Rating: 
Summary: Not A Pulitzer.
Review: "All My Sons" is a play that captures the reader simply with the title. The first few pages are rather slow, but after setting the characters this play takes off like a rocket. The reader is plunged directly into post WWII America, in the middle of a town's scandal and a family's crisis. It is easy to understand the scandalous ongoings of small town America, certainly a lesser focus of the novel. The centrifugal point of the play is just a different twist on "Romeo and Juliet". If one strips away the whole conflict with the town and the influence of the war, all you are left with is a story about a boy and girl who are in love but who's families are at odds with each other. The result is book with a hackneyed base plot and an overdramatic ending. Luckily for Miller, he adds enough meat with the town and war subplots to classify this play as worthreading and worth seeing on stage. Although, in comparison to his only Pulitzer winner, "Death of a Salesman"...Well, comparing the two will not do "All My Sons" any justice. If you liked "Death of a Salesman" then go for this book too. On the other hand, if you found "Death of a Salesman" to be lackluster, "All My Sons" will only add to your grief.
Rating:
Summary: Not A Pulitzer.
Review: "All My Sons" is a play that captures the reader simply with the title. The first few pages are rather slow, but after setting the characters this play takes off like a rocket. The reader is plunged directly into post WWII America, in the middle of a town's scandal and a family's crisis. It is easy to understand the scandalous ongoings of small town America, certainly a lesser focus of the novel. The centrifugal point of the play is just a different twist on "Romeo and Juliet". If one strips away the whole conflict with the town and the influence of the war, all you are left with is a story about a boy and girl who are in love but who's families are at odds with each other. The result is book with a hackneyed base plot and an overdramatic ending. Luckily for Miller, he adds enough meat with the town and war subplots to classify this play as worthreading and worth seeing on stage. Although, in comparison to his only Pulitzer winner, "Death of a Salesman"...Well, comparing the two will not do "All My Sons" any justice. If you liked "Death of a Salesman" then go for this book too. On the other hand, if you found "Death of a Salesman" to be lackluster, "All My Sons" will only add to your grief.
Rating:
Summary: All Not in the Family
Review: All My Sons is Arthur Miller's first work which gives hint of his future genius. While the plot is strong, it starts slowly. However, the ending makes the play worth reading.
The story tells of partners in a defective machine shop during World War II. Keller escapes punishment for the faulty parts. Herbert Deever is sent to prison. Keller's son Chris intends to marry his deceased brother's love who happens to be Herbert Deever's daughter Anne. Keller's wife Kate is in denial of their son Larry's death. This denial makes her a trademark of Miller's works, an annoying female character. She is overbearing and at times a nag. Thus, conflict is created over Chris and Anne's relationship. The story reaches its climax when the true nature of Larry's death is revealed. While the conclusion is not shocking, it is a fitting end.
Miller has written some great plays and novels. While this is certainly not as good as Death of a Salesman, it is still a solid work.
Rating:
Summary: Not bad for someone's first play
Review: As many may know, All My Sons was Miller's first play. In it he supplies enough drama to leave you in tears. The struggle of a family to pull back together after a great crime has been comitted is at the heart of the matter. Joe Keller chooses to ignore his responsibility to the loss of 121 American pilots in WWII, seeing as to how he approved the shipping of deffective plane engine cylinders. After what seems to everyone else as pulling a fast one, Joe basically gets away with murder and tries to pretend it never happened. His neighbors know, his old business partners know, and more importantly, his family knows. The question to ask yourself when you read this magnificent play is: Who would I relate to? Would I try to ignore my responsibilities like Joe? Or would I struggle to confront my father like Chris? If you've read other reviews about this play and you haven't read it yet, I do apologize for others giving away the ending. In case this is the only review you've read, I'll tell you this: Read the play already and don't read any reviews after this one. It's not that they are bad; it's just that you run the risk of the end being revealed, and then what would be the point? The end is what will captivate your heart.
Rating:
Summary: War is not healthy for children and other living things.....
Review: Chris:But I'm like everyone else now. I'm practical now. You made me practical.
Mother:But you have to be.
Chris:The cats in the alley are practical, the bums who ran away
when we were fighting were practical. Only the dead ones weren't practical. But now I'm practical, and I spit on myself....
Father and sons. Idols and lies. The family crumbling under the weight of the truth. The business of war, and the business of America. Miller at his purest, most direct, heart-breaking.
Clearly Death of a Salesman is found in All My Sons. But on its own All My Sons is a fine, fine play.
Another passage:
Mother:Joe, Joe...it don't excuse it that you did it for the family.
Keller:It's got to excuse it!
Mother:There's something bigger than the family to him.
Keller:Nothin' is bigger!
Mother:There is to him.
Keller:There's nothin' he could do that I wouldn't forgive. Because he's my son. Because I'm his father and he's my son.
Mother:Joe, I tell you...
Keller:Nothin's bigger than that. And you're goin' to tell him,
you understand? I'm his father and he's my son, and if there's something bigger than that I'll put a bullet in my head!
When and if America leaves Iraq, when and if we are not at war somewhere on Earth, this play will be worthy of productions all over the country. As an indictment of war and business, All My Sons is a special play, that illuminates the violence we do to ourselves, especially in the name of business and even in the name of family or country.
Rating: 
Summary: Timeless Drama
Review: Despite the distance of the World Wars from Twenty-First century life, Arthur Miller's first theatrical success is a timeless drama. Far from dated, the revelations of ALL MY SONS are just as engaging now as in 1947Ñthe sacrifices of a father for his sons, that hazy line between right and wrong, the search for truth among so many lies, the cowardice of man. Miller's play is heartwrenching in its revelations and the conclusion of Act Two is an explosive climax. For reading pleasure, study, or perfomance, ALL MY SONS remains a fascinating study of the struggles caused by war and its effects on family life.
Rating: 
Summary: Fine
Review: I was not that moved by the play itself, but it is written very well. Plot is about indirect murder & the ways in which each of the guilty deal with their part in it. Lots of stage direction & set description.
Rating:
Summary: an interesting insight of post war tragedy
Review: Miller creates a sense of post war family tragedy in All My Sons, as he portrays the effects of war profiteering upon a Mid Western American family. The sense of tragedy is present from Act one, when the significance of the broken tree is shown. Losing a son in the war was almost commonplace during this era, but this also serves to show Kate's inner strengths. She is portrayed as weak and fragile, but with hindesight, she is a solid character. She has lived with the knowledge of her husbands crime, and the thought that if her son is dead, it is ultimately his father's doing, yet she remains strong - mainly for Chris's sake. The tension in the play is also important, as it is built up to a climax where Joe commits suicide. The plot is excellent, and the twist to the ending aids the dramatic tension. The insight into American family and community is useful, and the characters Miller created for this play have both depth and importance.
Rating:
Summary: Fine
Review: The action takes place in less than 24 hours. According to the introduction by Christopher Bigsby, Miller is most concerned with the fractures in relationships. The main character, Bigsby contends, Joe Keller, does not understand the social contract. In the opening it is established that Keller had two sons and now has one. His neighbor is a doctor. Keller lives in a substantial house with, it is evident, a tree-shaded yard. The doctor's wife wants him to treat patients to get the fees, even if the treatment is unnecessary. Kate Keller wants to believe the dead son, Larry, is coming home again. Chris, the remaining son, wants to confront his mother with the truth. Chris also tells his father he is going to ask his brother's fiancee to marry him. Ann has been in New York for three and a half years. Kate Keller doesn't understand why she is visiting now. His mother, Kate, surmises that Chris wants to marry Ann. Ann's father has been imprisoned for causing defective parts to be sold for military planes. The actual culprit is the owner of the business, Joe Keller. At an earlier stage in the drama Ann doesn't know her father is innocent. Chris was moved by the comraderie and loyalty of the men with whom he served in the armed forces. The doctor's wife tells Ann about Joe's perfidy. Chris had not yet learned part way through the action of the play that his father was responsible for the defective parts. Joe was acquitted at his trial. Ann's brother George tells her that Chris's father destroyed their family. It seems that Joe had told their father to weld over the defective cylinder heads. Joe wouldn't come down to see the parts. He was sick with the flu he claimed, but he promised to take responsibility. In court Joe denied making the phoned instructions. George wants to go and talk to Chris's father. Kate Keller tells Chris his brother is alive because if he's dead his father, Joe Keller, killed him. Through his mother's statements Chris learns that his father did have a role in releasing the defective parts. Joe Keller claims he kept the family factory profitable for Chris's sake. The writer of the introduction claims that the success of the play scared the playwright who had produced nothing comparable yet in his career when the play was produced in 1947. It is very very good. Nothing about it is dated.
Rating:
Summary: An Early Example of Miller's Genius
Review: This 1947 play contains all of the basic themes that would figure prominently in such later Miller masterpieces as DEATH OF A SALESMAN, THE CRUCIBLE, and A VIEW FROM THE BRIDGE. Joe Keller is a former airplane part manufacturer who during WWII allowed defective parts to be shipped out -- in order to save his own job -- then blamed his partner, Steve Deever, for the "oversight" when the planes crashed. A particularly disturbing aspect of the drama is that Joe's wife, Kate, knows the truth about her husband's crime but chooses to keep silence for the sake of her own belief that Larry, the Kellers' elder son who went missing in action, is still alive. The important themes in ALL MY SONS are the individual's responsibility to his family versus his responsibility to society at large, and the possibility -- or impossibility -- that a man may lead a "normal" life while knowing that he betrayed his own family. It is chilling the way Miller has Keller's guilt gradually force itself to the surface during the course of the play, until we at last see him in all his guilt and shame as a tragic figure. I encourage you to read this excellent, early Miller work.
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