The Fighting Sullivans (1944)

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moira finnie
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The Fighting Sullivans (1944)

Post by moira finnie »

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The Fighting Sullivans (1944), which is being broadcast on TCM at 1:30pm ET today (3/21/09) is based on the real life heroic tragedy of five Iowa-born brothers who enlisted in the Navy together after Pearl Harbor and were all assigned to the USS Juneau.

In November, 1942 during the Battle of Guadacanal, George, Francis, Joseph, Madison and Albert Sullivan perished together, wiping out a generation of a family and changing military policy from then on when it came to assigning relatives to one theater of operations, (though, based on a number of fathers and sons and spouses recently assigned to Iraq and Afghanistan, that policy has eased in recent years).
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While Thomas Mitchell as their father is deeply touching and Selena Royle as their mother is quite effective as well, the exaltation of such a waste of life, however noble, has always made me quite queasy, even as I feel compassion for the characters and respect for their self-sacrifice. I suspect that it is hard for me to watch from a present day perspective due to the subsequent wars that America has chosen to be involved in, and should be viewed as a heartfelt piece of propaganda, as well as a document reflecting its time. The film's power as a personal story may be overshadowed by the fact that the brothers were lost at a time when it was by no means clear that the Allies would win the war. As a movie, following the boys as they grow up, the story rarely rises above the conventional, but, in the tragic scene in which the father played by Mitchell asks, with his voice cracking with pain as he comprehends the truth, “…all five?” remains one of the most powerful in American film history.

Not a movie guaranteed to make you appreciate war's glory, thank God, but unforgettable.
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Re: The Fighting Sullivans (1944)

Post by klondike »

I found myself thinking about The Fighting Sullivans just 9 or 10 days ago, when I took advantage of my first ever opportunity to watch Saving Private Ryan in its linear entirety. :idea:
Given the commonality of their mutual plots' lynchpins, it would be interesting to watch them both on a double-bill, especially as, for once, the years of reference are sequential to the order of release! :roll:
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Re: The Fighting Sullivans (1944)

Post by Hollis »

Dear Moira,

As much as i respect you, and i do indeed, I have to take exception to one statement you made, perhaps parroting the poster announcing the movie "The Fighting Sullivans." There is no glory to be found in war. Only the waste of human life. True, wars are sometimes fought to end tyranny and even genocide, but there is no glory involved. Heroism is not to be confused with glory. Glory is defined by Webster's New World Dictionary, Second College Edition, as 1. great honor and admiration won by doing something important or valuable 2. worshipful adoration or praise 3. the condition of highest achievement, splendor, prosperity 4. radiant beauty or splendor, magnificence 5. heaven or the bliss of heaven. a halo or its representation in art, to be very proud, rejoice, exult(in). There is no mention of battlefield exploits. Killing another human being, regardless of the reason or even the justification, is never glorious.

Respectfully,

Hollis
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Re: The Fighting Sullivans (1944)

Post by moira finnie »

Hi Hollis,
With equal respect, I believe you misread my last sentence in my original post, which reads:
"Not a movie guaranteed to make you appreciate war's glory, thank God, but unforgettable."

(I added the underline and bold to the word "Not" to emphasize the point of the words.)

Never for an instant did I think that The Fighting Sullivans glorified war. If anything, the movie was among the more realistic of its period, showing the ghastly consequences.
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Re: The Fighting Sullivans (1944)

Post by ChiO »

I recall reading that one director -- Samuel Fuller, maybe? -- said that the biggest problem with war movies is that by the very nature of filming and telling a story, they (even those that try to be anti-war movies) tend to romanticize war. Fuller did write something similar in his autobiography when recounting the making of THE STEEL HELMET:

Whatever the confrontation and wherever it's happening, the underlying story is one of destruction and hatred. I wanted an opportunity to show audiences that war was more complex than the front-page articles. You never saw the genuine hardship of soldiers, not ours nor the enemy's, in movies. The confusion and brutality of war, not phony heroism, needed to be depicted. The people who chanted "We are right, and they are wrong" needed to be debunked.

.... It was my way of saying that, until we end the violence, this was just one episode in a continuum of horrible war tales. Violence begets violence. I sensed that if we started to fight in any corner of the world, it would be a repetitious cycle. ....

One of the major studios heard about the picture and offered to produce it, with John Wayne playing Zack. That would have taken all the reality out of the film. This wasn't a gung-ho war movie. I was determined to make it look real, my soldiers human and deeply flawed. War brings out the best and worst in you. With Wayne, I'd end up with a simple morality tale.

.... My goal was to show the organized insanity of war.
Everyday people...that's what's wrong with the world. -- Morgan Morgan
I love movies. But don't get me wrong. I hate Hollywood. -- Orson Welles
Movies can only go forward in spite of the motion picture industry. -- Orson Welles
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Re: The Fighting Sullivans (1944)

Post by Hollis »

Hi Moira,

I did find it difficult to conceive of you believing that there was anything even remotely glorious about war. But it seems, that by implication, that if this was not a movie guaranteed to make you appreciate war's glory, then there were others that did exactly that. I suppose that it's simply a case of sentence structure, something I've been guilty of twisting out of shape more than once. Please accept my apologies if you were in any way offended by my posting. It was in no way intended as an attack on you or your sense of morality, which I'm certain decries the horror that is in fact, war. ChiO's posting did an excellent job of casting the correct light on the matter. Thank you, sir.

As always,

Hollis
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