The Fighting Sullivans

How does the state, which, for its survival, asserts the right to demand all lives and resources, justify ultimate sacrifices? How does the cinema collaborate by creating heroes? How do citizens seek to establish the validity of heroes? With erudition and humility, Bruce Kuklick brings a lifetime of scholarship to bear on these questions through the lens of one of the most popular propaganda movies of World War II: The Fighting Sullivans. Released in 1944 by Twentieth Century Fox, The Fighting Sullivans creates heroes of the five Sullivan brothers who, serving on the same ship, were killed early in the battle of Guadalcanal in 1942. “All five?” gasps the disbelieving mother, Alleta Sullivan, upon hearing the news. Kuklick skillfully traces Hollywood's usual compromises, omissions, and fabrications, including the filmmakers' navigation through the maze of industry censorship and governmental propaganda bureaus. Despite its title, the film shows little combat. Much of the picture concerns the brothers' stereotypically idyllic boyhood in Waterloo, Iowa—a reworking, says Kuklick, of the tropes of the Our Gang film series (1922–1944) and the Andy Hardy film series (1936–1947). Although Kuklick does not make a point of it, The Fighting Sullivans employs Hollywood's familiar hierarchical world of patriarchy, priest, and corporation. When Tom Sullivan learns that all his sons have perished, he awkwardly pats Alleta and goes off to join his regular railroad run, proud that he has not missed a day of work in thirty-three years

Ancient history · Art · Art history · Battle · Censorship · Corporation · Film industry · Hollywood · Media studies · Movie theater · Political science · Scholarship · Sociology · World War II · Cinema and Media Studies · History · Italian Fascism and Post-war Society · Law · Race, History, and American Society