The Fighting Sullivans (Commemorative Edition)
February 2006 Reviewed by: Josh Barber Format: DVD	(all ratings out of 5): Overall Enjoyment Picture Quality Packaged Extras Sound Quality

On November 12, 1942, the U.S.S. Juneau was sunk by the Japanese. Serving onboard were five brothers of the Sullivan family, and all were killed in the attack. The story became quite the World War II media event -- while every mother of a soldier feared bad news, one mother’s news of losing five children in one day seemed overwhelming.

Two years later, while the war was still going on, this film was released. Due to its timing, it can't help but be viewed as propaganda, but surprisingly, it's neither a "rah-rah" flag-waving piece nor a polemic about the evils of war. The Fighting Sullivans is simply a memorial to fallen soldiers.

The story is polished, of course: better to show the brothers as wholesome all-American kids than to worry about the rough spots. This is fiction, not a documentary. The early scenes of the kids' life play like an Our Gang short, with the brothers getting into all sorts of good-natured and generally harmless scraps, many of which are directly related to the fate we know is awaiting them. By the time war comes, the Sullivans seem like cartoon patriots come to life, marching merrily down the street to enlist.

The film jumps abruptly from the boys' meeting with the recruiting officer to their famous end, with the ship under attack. We get more scenes of the brothers being heroic and looking out for one another, and then a moment in which it seems that their demise is their own fault. The final scenes are handled well, with the recruitment officer delivering the news -- the family's reactions are realistic without being melodramatic.

The Fighting Sullivans is looking good for a film that is more than 60 years old. It really could have benefited from a thorough restoration, but this DVD is never disappointing. The sound is limited, but that's just because it was originally recorded in mono -- short of redubbing the entire film, there wasn't really anything one could do to improve the quality.

Where this Commemorative Edition really earns its designation is the extras. This is a two-disc set, with most of the goodies stationed on the second disc. The extras are divided into four self-explanatory categories. "A Tribute to the Sullivan Brothers" deals with the boys themselves. "The U.S.S. Juneau" covers the destruction of the ship, while "The Grout Museum" presents a few memorial videos, and "The Survivors" shows us what happened after the sinking.

That's quite a lot of information. Many of the sections are just scrolling text over an image of a flag, however, so they become repetitive. It would have been better to get more of a historical perspective on the sinking of the ship. What we do get is rather dry and technical. It's drawn from official Naval records, and reads as such. Still, the extras do a great job of putting modern audiences into the Sullivans' world.

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