Imagine the inconsolable grief of a family that loses five siblings in a single action during World War II, or any war for that matter. Just the thought manages to bring a tear to one's eye, the sort of situation that any parent would dread if it involved even a single offspring. 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. Handling that bit of grim news certainly should have required more tact, and if the director was clueless about it, I wonder why Bond himself didn't suggest an alternative to the scene. Similarly, the idea that the Sullivan patriarch (Thomas Mitchell) opted to go to work right after receiving the news seemed unconscionably inconsiderate, if no more than to offer consolation to his grieving wife, daughter and daughter-in-law. The only justification for that scene was to set the viewer up for the man's patriotic gesture to the unseen soldier sons atop the water tower where they often greeted their Dad with their daily sendoff as kids. 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.
Review of The Fighting Sullivans
