In the autumn of 1945, just weeks into the postwar era, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer decided to make an epic movie about the invention of the atomic bomb and its use by the United States against two Japanese cities. The film was set in motion when young actress Donna Reed received a letter from Dr. Edward Tompkins, her former high school chemistry teacher back in Iowa, who had worked on the bomb at the top-secret Oak Ridge site in Tennessee. He suggested a Hollywood drama that would reflect the atomic scientists' fears about further developing the bomb for military purposes, which would likely provoke a nuclear arms race with the Soviets and threaten the future of the planet.
Her husband, Tony Owen, an agent, had taken the idea to MGM chief Louis B. Mayer who predicted that it must become his studio's "most important" movie ever, an early example of what would become known as the docu-drama genre. Owen and MGM producer Sam Marx met with President Harry S Truman, who offered approval as well as the title for the movie: The Beginning or the End.
Unbeknownst to MGM, the studio was not alone in rushing ahead to make the first atomic epic. Hal B. Wallis, producer of Casablanca and The Maltese Falcon, among others, had been pursuing the idea at Paramount since late September. By the time MGM got moving, he had already engaged a well-known magazine writer to supply a treatment for a film tentatively titled Manhattan Project.
