General Patton

Patton
Patton film poster
Directed by	Franklin J. Schaffner
Produced by	Frank Caffey Frank McCarthy
Written by	Novel (Patton: Ordeal and Triumph): Ladislas Farago Novel (A Soldier's Story): Omar N. Bradley Screenplay: Francis Ford Coppola Edmund H. North
Starring	George C. Scott Karl Malden Michael Bates Karl Michael Vogler
Music by	Jerry Goldsmith
Cinematography	Fred J. Koenekamp
Editing by	Hugh S. Fowler
Distributed by	20th Century Fox
Release date(s)	February 4, 1970
Running time	170 min
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$12,000,000
Gross revenue	$61,749,765[1]
All Movie Guide profile
IMDb profile

Patton (UK: Patton: Lust for Glory) is a 1970 epic biographical film which tells the story of General George S. Patton during World War II. It stars George C. Scott, Karl Malden, Michael Bates, and Karl Michael Vogler. It was directed by Franklin J. Schaffner, and written by Francis Ford Coppola and Edmund H. North. It won seven Academy Awards, including the Academy Award for Best Picture.

The opening monologue, delivered by Scott with an enormous American flag behind him, remains an iconic and often quoted image in film. Despite the rise of the Vietnam protest movement and a decline in interest in World War II movies, the film became a success and an American classic.

In 2003 the United States Library of Congress deemed the film "culturally significant" and selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry.

Plot

The film documents the story of General George S. Patton (George C. Scott) during World War II, beginning with his taking charge of demoralized American forces in North Africa after the disastrous Battle of the Kasserine Pass. He participates in the invasion of Sicily and races against the equally egotistical British General Montgomery to capture the Sicilian port of Messina. After he beats Montgomery into the city, he is relieved of command for slapping a shell-shocked soldier in an Army hospital. This incident, along with his tendency to speak his mind to the press, gets the general in trouble with Washington and he is sidelined from the Invasion of Normandy. Later, he begs his former subordinate, General Omar Bradley (Karl Malden), for a command before the war ends. He is given the U.S. Third Army, and distinguishes himself by sweeping across France and later relieving the vital town of Bastogne during the Battle of the Bulge. Later, Patton smashes through the German "West Wall" and drives into Germany itself.

The movie depicts some of Patton's more controversial actions, for example his remarks following the fall of Germany, casually comparing many average Nazis to American Republicans and Democrats, and remarking to a British crowd that America and Great Britain would dominate the post-war world, which the press finds insulting to the Russians. He also believes in reincarnation, while remaining a devout Christian. At one point in the movie, during the North Africa campaign, Patton takes his staff on an unexpected detour to the site of the ancient Battle of Zama. There he reminisces about the battle, insisting to Omar Bradley that he was there. Although he is shown to be a military genius, the film does not try to conceal Patton's darker, elitist and brutal aspects.

Cast

• George C. Scott as General George S. Patton. Rod Steiger was offered the role, but turned it down, saying that he did not want to glorify war. After viewing the completed film, he said that refusing the role was the biggest mistake of his career.
• Karl Malden as General Omar Bradley
• Stephen Young as Chester B. Hansen
• Michael Strong as Hobart Carver
• Michael Bates as General Bernard Law Montgomery
• Frank Latimore as Henry Davenport
• Morgan Paull as Richard N. Jensen
• Karl Michael Vogler as Field Marshal Erwin Rommel
• Siegfried Rauch as Captain Steiger
• Richard Münch as Alfred Jodl
• John Doucette as Lucian Truscott
• Paul Stevens as Colonel Charles R. Codman
• Ed Binns as Major General Walter Bedell Smith

Awards

Scott's performance won him an Academy Award for Best Actor in 1971. He famously refused to accept it^[2] --the first actor, though not the last, to do so.

The film won six additional Academy Awards, for Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Best Director, Best Film Editing, Best Picture, Best Sound and Best Writing, Story and Screenplay Based on Factual Material or Material Not Previously Published or Produced. It was nominated for Best Cinematography, Best Effects, Special Visual Effects and Best Music, Original Score.

In 2006, the Writers Guild of America selected the adapted screenplay by Francis Ford Coppola and Edmund North as the 94th best screenplay of all time. The screenplay was based upon the biographies A Soldier's Story by General Omar Bradley, and by Ladislas Farago.

Reception

Popular online film critic James Berardinelli has called Patton his favorite film of all time.^[3]

According to Woodward and Bernstein's book The Final Days, it was also Richard Nixon's favorite film. He screened it several times at The White House and during a cruise on the Presidential Yacht.

Production

Patton family objections

There were several attempts to make the movie, starting in 1953. The Patton family was approached by the producers for help in making the film. They wanted access to Patton's diaries and input from family members. By coincidence, the day they asked the family was the day after the funeral of Beatrice Ayer Patton, the general's widow. After that, the family was dead set against the movie and refused to give any help to the filmmakers.

Because of this, Francis Ford Coppola and Edmund H. North wrote the film from two biographies: Patton: Ordeal and Triumph by Ladislas Farago and A Soldier's Story by Omar Bradley. In 2005, Patton's wife's "Button Box" manuscript was finally released by his family, with the posthumous release of Ruth Ellen Patton Totten's book, The Button Box: A Daughter's Loving Memoir of Mrs. George S. Patton.[1]

The opening

Patton opened with Scott's rendering of General Patton's famous military "Pep Talk" (help·info) to members of the Third Army, set against a huge American flag. The movie writers had to tone down Patton's actual words and statements throughout the film in order to get a PG rating; in the opening monologue, the word "fornicating" replaced "fucking" when criticizing the Saturday Evening Post newspaper. Interestingly, Scott's gravelly voice is practically the opposite of Patton's, which is reported as having been "strangely high-pitched".

During his speech, Patton states (in real life and in the film) that "Americans have never lost and will never lose a war." Historian Shelby Foote observed that this claim was astonishing, as Patton's grandfather had fought for the Army of Northern Virginia during the American Civil War; as the product of a Southern upbringing, Patton would have been well aware of this.

When Scott learned that the speech would open the film, he refused to do it, as he believed that it would overshadow the rest of his performance.^{[citation needed]} So director Frank Schaffner lied and assured him that it would be shown at the end. It was shot in a basement room.

All the medals and decorations shown on Patton's uniform in the monologue are authentic replicas of those actually awarded to Patton. However, the general never wore all of them in public. Patton wore them all on only one occasion, in his backyard in Virginia at the request of his wife, who wanted a picture of him with all his medals. The producers used a copy of this photo to help recreate this "look" for the opening scene. Also, the ivory-handled revolvers Scott wears in this scene are in fact Patton's, borrowed from the Patton museum.

Locations

The entire film was shot in Spain, except for one scene in Tunisia where Patton visits Carthaginian ruins. The scenes set in Africa and Sicily were shot in the south of Spain, while the winter scenes in France were shot near Madrid (to which the production crew rushed when they were informed that snow had fallen).

Anachronistic props

In common with most contemporary war films, Patton used very few actual World War II vintage tanks, except in archival newsreel footage. The film's tanks were supplied by the Spanish Army, which assisted the production. They included M41 Walker Bulldog, M46 Patton and M47 Patton tanks for the American side, M24 Chaffee tanks for the British, and M48 Patton tanks for the Germans. Of these machines, only the M24 Chaffee design had served in WW2, although not for the British. In reality, General Patton commanded a mixture of M-4 Shermans and, very late in the war, M-26 Pershings.

Spanish CASA 2.111 airplanes were also used in several scenes. These were heavily modified versions of the German Heinkel He 111, which had been used extensively by the Luftwaffe in World War II. They can be recognized by their engine nacelles, which have a prominent airscoop directly under the propellor, whereas the Heinkel's airscoop was set further back.

In addition, 1950s M38 Jeeps can be seen, and 1960s M35 cargo trucks were used (for both American and German trucks).

A map of Europe shown in the background in one scene displays post-war national boundaries.

Language error

In one scene, supposedly in Morocco, a supposedly Arab woman is selling "pollos y gallinas" (Chickens and hens) in Spanish, not in Arabic. Of course, the movie was actually filmed in Spain.

Inaccuracies

While serving to illuminate the tension between Patton and Montgomery, there was no competitive race for either to capture Messina before the other. Montgomery actually suggested on July 24 that Patton take Messina since he was in a better position to do so.

In one scene, General Patton incorrectly cites Frederick the Great as saying, "L'audace, l'audace, toujours l'audace!" ("Daring, daring - always daring!") This actually originated with Georges Danton.

There is a scene with a black Packard in wartime England that is a 1948 post war model.

Sequels

A made-for-television sequel, The Last Days of Patton, was produced in 1986. Scott reprised his title role. The movie was based on Patton's final weeks after being mortally injured in a car accident, with flashbacks of Patton's life.

Cultural references

South Park in Patton-esque pose

Trivia sections are discouraged under Wikipedia guidelines. The article could be improved by integrating relevant items and removing inappropriate ones.

Patton's iconic opening and speech before a giant flag has been parodied and copied in numerous films, political cartoons and television shows.

• The Simpsons episode "Bart the General" was based on this movie. In another episode, "Secrets of a Successful Marriage", Homer spews a nonsensical string of Patton quotes.

• In an early run of the comic strip Bloom County, Milo Bloom's grandfather coaches a pee-wee football team in the guise of General Patton, equating football with warfare.

• The opening Stars and Stripes image was also used in pop band The The's video for the single "Heartland", from its Infected album.

• For the video of his song "Asshole", Denis Leary donned a replica of General Patton's uniform and delivered part of the rant near the song's end in front of the giant American flag.

• The third film in the Smokey and the Bandit franchise started with Buford T. Justice (Jackie Gleason) giving his retirement speech in front of the American flag while wearing an Army uniform, another parody of the Patton opening.

• In the Adult Swim parody show Sealab 2021, Captain Shanks has a diorama of George C. Scott as Patton.

• In the film Small Soldiers, Major Chip Hazard, the commander of the "Commando Elite" action figures, addresses his troops on the upcoming battle with an American flag jigsaw puzzle in the background.

See also

• North African Campaign
• Tunisia Campaign
• Erwin Rommel
• Battle of the Bulge

References

External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:

Patton (film)

• Patton at the Internet Movie Database
• Patton at Filmsite.org
• Patton at the TCM Movie Database
• Opening Speech from the Movie in Text, Audio and Video from AmericanRhetoric.com
• Patton: Ordeal and Triumph by Ladislas Farago
• The Patton Society Homepage (Life of the General)
• The history of the famous Patton speech
• The real Patton speech
• Patton Uncovered

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