Friendly Fire [DVD]

This is the TV movie that established Carol Burnett as an exceptionally fine dramatic actress. She gives a deeply moving portrayal of real life Iowa farmer Peg Mullen who went on a crusade to uncover the truth of her son's death in Vietnam. The scene when Peg first approaches her son's coffin is emotionally devastating. It breaks me up in tears every time I watch it. Carol received critical raves, an Emmy Award nomination as Best Actress and the People's Choice Award. Such is the power of Burnett's performance that she totally erases the image of the wonderful clown of her wildly popular 1967-1978 variety show. She gets outstanding support from Ned Beatty as Peg's husband, Timothy Hutton as their younger surviving son and Sam Waterston as the investigative journalist. The movie is among the most distinguished ever made for television. It won the 1979 Emmy Award for Best Drama.

Carol Burnett has been known as one of America's funniest ladies, but none of her comedies can hold a candle to her performance here. This was her finest hour as a middle-aged woman whose son was killed in Veitnam by what was called "Friendly Fire". "Friendly Fire" is where soldiers shoot, and sometimes kill people on thier side. All she wants to know is what happened to her son, and she's getting hit with lies and deception, and let's not forget persecution on both sides. Ned Beatty whose debut movie was in the action/adventure classic "Deliverance" is equally spectacular in this made for tv film as Burnett's husband. The Veitnam war is one of things that weigh heavily on my heart even though it was over 40 years ago that we were in that country, and I was only a baby when it was raging on, but I hear about it on the news, and in the movies, and in the books, and on the T.V. specials, so I am still affected by that war. I feel it was probably the most disruptive war to date, and the government just didn't want to think perhaprs our side made a mistake; no that's too much to think of our government it's better to break up the family than admit to a mistake, but that's the mentality of our country at times. I'm not sure if I remember, or not, but I think this was based on a true story, so it's already going to have a good storyline to it, but then throw two versatile entertainers, and show that they can do drama as well as comedy it just makes everything work easy as pie. Which is what this movie did. I wish they had oscars for made for tv movies, but then again there wouldn't be the emmys where this movie should've cleaned up, and if not then fire the voting committee.

Peg Mullen was a friend of mine and she died recently. She was 92 years old and had fought the good fight against military build up which result in young people around the globe dying in war. I was sad that I would not be able to see "Friendly Fire" about her life and the efforts she took to fully account for the war in Vietnam. I was able to purchase this German version on Amazon and as a result, play it on my computer. It brought back all the memories I have of Peg (Carol Burnett does an outstanding job of playing her), her fight, and the times we lived through. I highly recommend this DVD to anyone who is interested in the Vietnam War and its impact on ordinary American families.