Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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19 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Unique Among WWII Films, 3 Jun 2003
You needn't be an American to love 'The Fighting Sullivans'. Filmed during World War II it does contain a 'United We Stand' message, yet the story of the five Sullivan brothers - all of whom died aboard their cruiser USS Juneau, which sank after being battered by Japanese attacks near Guadalcanal - is told engagingly. The young boys' story plays out with endearing mischief; the grown boys' story with good-natured ribbing and a demure, ingenue Anne Baxter playing the youngest son's love interest. But the best characters in the film are the parents, Mr. and Mrs. Sullivan, played with heart-rending pathos by Thomas Mitchell and Selena Royle (Royle's performance is the glue of the story - I wish she'd acted in many more films: her eyes are wonderfully expressive; she is also seen briefly as the mother-in-law of Doolittle Raid B-25 pilot Ted Lawson in 'Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo'). The Sullivan brothers' sister, Jen, doesn't have much of a role, but the young girl and the woman playing Jen as a child and as a woman give memorable supporting performances. Ward Bond, one of American cinema's most ubiquitous and solid character actors, plays, with consummate delicacy, a sympathetic naval officer. Always, since the five Sullivan boys gave their lives in the war, there's been afloat a United States Navy ship named USS The Sullivans. In this film newsreel footage of the wartime launching of the destroyer, the first of the brothers' namesakes, is intercut with close-ups of Mitchell and Royle that place them at the launching ceremony. In the newsreel footage a long shot affords a glimpse at the real-life Mr. and Mrs. Sullivan. Neither do any of the Sullivan family, nor do any of their progeny, survive today. Yes, have your hankies ready. Men weep at this film too, and not one of them has ever felt ashamed to have wept at it.
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10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An excellent family movie, 10 Mar 2001
By A Customer
Forget Private Ryan, this is the film to watch. It may be black and white, but its a film for all the family and it's a true story. Just be warned get your tissues ready
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1 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Naively symbolical , 19 Feb 2008
One little war propaganda film that has a certain charm. The charm comes from the five brothers that can never do anything separately. By insisting on being the five of them on the same ship they were all killed at the same time. That is no heroism in itself. That is just slightly sad and moving. Never put all your eggs in the same basket. If that basket gets run over you lose all your eggs. Yet the film has a charm beyond that and the charm comes from the number five, for one, and the reversal of age order for two. Five is a strange number. The Sullivans are a good Catholic Irish family. So six should be a better number and actually it is reached with the daughter and that brings the family to eight, Christ in his glory. Note when the five boys are dead, if we take into account the wife of the youngest son and their son that makes five again. Five is a deeply pagan number associated with life, the enjoyment of life and here it is inverted by the tragic death of the five sons leaving five people behind them. That is also surprising because of the satanic dimension of this number in a catholic dimension, and this inversion is typically American: the revisiting and de-diabolizing of this number, especially since they become heroes and their name is given to a war ship. Note the last vision of them is a dream when the ship is christened: four sons at first in two groups of two and the fifth one, the only married one, the youngest one coming running after. And then this number five becomes the basic symbol of the western civilization, the five fingers of a hand, the five senses and so many other things that come in five, especially the five cent nickel. Apart from that the film is nothing but propaganda, even when showing the suffering of the survivors, parents, sister and wife: very soft suffering indeed.
Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris Dauphine, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne & University Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines
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