Produced by the redoubtable Bert I. Gordon , The Beginning of the End was inspired by (read: ripped off from) Them . Replacing the giant-sized ants from the earlier film are giant-sized grasshoppers, and it's an uphill climb to portray these benign creatures as a genuine menace (What can they do? Spit you to death?) Department of Agriculture functionary Peter Graves and photojournalist Peggie Castle discover that the huge grasshoppers are the product of a gone-awry experiment in radioactivity. Before the Army can neutralize the green monstrosities, Chicago has been besieged by the ravenous insects. The film's special effects consist of photographing a swarm of grasshoppers and locusts as they crawl along huge still photographs of Chicago landmarks (some of them fail to heed Gordon 's directions, and begin crawling on the "sky"). Beginning of the End was one of two cheapjack horror films produced by American Broadcasting-Paramount Theatres; the other was The Unearthly (1957). — Hal Erickson