[.ca] Mystery Science Theater 3000: Beginning of the End (Full ...

From Amazon.com:
Leapin' locusts! It's giant-insect time again, only this time the radiation from an agricultural experiment has turned Chicago into a breeding ground for gargantuan grasshoppers. It's all courtesy of '50s sci-fi schlockmeister Bert I. Gordon of The Amazing Colossal Man fame, and with Peter Graves as the nominal bug-busting hero, it's no wonder the guys at MST3K decided to roast this 1957 turkey on their popular TV show. But which is funnier, the movie itself or the skewering it gets from the snickering silhouettes of Joel, Crow, and Tom Servo? No matter, because you can have it both ways on this dubious DVD--plain or nutty! Some of the MST3K gags are cleverly twisted for trivia buffs (as when a cop approaches a wrecked car and Tom Servo says, "Uh... Miss Mansfield?" or when the sight of falling grasshoppers yields the ad-lib "Carry on our businesssssss..."). There are more hits than misses, and the movie's every bit as awful... er, great... as it sounds! --Jeff Shannon

When gigantic, superimposed grasshoppers attack:
This is how the world ends - not with a bang, but with a grasshopper. Yes, the finest military force in the world finds itself completely helpless in the face of gigantic locusts. Even Peter Graves seems at a loss as to what to do - which is unfortunate in that the whole thing is his (well, his characters') fault. He's the one who was growing all the radioactive super-sized vegetables - which were inedible by humans, by the way. Apparently, they were quite appetizing to locusts, though - and now there's a bazillion of the little buggers grown to immense size and destroying everything in their path. Emerging out of the, ahem, world-famous Illinois mountains, they make a, ahem, bee-line for Chicago - apparently, the locusts are Cubs fans who just can't take bear the thought of another season without a pennant. It isn't looking good, folks. Perhaps the very fate of humanity rests in Peter Graves' hands, and his ultimate solution involves giving a locust a lie-detector test. Run for your lives! Of course, things don't start out with a lot of excitement. This is a Bert I. Gordon movie, after all. The very first shot after the opening credits shows us a road with a vehicle approaching in the distance - way back in the distance, so far back you sit there and sit there wondering if anything is actually going to happen before you even spot the car. Then, Gordon throws us right into a big mystery; it seems the town of Ludlow, Illinois, has been destroyed, its population of 150 vanished into thin air. The National Guard's there, but they aren't talking, not even to famous journalist Audrey Ames (Peggy Castle). As the story begins to emerge, though, she joins up with Dr. Wainwright (Graves), a local entomologist, and quickly discovers two things: one, the mysterious force that destroyed Ludlow was a horde of gigantic locusts and two, it's all Wainwright's fault. Surprisingly, the military folks don't immediately embrace this story of a plague of gigantic locusts, but they soon learn just what they are up against - and fail miserably when they try to take the critters out. The big showdown takes place in Chicago, and it is here that Bert I. Gordon goes a little crazy showing grasshoppers crawling all over postcards (I mean, buildings). This low-budget big bug movie probably went over pretty well in the late 1950s, but today it just looks silly. Actually, watching grown, well-armed men run away from grasshoppers would look funny no matter how technically proficient the special effects are. No one is going to make the mistake of thinking these locusts are really gigantic, especially since they vary widely in size depending on the perspective of each scene. A couple of times, the locusts look as if they are really there with the characters, but those good shots are rarities indeed. Yes, the 50s was all about superimposing harmless little backyard critters onto low-budget films and passing them off as unstoppable monsters threatening the very survival of humanity, and no one did it quite like Bert I. Gordon. With a musical score by Albert Glasser, The Beginning of the End is a double whammy of "radioactive super-sized creatures are attacking" fun.

One of my least favorite episodes...:
Look...to be fair, one man's BOTE is another man's "Manos". What I mean by that is some people may love this ep, but I personally didn't find it very funny and the movie is so bad that the sub-average riffing doesn't save it. The best lines that Mike & the robots make are when they speak for a character and add a line to something a person says. Unfortunately, the feature's horrible pacing, slow dialogue scenes, and atrocious acting are not enough, and it seems like the writers took a break on this one. Of course, even weak MST3K is better than pretty much any other show, but I must say this is certainly my least favorite episode from season 5 and at times feels like a Season 1 episode (the riffing is sparse and not really funny). If you are a newcomer and would like to see this show at it's best, get either "Manos: Hands of Fate" or "Red Zone Cuba".

Grasshoppers crawl across postcards, and MST3K is there:
Hello. I'm Peter Graves. Granted, my Peter Graves impersonation works much better when you can actually hear me do it, but you can't talk about MST3K's hilarious send-up of The Beginning of the End without following in Crow's footsteps and doing constant Peter Graves impressions. This is classic MST3K, the fifth experiment featuring Mike Nelson as the human test subject on the Satellite of Love. Those of us Joel loyalists who feared for the future of the show needn't have worried, as Mike took his new role in front of the cameras and flew with it. He was, of course, helped greatly by movies such as this one. Any Bert I. Gordon film featuring music by Albert Glasser was basically made to be riffed, and Mike and the Bots really have at it here. The film itself features gigantic locusts laying waste to the state of Illinois, and the finest military force in the world finds itself thoroughly licked by the onslaught. Of course, things don't start out with a lot of excitement. This is a Bert I. Gordon movie, after all. The very first shot after the opening credits shows us a road with a vehicle approaching in the distance - way back in the distance, so far back you sit there and sit there wondering if anything is actually going to happen before you even spot the car. Then, Gordon throws us right into a big mystery; it seems the town of Ludlow, Illinois, has been destroyed, its population of 150 vanished into thin air. The National Guard's there, but they aren't talking, not even to famous journalist Audrey Ames (Peggy Castle). As the story begins to emerge, though, she joins up with Dr. Wainwright (Graves), a local entomologist, and quickly discovers that it's all Wainwright's fault. He's the one who was growing all the radioactive super-sized vegetables, which proved to be quite appetizing to locusts, and now there's a bazillion of the little buggers grown to immense size and destroying everything in their path. Surprisingly, the military folks don't immediately embrace this story of a plague of gigantic locusts, but they soon learn just what they are up against - and fail miserably when they try to take the critters out. Emerging out of the, ahem, world-famous Illinois mountains, the horde of mega-locusts make a, ahem, bee-line for Chicago - apparently, the locusts are Cubs fans who just can't take bear the thought of another season without a pennant. Perhaps the very fate of humanity rests in Peter Graves' hands, and his ultimate solution involves giving a locust a lie-detector test. Run for your lives! Once the locusts get to Chicago, Bert I. Gordon goes a little crazy showing grasshoppers crawling all over postcards (I mean, buildings). There's no way the guys at Best Brains could have resisted riffing such a film. The fun doesn't stop in the theater, either. Poor naive Mike sneaks an unscheduled peak at the Mads in the middle of the film - and it's not pretty. You also get Tom Servo's unique one-man comedy show inspired by The Beginning of the End, the unveiling of Dr. Forrester's super-comfy Re-comfy Bike, and - best of all - a little production of Crow's screenplay all about Peter Graves' years at the University of Minnesota. All of this comes together to make experiment # 517, The Beginning of the End, one of the MST3K commercial releases you really shouldn't do without.

Giant Grashoppers in Chicago!:
I had the chance to watch another classic B-movie on DVD. This one stars Peter "Mission: Impossible" Graves and is called THE BEGINNING OF THE END. The movie opens with a beautiful shot of the mountains of Illinois (I know, but shhh). A young couple parks, there is a shadow, some screams and then a change of scene. Police spot the car all torn up. When they go in to town to check on a lead provided by a wallet found on the scene it turns out that the town has been destroyed. As a cause is searched for some giant locusts are spotted. It seems that they got into some experimental crops where radioactive isotopes were used to generate a fertilizer that allowed fruit to grow to enormous proportions. These giants begin moving North where they wipe out a number of other towns including Joliet. Soon Chicago is in danger. Peter Graves, the scientist who is sort of responsible for the creation of the monsters, sets up a lab in the Wrigley building. It is hope to lure all of the locusts into one spot and then lure them into Lake Michigan where they will drown. If he is unable to succeed within a certain time period, Chicago will be bombed in hopes of wiping out the menace. Like the movie THEM, BEGINNING OF THE END is a superior giant bug movie. The movie gives the impression that someone actually did a little research before writing the screenplay. So if you want to see some great shots of a Chicago that no longer exists this is a good movie. If you also like giant bugs then this is a great movie. Check it out.

A fine episode of MST3K...next time on "Biography.":
"I'm Peter Graves. This week on Biography, the story of how I defeated a horde of radioactive mutant grasshoppers who invaded Chicago." "The Beginning of the End" (episode #517) is a typical episode from the Mike Nelson years of the classic TV show "Mystery Science Theater 3000": in other words, it's hysterical, satiric, and pop-culturally sharp from beginning to end (even when the End is just Beginning!). The movie itself isn't horrendously awful -- certainly not on the level of some other flicks screened on the program, like "Eegah!" and "Manos: The Hands of Fate." But it is the perfect kind of stuffy, quickly slapped together "B" Atomic horror movie of the 50s that people associate so closely with the show. And at this point Mike and the 'Bots were firing on all cylinders, and the comedy is non-stop. Mike had only recently taken over the role as host from Joel Hodgson, and it is with this episode that he finally seems completely at ease with his role. If you're unfamiliar with this amazing comedy show (known as "MST3K" to fans), here's what you need to know: a human (Mike Nelson or Joel Hodgson) and his two mechanized pals, Crow T. Robot and Tom Servo, appear in a silhouette of a theater seats projected in front of a bad movie. The three hosts provide sidesplitting commentary to the film, filled with popular culture references and smart-aleck bitterness. The movie-watching sequences are occasionally interrupted with comedic sketches and musical numbers, making for an all-encompassing comedic experience: a humorous puppet-show sitcom with cynical wisecracks that turn rotten movies into fabulous entertainment. "The Beginning of the End" was released in 1957 by independent director-effects technician Bert I. Gordon, who rivaled Roger Corman in this period as the top creator of 'B' science-fiction cheapies. Gordon was obviously trying to copy the success of the classic giant-ant movie "Them!", only with giant grasshoppers instead. The film's tagline is a classic of ridiculous overstatement: "So Big...we had to coin a new words for it...NEWMENDOUS!" It's all downhill from there, folks. Peter Graves plays the stock scientist character who discovers that the recent vanishing of an Illinois town was caused by giant locusts, who mutated after they consumed some of his radioactive-treated plants in his laboratory (good one, Peter!). He and perky female reporter Peggie Castle try to warn the military in time, but soon the flightless locust plague descends on Chicago. Can anything stop them? Well, yes, since they're obviously just normal-sized grasshoppers optically matted over the footage, an effect that never looks good and lacks the magic and fun of stop-motion or suitmation techniques. Some of the effects are unbelievably rotten, such as the scenes of grasshoppers climbing Chicago "buildings" that are obviously just postcards or large photographs with real grasshoppers walking on them (the grasshoppers keep "stepping off" the building). The MST3K boys have great fun with this gag, doing a sketch where they have grasshoppers attack various postcards: Oldenberg IN, The Beatles, Earl Hines, etc. Graves manages to do very little in the movie except tell the military all the things they CAN'T do, instead of offering any real suggestions. The wisecracks are great, as usual for this season of the show. It's especially fun listening to them make cracks about Peter Graves as host of "Biography," Albert Glasser's hysterically overblown musical score, and the grasshoppers 'touring' Chicago. ("Hey, we're in the famous Loop now, Harry!") Between segements, Crow puts on a play based on Peter Graves's life at the University of Minnesota, all done in his "Biography" voice ("I'm Peter Graves, and I'm in the right class.") As a dubious 'bonus,' you can watch the un-cut version of the film on the flip side of the disc. Well, it's not that awful a film, but there isn't any reason to watch it without the MST3K commentary once you've experienced the comedy and laughs of this all-around fine episode. Recommended for newcomers and long-time fans alike. It's typical of the show during the excellent fifth season and shows Mike easing into his new role and the program format changing toward its more sharp-tongued and fast-moving later seasons.