The Fighting Sullivans **** (1944, Anne Baxter, Thomas Mitchell, Selena Royle, Edward Ryan) – Classic Movie Review 12,063

‘The Guts and Glory of Our Fighting Forces!’

Director Lloyd Bacon’s sincere, heart-tugging 1944 20th Century Fox patriotic American biographical war film The Fighting Sullivans [The Sullivans] stars Anne Baxter, Thomas Mitchell, Selena Royle and Edward Ryan.

It is a calculatedly flag-waving real-life story – made as much to raise morale and boost the war effort as to entertain – about the five heroic Irish-American Sullivan brothers from Waterloo, Iowa, who were devoted to each other and were all killed in naval service in World War Two when the cruiser USS Juneau sank off Guadalcanal.

Mitchell and Royle (as their parents) and main star Baxter (as the widow of the youngest Sullivan lad Edward Ryan) enliven this most carefully made, very touching war film, as full of integrity as sentimentality, with echoes of the story in Steven Spielberg’s 1998 film Saving Private Ryan. Spielberg acknowledged that the Sullivan brothers’ story was an inspiration for making the film.

It was originally released as The Sullivans.

The slightly fictionalised screenplay is written by Mary C McCall Jr, Edward Doherty (story) and Jules Schermer (story).

It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Story (Edward Doherty and Jules Schermer).

The US Navy named two ships after the brothers: the Fletcher class destroyer, USS The Sullivans (DD-537) and the Arleigh Burke class destroyer, USS The Sullivans (DDG-68). Their motto: ‘We Stick Together’.

The cast are Anne Baxter as Katherine Mary Sullivan, Thomas Mitchell as father Tom Sullivan, Selena Royle as mother Alleta Sullivan, Edward Ryan as Al Sullivan, Trudy Marshall as Gen Sullivan, John Campbell as Frank Sullivan, James Cardwell as George Sullivan, John Alvin as Matt Sullivan, George Offerman as Joe Sullivan, Roy Roberts as Father Francis, Ward Bond as Lieutenant Commander Robinson, Bobby Driscoll as young Al Sullivan, and Buddy Swan as young George Sullivan.

© Derek Winnert 2022 Classic Movie Review 12,063

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