldiers who have been sent to fight them. As is so often the case with Bert I. Gordon’s film, there’s a definite charm to the cheap special effects. But still, locusts are locusts.
Chicago haters will love the scene where General Hanson (Morris Ankrum) announces that the locusts have only left him with one option, the drop an atomic bomb and wipe the city off the face of the Earth. Fortunately, Ed is there to suggest another solution. Good old Peter Graves. I don’t know what we would have done without him.
As a final note, I’ll just mention that the poster for this film is actually more exciting than the film itself:
Through the Shattered Lens 