Patton

Patton (1970)

Director: Franklin Schaffner

Cast: George C. Scott, Karl Malden, Michael Strong, Michael Bates

Memorable Line(s): "Now I want you to remember that no bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country."

Patton is an epic movie. It’s big in scale and big in personality due in large part to the character of Patton. He’s a bigger than life person with a massive ego and the spacious background of World War II to display that ego. Fortunately for the filmmakers and the viewers, George C. Scott takes on the role with such abandon that it seems like he was born to play the part.

The Plot of Patton

Patton see himself as a man of destiny. He feels as if he were created to do one thing and that is to be a warrior. In the backdrop of World War II we get to see how this man’s destiny plays out and how he made a huge difference on the battlefield.

The movie starts out during the U.S. North African campaign. General George S. Patton (Scott) is making great progress as he pushes the German forces across the continent, but he feels he is in competition with the British General Montgomery (Bates). This competition plays out as the battle moves to Italy and Patton takes some risky moves perhaps more motivated by personal ambition, rather than military objectives. In the eyes of his comrade, General Omar Bradley (Malden), Patton is more than a little reckless with the lives of his soldiers. But he does make it into the city before Montgomery.

While Patton was a brilliant military strategist and a great source of positive morale for his men, he had blunt and mostly ineffective political skills. He paid handsomely for not being better in this area. In one instance, he assaults a shell-shock young soldier and is later forced to apologize to his all of his troops.

After several other mis-steps, he finds himself on the back-bench without an Army to command. This maneuver works well for the Americans in a way because the Germans feel that Patton is the general they are most worried about and follow his movements almost to distractions.

The Ally commanders finally decide to bring Patton back into the game in Europe as the allies are pushing into France after the D-Day invasion. At one point when U.S. troops get surrounded in a German counter-attack, Patton rallies his men and moves a massive offensive across 100 miles in 48 hours to fend the Germans off the out numbered and trapped troops.

Ever the warrior, Patton makes his most critical mistake by speaking provocatively about inciting a war with Russia. This is what ultimately dooms him in the eyes of the U.S. command.

The Performances, Writing, and Direction of Patton

Patton was the big winner at the Oscars when it was released and deservedly so. It took Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actor along with the award for the best screenplay.

This is George C. Scott’s movie. His bigger-than-life portrayal grabs the viewer from the word, “Go.” With his sense of destiny and intensity, it would have been easy to take the character completely over the top, but Scott walks a fine line and keeps his Patton completely real. All the supporting cast are solid including Malden as the common soldier who happens to have become a general.

The screenplay was co-written by Francis Ford Coppola and if you watch Coppola’s “Apocalypse Now,” you will see how he created Robert Duvall’s Colonel Kilgore.

Schaffner does a good job of balancing the epic story of the battles with the character story of Patton. Still the story is almost all Patton. Most of the war scenes are convincing, but sometimes the scale seems bit stretched some by today’s standards. Another memorable element of this movie is Jerry Goldsmith’s haunting score.

Summary Judgment on Patton

I remember watching Patton many years ago and it made an impression on me, but it faded over time. In watching the movie again, I feel as if I appreciated Scott’s portrayal even more than I originally did. I also found the script does an exceptional job of editorializing on some of Patton’s actions while not judging the man. This is a movie worth watching and I suggest if you want to see an actor in the role of his life, then Patton is the movie for you.