The Beginning or the End (1947) Manhattan Project DVD, Download, USB
The Storied Dramatization Of The Development Of The Atomic Bomb Starring Brian Donlevy As Maj. Gen. Leslie Groves And Hume Cronyn As Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer, Presented In The Highest DVD Quality MPG Video Format Of 9.1 MBPS As An Archival Quality All Regions Format DVD, MP4 Video Download Or USB Flash Drive! (Black/White, 1947, 1 Hour 52 Minutes.) #TheBeginningOrTheEnd #BrianDonlevy #HumeCronyn #ManhattanProject #DonnaReed #EdwardRTompkins #HarrySTruman #AtomBomb #AtomicBomb #AtomicAge #NuclearAge #NuclearWar #LeslieGroves #JRobertOppenheimer #RobertOppenheimer #EnricoFermi #WorldWarII #WWII #WW2 #WorldWarTwo #WorldWar2 #SecondWorldWar #Movies #Film #MotionPictures #Cinema #Hollywood #AmericanCinema #CinemaOfTheUS #DVD #VideoDownload #MP4 #USBFlashDrive
This film seeks to chronicle in docudramatic form the declassified history of the Manhattan Project that resulted in the creation of the atomic bomb, based on an idea of actress Donna Reed and her high school science teacher, Edward R. Tompkins, who worked on the project. The film's title was given by President Harry S. Truman.
From the film opening:
"...amid the three thousand year old redwoods of California, scientists and dignitaries are burying a time capsule. At the base of these trees that have watched the rise and fall of many civilizations, these records of atomic progress will rest until the year 2446... among the many items and records sealed within the time capsule were a movie projector, with instructions for its use engraved on copper, and a print of the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer motion picture dramatization THE BEGINNING OR THE END, a title expressing the fear of people today that a future atomic war may destroy all humanity; a message to future generations. Come what may, our civilization will have left an enduring record behind it; ours will be no lost race... You are about to see the motion picture sealed in the time capsule for the people of the 25th Century."
Direction:
Norman Taurog
Writing:
Robert Considine, Frank Wead
Cast:
Brian Donlevy ... Maj. Gen. Leslie R. Groves
Robert Walker ... Col. Jeff Nixon
Tom Drake ... Matt Cochran
Beverly Tyler ... Anne Cochran
Audrey Totter ... Jean O'Leary
Hume Cronyn ... Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer
Hurd Hatfield ... Dr. John Wyatt
Joseph Calleia ... Dr. Enrico Fermi
Godfrey Tearle ... President Franklin D. Roosevelt
Victor Francen ... Dr. Marre
Richard Haydn ... Dr. Chisholm
Jonathan Hale ... Dr. Vannevar Bush
John Litel ... K.T. Keller
Henry O'Neill ... Gen. Thomas F. Farrell
Warner Anderson ... Capt. William S. Parsons
The Manhattan Project was a research and development undertaking during World War II that produced the first nuclear weapons. It was led by the United States with the support of the United Kingdom (which initiated the original Tube Alloys project) and Canada. From 1942 to 1946, the project was under the direction of Major General Leslie Groves of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Nuclear physicist Robert Oppenheimer was the director of the Los Alamos Laboratory that designed the actual bombs. As engineer districts by convention carried the name of the city where they were located, the Army component of the project was designated the Manhattan District; Manhattan gradually superseded the official codename, Development of Substitute Materials, 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 2B USD (equivalent to about 23B USD in 2019). Over 90 percent of the cost was for building factories and to produce fissile material, with less than 10 percent for development and production of the weapons. Research and production took place at more than thirty sites across the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada. Two types of atomic bombs were developed concurrently during the war: a relatively simple gun-type fission weapon and a more complex implosion-type nuclear weapon. The Thin Man gun-type design proved impractical to use with plutonium, and therefore a simpler gun-type called Little Boy was developed that used uranium-235, an isotope that makes up only 0.7 percent of natural uranium. Since it was chemically identical to the most common isotope, uranium-238, and had almost the same mass, separating the two proved difficult. Three methods were employed for uranium enrichment: electromagnetic, gaseous and thermal. Most of this work was performed at the Clinton Engineer Works at Oak Ridge, Tennessee. In parallel with the work on uranium was an effort to produce plutonium, which was discovered by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1940. After the feasibility of the world's first artificial nuclear reactor, the Chicago Pile-1, was demonstrated in 1942 at the Metallurgical Laboratory in the University of Chicago, the Project designed the X-10 Graphite Reactor at Oak Ridge and the production reactors at the Hanford Site in Washington state, in which uranium was irradiated and transmuted into plutonium. The plutonium was then chemically separated from the uranium, using the bismuth phosphate process. The Fat Man plutonium implosion-type weapon was developed in a concerted design and development effort by the Los Alamos Laboratory. The project was also charged with gathering intelligence on the German nuclear weapon project. Through Operation Alsos, Manhattan Project personnel served in Europe, sometimes behind enemy lines, where they gathered nuclear materials and documents, and rounded up German scientists. Despite the Manhattan Project's tight security, Soviet atomic spies successfully penetrated the program. The first nuclear device ever detonated was an implosion-type bomb at the Trinity test, conducted at New Mexico's Alamogordo Bombing and Gunnery Range on 16 July 1945. Little Boy and Fat Man bombs were used a month later in the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, respectively, with Manhattan Project personnel serving as bomb assembly technicians, and as weaponeers on the attack aircraft. In the immediate postwar years, the Manhattan Project conducted weapons testing at Bikini Atoll as part of Operation Crossroads, developed new weapons, promoted the development of the network of national laboratories, supported medical research into radiology and laid the foundations for the nuclear navy. It maintained control over American atomic weapons research and production until the formation of the United States Atomic Energy Commission in January 1947.