Femme fatale in "The Killers" and Cora (Lana Turner) in "The Postman Always Rings Twice", based on novels by Ernest Hemingway and James M. Cain respectively, manipulate men into killing their husbands. In the Hitchcock film "The Paradine Case" (1947), Alida Valli's character causes the deaths of two men and the near destruction of another. Another frequently cited example is the character Jane played by Lizabeth Scott in "Too Late for Tears" (1949); during her quest to keep some dirty money from its rightful recipient and her husband, she uses poison, lies, sexual teasing and a gun to keep men wrapped around
The Beginning or the End actors cast in the movie were best known for film noir : Hume Cronyn for "The Postman Always Rings Twice"; Joseph Calleia, for "Gilda" and "Deadline at Dawn"; and Ludwig Stössel for Fritz Lang's "Cloak and Dagger". Groves's cooperation was secured by hiring him as a primary consultant, for $10,000 (). The portly Groves apparently had no objection to his portrayal by the slim and handsome Donlevy, except for the way in which he was shown bossing industrialists around. He had a scene in which he warned Roosevelt that the invasion of Japan would be opposed by Japanese nuclear weapons