The Sullivans
Tags: romantic

Plot synopsis:
The Irish-American, Catholic Sullivan brothers are introduced through a progression of baptisms: George Thomas in 1914, Francis "Frank" Henry in 1916, Joseph "Joe" Eugene in 1918, Madison "Matt" Abel in 1919, and Albert "Al" Leo in 1922 in their hometown of Waterloo, Iowa. There is also sister Genevieve, nicknamed "Gen", making the Sullivans a happy family of eight. Based on the apparent ages of the boys, the first part of the plot occurs in the late 1920s. As the boys grow, they are doted upon by their mother and Gen and given stern but loving guidance by their father, who is a railroad freight conductor. Each day, the boys climb the water tower by the tracks and wave to their father as he passes by on the train. The brothers are shown getting into their fair share of trouble growing up: a fight, a near drowning (after which their mother makes them promise not to set foot on a boat again until they are adults), and accidentally flooding the kitchen.
By 1939, only Al is still in high school. On the day that George wins a motorcycle race, Al meets Katherine Mary, (played by Anne Baxter) an only child who lives with her father. Despite their youth, Al and Katherine Mary fall in love. Believing that Al is too young, his brothers nearly break the couple up, but realize what they have done and apologize. Soon after, Katherine Mary and Al are married, and ten months later, are expecting a baby. Al is fired for taking the afternoon off to escort his wife to the doctor, but his brothers vow to help them out.
Later, months after little Jimmy has been welcomed into the family, the Sullivans are relaxing on a Sunday—December 7, 1941. They hear about the attack on Pearl Harbor on the radio. The boys realize that one of their friends, Bill Bascom (Bill Ball in real life), was on the USS Arizona and resolve to join the Navy to avenge him. Al decides that he cannot go with his brothers, due to his family responsibilities, but when Katherine Mary sees his despondent face, she tells him to go with the others to the recruiting station. The brothers insist that they serve on the same ship, but the recruiting officer, LCDR Robinson (played by Ward Bond), states that the Navy can make no such guarantees. The brothers leave, but later, George receives his draft notice, and writes to the Navy Department, obtaining official permission for the boys to serve together.
Later, Tom, Alleta, and Katherine Mary eagerly await letters from their loved ones, who are serving aboard the USS Juneau in the Pacific. A battle rages off the Solomon Islands, and one day, the Juneau is hit. Four of the brothers find each other, then realize that George is below in sick bay. They rush down to get him, the ship continuing to be battered by explosions, and when George insists they leave him behind, Al replies, "We can't go swimming without you." There is a large explosion and the screen fades to black, insinuating that Juneau has been sunk and all the brothers killed.
Soon after, LCDR Robinson visits the Sullivan home and tells Katherine Mary, Tom, Alleta, and Gen that all five of the brothers were killed in action. Stunned, Tom goes to work and salutes the water tower on which his sons used to stand and wave to him.
Sometime later, Tom, Katherine Mary, and Gen, who has joined the WAVES, watch with pride while Alleta christens a new destroyer, the USS The Sullivans. As Tom and Alleta watch the ship sail away, Alleta declares, "Tom, our boys are afloat again."
In actuality, only Frank, Joe, and Matt went down with the Juneau when it sank. George and Al managed to make it to a life boat, but Al died the next day. George survived before suffering from delirium as a result of hypernatremia, although some sources say he went mad with the grief of losing his brothers, and four or five days later he slipped quietly out of the raft, never to be seen again.

Review: And we always salute, along with Pop Sullivan, at the end of the movie.....REST IN PEACE, BOYS............
THE FIGHTING SULLIVANS, as it was known by the time I saw it, is a fantastic WW2 era film.
It's more Americana than War film, but it's a truly engrossing story about the loyalty of family and the tragedy of sacrifice.
The video box calls it a "story of the fighting navy!"  That's not really true, half of the story takes place when the Sullivan brothers are boys, and the sinking of the Juneau is only a five minute scene at the end of the film.
The relationships between the brothers and their distinct personalities is what makes this film stand out, and no person with a heart beating in his chest can sit dry eyed through the ending when the father goes to work as usual, even after hearing some devastating news.
I caught it on an old movie channel and I remember the scene that got me was the one at the end where it made out like they were all ascending to heaven..
Even though it was on the edge of being brutally hard to take when the Sullivan family learned of the death of all five of their sons, my students regarded the film as one which showed a great deal about the home front and about the sacrifices this generation made to the country..
Too often we see people die in war and don't realize that they were once children with dreams, hopes and their whole lives ahead of them.This movie (although the closing scene seems a bit silly now) is an excellent testament to the people who fought and died in war..
THE SULLIVANS Aspect ratio: 1.37:1Sound format: Mono(Black and white)A working-class couple (Thomas Mitchell and Selena Royle) raise six children - five boys and a girl - to adulthood, only to suffer an appalling tragedy during wartime.When America finally entered the Second World War in December 1941, President Roosevelt was advised by British Prime Minister Winston Churchill to prohibit family members from serving together on active duty.
It was not an idle warning: Within months of the attack on Pearl Harbor, headlines were generated across the world by a smaller - though no less tragic - incident which befell a hard-working Irish-American family from Waterloo, Iowa, an incident which forms the basis of Lloyd Bacon's flag-waving melodrama.
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 the end of the war, believing it would be too painful for families whose loved ones were still fighting on the front line.
Half a century later, Steven Spielberg paid tribute to the Sullivan family by using their experience as a springboard for his own wartime drama, SAVING PRIVATE RYAN (1998).Director Bacon (a veteran craftsman who began his career in silent films before gravitating toward sound-era classics like 42nd STREET in 1933) tells the story in straightforward fashion, employing close-ups and tracking shots purely for dramatic emphasis at key points in the narrative.
Production values are economical but solid, and the cast is a mixed bag of veterans and newcomers, spearheaded by old-hands Royle (THE HEIRESS) and Mitchell (one of Hollywood's most celebrated character actors, usually a supporting player in A-list productions like GONE WITH THE WIND and IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE), while Anne Baxter - so memorable in Orson Welles' THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS - toplines the younger cast in a thankless minor role.
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").
I grew-up in a working-class town much like the one depicted in this movie, and I was the product of a large Irish-Catholic family.
I realize this movie is probably rather corny, especially by today's standards, but I always feel a strong sense of identification with the Sullivans.
It is really a family picture rather than a war movie, but the ending does bring 'home' the huge price we all pay during a crisis..
Edward Ryan (as Al) looks a little puny taking womanly Anne Baxter into his arms, but Thomas Mitchell is wonderful as the patriarch of the family, and the child actors are each quite good.
I'm sure that a bit of dramatic licence was used, but that shouldn't detract from a stirring,emotionally made movie.A true story about five brothers who served and died on the same ship at the same time,still delivers a jarring note,even when seen today.
The cast of The Sullivans is perfect,as is the screenplay.The scene where Ward Bond informs the Sullivan family of the deaths of the five brothers still packs a emotional wallop.Thomas Mitchell leads the cast as the elder Sullivan,who teaches the boys the ways of life.There's touches of Irish wit and wisdom that adds humor to the film.
A series of country-fried, saccharine-sweet vignettes follow the growth of my hometown's own Sullivan brothers from quickly-angered little boys to grown men getting sunk on a battleship.The film has little substance aside from being a great example of morale boasting propaganda designed to pick up a nation's spirits as the battle for the Pacific got bloodier and bloodier.
We had to watch The Fighting Sullivans in my American government class, and although I admit to not liking the story very much, I LOVED the editing!
The five Sullivan brothers had joined the Navy after Pearl Harbor on the condition that they be allowed to serve on the same ship, a recruiting gimmick that the pre-World War II Navy had used.
The Office of War Information allowed their loss to be a widely reported story at the time, presumably because the family's fortitude in the face of this catastrophe was thought inspirational.
(No mention, of course, was made of the fact that the rest of the Juneau's task force sailed away without trying to rescue survivors and that less than 10 of the crew were ultimately saved.) The audience would have gone into the picture knowing how it must end.Hollywood chose to treat the Sullivan story not as a war story but as a family portrait of how Americans wanted to feel about themselves.
The Sullivans are a working class Irish-American family from Waterloo, Iowa with five sons and a daughter.
Given their upbringing, it is inevitably that the Sullivan boys (and by inference all the working class GIs and sailors like them), march down to the recruiting office to join up right after Pearl Harbor.
God Bless the Sullivan Family and to anyone who sees this movie..
This is a heart-wrenching film about love, family, and loss.
Based on the loss of all five of the Sullivan boys on the sinking of the USS Juneau in 1942, this movie stayed with me long after I watched it as a small child in the 1970's with my grandfather, a WWII vet.
Surely this one on of the major reasons behind the president-at-the-time's decision that if x-number of sons died in the war, whoever was left living was sent home.The heartache of this family exists again today with Spielberg's "Saving Private Ryan", a movie loosely based on the Sullivan brothers, but yet still completely fictionalized.
While "The Sullivans", a docudrama, is extremely hard to find on video in most places, it is a must-own for anyone who collects war films, and a must-see for anyone who truly wants to know about what war really is, and not just the image put forth in the fictionalized Hollywood WWII seen in "Saving Private Ryan".
IN BRINGING WHAT was surely as tragic a story that would come out of World War II in America, 20th Century-Fox did a great service; not only to the memory of the 5 young men and to the Sullivan Family; but also the Studio public credited the Armed Forces in general and the U.S. Navy in particular, by its making the movie going people aware of what dangers that our boys face daily.THE CASTING OF the parts was one aspect of the film that was most expertly handled.
Heading up the credits are the great Thomas Mitchell* (as the Father), Fox's up and coming Starlett Anne Baxter (Katherine Mary Sullivan), Trudy Marshall (Genevieve Sullibvan, sister), Roy Roberts (Father Francis, Parish Priest) and ever reliable Ward Bond as Lt. Commander Robinson, Naval Recruiter).INTRODUCING A GROUIP OF relative newcomers in making up the Sullivan Boys proved to be a great plus in the film's believability and success.
Future Disney Star, Bobby Driscoll (SONG OF THE SOUTH, SO DEAR TO MY HEART) was among the uncredited players who portrayed the brothers as young kids.THE STORY STARTS out with a series of Catholic Baptisms; culminating with the score: Sullivan Boys 5 Sullivam Girls 1.
The story then quickly establishes the family household, their place in Blue Collar neighborhood and their Dad's position as a Railroad Conductor.THERE IS A GREAT deal of time spent in the portrayal of the brothers doing all sorts of things Always, they are together.
Ultimately, of course, their tragic fate is portrayed to the audience; who,of course, knew what was coming all along.THE FINALE OF this true life tragedy includes scenes of Lt. Commader Robinson's news bearing visit to the Sullivan home, Mr. Sullivan's tearful day at work with his passing places where he would often see his sons and a recreation of the launching of the new Naval Destroyer, USS The Sullivans.IN A TOUCHING last scene & fade to black, the 5 slain men, all in their Navy uniforms, are shown going to Heaven; with youngest brother, Al, hurrying to catch up, as usual.WE HAVE HEARD that this movie had a shortened original release; owing to the fear that the extreme sadness of its story would have an adverse effect on Wartime Morale..
The truth is always somewhere in between.Near the end of "The Fighting Sullivans," there is a scene at the kitchen table where Alleta Sullivan reads a letter from her eldest son, George, while the wife of the youngest brother, Al, reads his latest letter to her.
(Ultimately it was learned that there were over 25 sets of brothers on board, and that a family in Connecticut had lost four sons on the ship.)In early January 1943, their mother heard secondhand through a neighbor, "too bad about the Sullivan boys.
Even then, when Naval officers arrived at the Sullivan home on January 12 to bring the bad news, they could only tell the parents that their sons were missing in action.
That was the official declaration of the US Navy at that time, but the sense of finality it carried for the Sullivan family was surely unmistakable.
The desire for a tidy ending and a hasty release for "The Fighting Sullivans" left the story incomplete, but the film can serve as a point of departure for those wanting to learn all the dimensions of a story which went far beyond that of one family's incomprehensible tragedy..
No true stories touched America during World War II as that of The Sullivans.
Although it's not spelled out in the film it was two months before the parents of The Sullivans were given details of what happened to all five of their sons.
Sad to say the five players, Edmond Ryan, John Campbell, James Cardwell, John Alvin, and George Offerman, Jr. stayed obscure even after the film was released.The parents were played by Thomas Mitchell and Selena Royle with Anne Baxter as their sister who joined the WAVES after her brothers were killed.
Ward Bond plays the Navy recruiter who signed up the five Sullivan boys and who also brings the most awful news that any parent could possibly hear.The Sullivans still holds up well today as a fine piece of film making and a tribute to America's fighting spirit.
This is simply one of the best war dramas made about the Second World War. Five brothers, raised by their parents (Thomas Mitchell and Selena Royle) to be very close, serve in the navy together and refuse to be separated, a decision that has catastrophic results.
This is well known and as a result, laws were put into effect regarding multiple family members serving in the military ("The Sole Survivor Policy").The film mostly deals with the 20+ years before the war, including the youngest brothers' courting and marriage to pretty Anne Baxter.
("He must really be mad", one of them says.) Each vignette sets the stage for the tragic conclusion at the end, making the non-linear story arch work had only one or two plots been introduced and focused on.As the parents, Thomas Mitchell and Selena Royle are outstanding.
This film really fills the bill as giving you a look at small time American life pre-war, spotlighting the Sullivans as the kind of family every family would want to be, and showing the great sacrifice they made in the loss of all five of the sons of Thomas and Alleta Sullivan - George, Joe, Frank, Matt, and Al, ranging in ages from 20 to 28 years of age at the time of their deaths while serving on the same ship at their own request.The film does a great job of showing their togetherness, starting the story from their time as children and how they always stuck together, all for one, one for all.
The scene at the end of the film, on the train passing the water tower where his sons, as children, used to climb up and wave to him is a tribute to the loss he has suffered finally sinking in.
This is really a biopic more than a war film as the vast majority of it is focused on who the brothers were as people, before there ever was a Pearl Harbor.
It's clearly not a big-budget film, and with the exceptions of a very young Anne Baxter and Thomas Mitchell, who always played supporting rolls (often extremely well, but supporting roles nonetheless), there are no stars in it.The director, Lloyd Bacon, had made a lot of good movies before this, though, and that is probably the thing to focus on when trying to explain why this turned out so good.And it turned out very good.What makes this movie so powerful is what is does not do, in a sense.
Most of the movie focuses on the childhood and young adulthood of the five Sullivan boys.
So, when the five of them die on that ship in the war - as of course everyone who saw this movie knew that they would - it really hits hard, because they could be someone you know.And then you have to watch Ward Bond tell their family.The sister and the young wife behave as Hollywood portrayed young women: subject to their emotions.
This movie exists to make these five young men real to us, so that we realize what a terrible loss any man's life in war is.
It kills men - and women - who are nice people and do not deserve to die.---------------After yet another viewing, especially of the last scenes, I found myself wishing I could have stopped the movie with the father's salute to the memory of his sons on the water tower.
Probably, at the time of release, most people knew about the tragic event, but you may want to enjoy the story without knowing what happens, exactly In the years before World War II, small-town Iowa train conductor Thomas Mitchell (as Thomas "Tom" Sullivan) and his wife Selena Royle (as Alleta) raise five eventually draft-aged boys.
Director Lloyd Bacon guides the story well; the bracketing scenes involving Mitchell on his train, looking for his sons on a water tower, are beautifully done.******* The Sullivans (2/3/44) Lloyd Bacon ~ Edward Ryan, Thomas Mitchell, Anne Baxter, Selena Royle.
Like so many Hollywood films of the era, "The Fighting Sullivans" begins with a real-life story and embellishes it heavily in order to make an entertaining and teary movie.
It was a terrible tragedy that was exploited for propaganda--to try to solidify the folks at home behind the war effort.The film begins when the Sullivans are boys.
At the end, when Ward Bond arrives to break the news to the family that all five brothers were killed, he walked in the door smiling--and did so for about 30 seconds before breaking it to them.
I can't imagine what the real life Sullivan Family must have felt or gone through when they got the news.
In the movie I thought it was handled just a bit poorly as the naval officer (Ward Bond) who delivered the news entered the Sullivan home with a smile on his face.
With the Second World War still going on when the movie was released, I presume the film established one family's courage and sacrifice in the face of the enemy and was deemed an appropriate call to patriotic action..
I appreciate the function it had in the mobilization during WW2, I recognize the heart and good will that went into its making, and I applaud the number of unexpected solutions the film-makers opted for in the first and largest part of it.Five brothers and one sister grow up in a tight-knit family that is none too well-off, in this story that is quite authentic.
I loved the brothers, the story and the pride it instilled in me to be an American .
A moving and wonderful movie, better than " Saving Private Ryan" , a film everyone should see..
It was chosen for a now-discontinued arts school Award for Best tale.The tale follows the lives of the five Irish-American Sullivan brothers, who grow up in Iowa through the days of the enormous Depression and serve jointly in the United States Navy through World War II.
The Sullivans are a good Catholic Irish family.