The Fighting Sullivans

Rating:
Summary: The joy of growing up in Iowa, and then patriotism.
Review: Having lived in Iowa all my life, I have heard the phrase, "the five Sullivan brothers" many times. This movie is about their lives, and it is typical of boys who lived on a river at that time. They grew up in Waterloo, Iowa and when the United States entered world war II, their first response was to cuss the Japanese and their second was to decide which branch of the military they were going to join. However, they wanted to serve together, but navy rules did not allow all of the children of a family to be on the same ship. When the recruiter rejected their request, they wrote to the navy department and received a special dispensation so that they could all be on the same ship. That ship was torpedoed in the battle of Guadalcanal and sunk with all five of the Sullivan brothers perishing.
This is a story about the joy of youth, where five boys are brothers, best friends and inseparable. They have a lot of fun, even when other boys are beating the tar out of them. Their life was that of any boys growing up on a river, they fished, swam and floated a boat every chance they got during the summer. While the movie is more than a little bit hokey, it has a feel good quality about it. They worked hard, played hard and at the end, they thought nothing of risking their lives for their country. It is fitting that the only ship ever named for more than one person was called the U. S. S. The Sullivans.


Rating:
Summary: True story of 5 brothers who fought & died together in WWII
Review: "The Fighting Sullivans" is a moving tribute and true story of five brothers who served together on the same ship in WWII. The story begins with the birth of each child (including one daughter) and then continues on showing the close and loving relationships in the family through the years. There's one great scene where the father (Thomas Mitchell, who was Scarlet's father in "Gone With the Wind) teaches some of the sons a lesson about smoking -- very funny! One of the sons marries prior to the war and the movie shows some good old-fashioned "courting" (kids today should see what courting is all about!). This is a great movie for the whole family to see (as most movies were back then) with great examples of family togetherness, wholesome values, and the willingness of honorable men to do what is right even if this means that they must "pay the price" as well. Even my daughters, when they were young girls, loved this movie and still quote the line of the brother who tells his family of the girl he wants them to meet and adds, "She's swell!" This would be a great movie to see any time, but especially on Memorial Day or Veterans Day when we remember those who served and gave their all to protect and defend the United States of America.

Rating:
Summary: An American family sends its five boys off to World War II
Review: "The Fighting Sullivans" is the true story of five brothers who died together when their Navy ship, the Juneau, was sunk in the South Pacific during World War II. But only the last act of this 1944 film, directed by Lloyd Bacon, shows the Sullivans at war. Most of this film is pure Americana, following the lives of the boys from their childhood in Waterloo, Iowa. Thomas Mitchell and the marvelous Selena Royle are the loving parents, while the five boys are played by unknown actors: Edward Ryan (Al), John Campbell (Frank), James Cardwell (George), John Alvin (Matt), and George Offerman (Joe). Trudy Marshall plays their only sister, Genevieve. Top billing actually goes to Anne Baxter as the young girl who marries into the family and will be left a widow with a baby in arms. Ward Bond plays the Navy lieutenant who befriends the family when the Sullivans insist that they will only join up if they can serve together. Eventually the Navy relents and the boys get their wish.

Audiences knew the tragic fate of the Sullivans, although the film was originally released as "The Sullivans" and pretty much bombed at the box office. Retitled "The Fighting Sullivans" and re-released, it became a smash hit. The use of unknown actors made the film all the more effective, especially since it refrained from the sort of cliches you would expect. If the scene where the parents learn all five boys have died does not get you, the next scene will: Mr. Sullivan goes off to his job on the railroad and as the train passes the water tower where his boys waved to him as kids, he salutes them. Actually, this film works so well that the final shot, of the Sullivans in uniform striding across the clouds of the afterlife does not seem one whit hokey. There is a documentary available on the Sullivans, which tells how one of the boys survived the sinking before dying in the waters off of Guadacanal. I would not have thought anything could have made this story more tragic, but that bit of information certainly made it worse for me.

Rating:
Summary: True story of 5 brothers who fought & died together in WWII
Review: "The Fighting Sullivans" is a moving tribute and true story of five brothers who served together on the same ship in WWII. The story begins with the birth of each child (including one daughter) and then continues on showing the close and loving relationships in the family through the years. There's one great scene where the father (Thomas Mitchell, who was Scarlet's father in "Gone With the Wind) teaches some of the sons a lesson about smoking -- very funny! One of the sons marries prior to the war and the movie shows some good old-fashioned "courting" (kids today should see what courting is all about!). This is a great movie for the whole family to see (as most movies were back then) with great examples of family togetherness, wholesome values, and the willingness of honorable men to do what is right even if this means that they must "pay the price" as well. Even my daughters, when they were young girls, loved this movie and still quote the line of the brother who tells his family of the girl he wants them to meet and adds, "She's swell!" This would be a great movie to see any time, but especially on Memorial Day or Veterans Day when we remember those who served and gave their all to protect and defend the United States of America.

Rating:
Summary: An American family sends its five boys off to World War II
Review: "The Fighting Sullivans" is the true story of five brothers who died together when their Navy ship, the Juneau, was sunk in the South Pacific during World War II. But only the last act of this 1944 film, directed by Lloyd Bacon, shows the Sullivans at war. Most of this film is pure Americana, following the lives of the boys from their childhood in Waterloo, Iowa. Thomas Mitchell and the marvelous Selena Royle are the loving parents, while the five boys are played by unknown actors: Edward Ryan (Al), John Campbell (Frank), James Cardwell (George), John Alvin (Matt), and George Offerman (Joe). Trudy Marshall plays their only sister, Genevieve. Top billing actually goes to Anne Baxter as the young girl who marries into the family and will be left a widow with a baby in arms. Ward Bond plays the Navy lieutenant who befriends the family when the Sullivans insist that they will only join up if they can serve together. Eventually the Navy relents and the boys get their wish.

Audiences knew the tragic fate of the Sullivans, although the film was originally released as "The Sullivans" and pretty much bombed at the box office. Retitled "The Fighting Sullivans" and re-released, it became a smash hit. The use of unknown actors made the film all the more effective, especially since it refrained from the sort of cliches you would expect. If the scene where the parents learn all five boys have died does not get you, the next scene will: Mr. Sullivan goes off to his job on the railroad and as the train passes the water tower where his boys waved to him as kids, he salutes them. Actually, this film works so well that the final shot, of the Sullivans in uniform striding across the clouds of the afterlife does not seem one whit hokey. There is a documentary available on the Sullivans, which tells how one of the boys survived the sinking before dying in the waters off of Guadacanal. I would not have thought anything could have made this story more tragic, but that bit of information certainly made it worse for me.

Rating:
Summary: One of the best
Review: (Note. This review and every other one on this page gives away the ending of this movie. It does not necessarily ruin the movie, but if you don't want to know, don't read on).

There are so many criteria for what makes a film good that to try to say universally that any one is one of the best is asking for argument. But in my book anyway, this movie has all it needs to make it one of the greatest movies of the century.

It approaches its subject from a unique and brilliant perspective, one which is actually the most realistic. People do not start their lives going to war, so it is impossible to see what war really is by just seeing a movie that starts with a young man (or woman) "going off to war". (There is a place for movies like that, of course). Instead, soldiers are persons with lives behind and possibly ahead of them, and this movie makes that point with more than usual strength.

Also, as others pointed out, the first part as well makes it an excellent family movie. The portrait of the young Sullivans, while adding pathos to the finale, is a fine view of a loving, close-knit family.

It is not an anti-war movie, but merely a movie to show one how great a sacrifice was made by so many for the continuing freedom with which we are blessed. (Even thought that sort of thing is said so often that we get cynical.)

I highly recommend it.

Rating:
Summary: Unforgettable.........
Review: 25 years ago, I rented this movie (16mm) in Antwerp, Belgium for the first time ( and many more times after that)...The Sullivans are soon a part of our family, we laugh, cry, trill and chill with this heart breaking performance, especially it was my moms favorite movie. Time past by until, 10 years ago, I immigrate to the United States with the reminder in me to rent the Sullivans movie again, after searching all video stores no results are found. Finally a great surprise comes to me, when I found the Sullivans video here in Amazon. At first when I told my wife and children ( I have 3 sons ) to enjoy this movie with me, no excitement was show for this old B/W movie at first. Anyway after 15 minutes... THE SULLIVANS found a heart warming space again in the whole family, and in a new generation. In memory of the Sullivans and my lovely mom. Thanks Amazon

Rating:
Summary: unforgettable after my first viewing in 1945
Review: As a 16 year old lad living in Sydney Australia near the end of the war in the Pacific, I saw this movie with a bunch of my pals at matinee session after a memorable morning surfing at Bondi Beach. 54 years later, my memory of that day and that movie are crystal clear. It is without doubt the most memorable movie I have ever seen and though I have not to seen the movie again to this day I can clearly recall the wonderful events that depicted the Sullivan boys' growing up and still feel the emotion of their tragic end. I have not been able to find a video of this film locally and was in search of info on the movie when I found this reference page on the Net. I will be buying the video so this is not a review as such but a recollection of a story shown to me over 50 years ago that still lives vividly inside my memory.

Rating:
Summary: Flag-waving melodrama with devastating finale
Review: Following America's entry into the Second World War in December 1941, Winston Churchill advised President Roosevelt to prohibit members of the same family from serving together on active duty. Though Roosevelt took the Prime Minister's warning under advisement, it came too late to prevent the devastating tragedy which befell a devout Irish-American family from Waterloo, Iowa, an incident which made headlines around the world in 1942. Lloyd Bacon's flag-waving melodrama THE SULLIVANS (1944) - released on DVD under its theatrical re-release title THE FIGHTING SULLIVANS - tells the true story of six children (five boys and a girl) who were raised by hard-working parents (played here by Thomas Mitchell and Selena Royle) and imbued with the kind of traditional values that audiences craved during wartime. Mary C. McCall Jr.'s episodic screenplay (based on an Oscar-nominated story by Jules Schermer and Edward Doherty) follows the children from birth to adolescence and young adulthood, recreating notable - and not so notable! - events in their lives as a means of illustrating their individual personalities. As children, they get into scrapes with other kids from the surrounding neighborhood, and as young adults they form relationships outside their close-knit family which are rudely interrupted by the bombing of Pearl Harbor. When the five boys go off to war and the inevitable tragedy strikes, unprepared viewers might feel like they've just been hit by an express train. In fact, the last fifteen minutes of the film are so utterly heartbreaking (particularly the 'water tower' sequence), many theater owners refused to screen the movie until after the war was over, believing it would be too painful for families who had lost loved ones on the front line. Half a century later, Steven Spielberg would pay tribute to the Sullivan family by using their experience as a springboard for his own wartime melodrama, SAVING PRIVATE RYAN (1998).

Nevertheless, THE SULLIVANS was a modest success in its day, thanks to its stirring patriotism and heartfelt emotion. Director Bacon (a veteran craftsman who had begun his career in silent films before making a name for himself during the sound era with the likes of 42nd STREET [1933]) tells the story in straightforward fashion, spurning flashy camera tricks in favor of a low-key visual style, employing close-ups and tracking shots purely for dramatic emphasis at key points in the narrative. Bacon also uses an instrumental version of the old military standard 'Anchors Away' to particularly memorable effect during the latter stages of the film - some will find it corny, others will be deeply moved; either response is valid. Production values are economical but solid, and the cast is a mixed bag, spearheaded by veterans Royle (THE HEIRESS [1949]) and Mitchell (one of Hollywood's most celebrated character actors, usually a supporting player in A-list productions like GONE WITH THE WIND [1939] and IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE [1946]), while Anne Baxter - so memorable in Orson Welles' THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS [1942] - toplines the younger cast in a thankless minor role. The five Sullivan boys are played by relative unknowns and their performances are pretty variable, though the young actors who play them as children aren't even credited on-screen! Chief amongst them is Bobby Driscoll (as the youngest Sullivan boy), a hugely talented child star who won an Oscar for his role in Ted Tetzlaff's superb thriller THE WINDOW (1949) and later provided the voice of the title character in Disney's PETER PAN (1953) before his life was tragically cut short by a drugs overdose in 1968. Further down the cast list in a small but crucial role is Ward Bond, playing a navy officer who utters the single most wrenching line of dialogue in the entire film ("All five"). Though virtually forgotten today, Bond appeared in almost 300 movies during the course of his long career, lending an element of quiet dignity to every role he ever played.

The Roan Group's code-free DVD - which runs 112m 8s - is a no-frills affair, sporting a remastered and largely blemish-free print of the original black and white film, framed here at 1.33:1 (the opening titles are slightly windowboxed). The image is a little soft in places and grainy in others, but OK overall, and the 1.0 mono sound is fine. The only extra is a 25 minute 'commentary' by Jack Bilello (author of the much-loved book 'The Bonds of War', a fictionalized account of historical events in Vietnam and World War II, including the sinking of the U.S.S. 'Juneau' in 1942 which figures prominently in Lloyd Bacon's film), which describes some of his childhood wartime experiences. He recalls how THE SULLIVANS affected his own family when it was first released, and how he attempted to restore the film (and the tragedy which inspired it) to public attention following its virtual disappearance in the 1960's. He also recounts an episode in which he met the surviving members of the Sullivan family on board the ship that was named in their memory. It's an emotional discourse, tinged with incredible sadness, but entirely in keeping with the tone of the film itself, and respectful of those who died defending our freedoms, all those years ago.

NB. Shortly after the events described in this film, President Roosevelt finally decreed that family members would no longer be allowed to serve together in the US military. This rule has been in force ever since.

Rating:
Summary: One of the best of the early 40's
Review: Great story about five brothers that do everything together, including die together. It starts with the story of their childhood and ends with them getting killed in WW 2 together. This is a great movie.