The John Sullivan Story (1979) starring Andrew McFarlane, Olivia Hamnett, Frank Gallacher, Ronald Lewis, Jonathan Hardy, Roger Oakley, Carol Burns, Vera Plevnik directed by David Stevens Movie Review

The John Sullivan Story (1979)   3/53/53/53/53/5


Andrew McFarlane in The John Sullivan Story (1979)

The Sullivan Movie

They say that your childhood were the best years of your life and I agree; no pressure, no bills, no expectations to do certain things and TV. Yes I did say TV and some of my fondest memories of my childhood were the TV shows which made up my formative years which ranged from "Little House on the Prairie" to "Dallas" as well as the likes of "Cagney & Lacey" and "Quincy". One of my earliest memories was of watching "The Sullivans" a drama about an Australian family during WWII and it is one of the shows which if I got the chance to would love to re-watch from beginning to end.

That all brings me to "The John Sullivan Story" which focuses on the character of, surprise surprise, John Sullivan who was the eldest of the Sullivan boys and when actor Andrew McFarlane left the series after 18 months his character was not killed off but reported missing during the war. So what "The John Sullivan Story" basically tells us is what happened to John during that time and why he ended up reported missing. Not going in to everything we see how his boat is sunk by a U-boat and he is picked up by Yugoslavian Chetniks who take him to their village to work as a doctor. The story evolves with some romance but also being captured by the Gestapo amongst other things.

Now in fairness it is incredibly difficult to review "The John Sullivan Story" when it has been so long since I watched any of the original series and it is incredibly hard to relate to the character of John. Plus with this being about John's exploits away from home it has a very different feel to the old series and lacks the charm and homely aspects which made the show so watchable. But "The John Sullivan Story" is still an interesting spin off movie and works quite well as a standalone war movie about a man and his experiences after being rescued in 1941 and taken to live with the Chetniks before being captured by the Gestapo.

What this all boils down to is that "The John Sullivan Story" didn't give me the blast of nostalgia I had been hoping for and I would be lying if I said that didn't make me a little disappointed. But at the same time "The John Sullivan Story" whilst being low budget works as a reasonably interesting war movie.


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