Patton (1970) ft. Sara Shea
- Thomas Duncan
- 2 days ago
- 11 min read
Guest:
Sara Shea
Host and Creator of Shea Cinema; @sheacinema on X, IG
Previously on 12 Angry Men (1957) Revisit, Barry Lyndon (1975), Shampoo (1975), 2025 Post Oscars Reaction Show
Cast:
Franklin J. Schaffner, Director
Francis Ford Coppola and Edward H. North, Writers
Jerry Goldsmith, Music
Fred J. Koenekamp, Cinematographer
George C. Scott as General George S. Patton
Karl Malden as General Omar N. Bradley
David Bauer as Lieutenant General Harry Buford
Edward Binns as Lieutenant General Walter Bedell Smith
John Doucette as Major General Lucian Truscott
Michael Strong as Brigadier General Hobart Gay
Paul Stevens as Colonel Charles R. Codman
Morgan Paull as Captain Richard N. Jenson
Tim Considine as a shell-shocked soldier
Michael Bates as Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery
Jack Gwillim as Field Marshal Sir Harold Alexander
Gerald Flood as Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur Tedder
John Barrie as Air Vice-Marshal Sir Arthur Coningham
Frank Latimore as Lieutenant Colonel Henry Davenport
Karl Michael Vogler as Field Marshal Erwin Rommel
Richard Münch as Colonel General Alfred Jodl
Siegfried Rauch as Captain Oskar Steiger
Background:
Patton was wide released on April 2, 1970.
On a budget of $12.6 million, the film would gross roughly $62.5 million to finish as the #4 film of 1970 at the worldwide box office.
Patton was met with wide spread critical acclaim especially for George C. Scott in the title role.
The film was nominated for 10 Academy Awards including cinematography, original score, and special visual effects, winning seven awards for Best Picture, Director (Schaffner), Actor (Scott), Story and Screenplay (Coppola and North), Art Direction, Film Editing, and Sound.
While George C. Scott won the Academy Award for Best Actor, he declined it citing a dislike of the voting process and the concept of acting competitions. He was the first actor to do so. The film's producer, Frank McCarthy, accepted the award on Scott's behalf. The Best Picture statuette is on display at the George C. Marshall Museum at the Virginia Military Institute, courtesy of Frank McCarthy.
In 2006, the Writers Guild of America selected Francis Ford Coppola and Edmund H. North's adapted screenplay as the 94th best screenplay of all time.
American Film Institute Lists:
In 2003, Patton was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry. The Academy Film Archive also preserved Patton in 2003.
Patton currently holds a 92% among critics on RT, an 86 score on Metacritic, and a 3.9/5 on Letterboxd.
Plot Summary: A sweeping and complex portrait of a man consumed by ambition, Patton charges through history with ferocity and contradictions, a gladiator on the modern battlefield. In the chaos and grandeur of World War II, Patton’s genius and ego collide, alienating allies and enthralling enemies. Hero and antihero, the film unveils his brutal poetry of war, a relentless quest for glory at any cost—and the haunting question of whether he is made for, or destroyed by, the brutal theater of combat.
Did You Know:
The movie begins without showing the 20th Century-Fox logo, or any other indication that the film is starting. At military bases across the US theater owners reported that soldiers in the audience would often stand up and snap to attention when they heard the movie's opening line ("Ten-hut!"), assuming it to be a real call to attention.
The ivory-handled revolvers George C. Scott wears in the opening speech were George S. Patton's real-life revolvers. Those pistols are in the collection of the museum at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York.
Patton was first telecast by ABC as a three hours-plus color film special on Sunday, November 19, 1972, only two years after its theatrical release. That was highly unusual at the time, especially for a roadshow release which had played in theatres for many months. Most theatrical films at that time had to wait at least five years for their first telecast. Another unusual element of the telecast was that almost none of Patton's profanity-laced dialogue was cut (only two sentences, one of which contained no profanity, were cut from the famous opening speech in front of the giant US flag). The film was the fourth highest-rated film broadcast on television in the United States at the time, with a Nielsen rating of 38.5 and an audience share of 65%.
Coppola and North had to tone down Patton's actual words and statements in the scene, as well as throughout the rest of the film, to avoid an R rating; in the opening monologue, the word "fornicating" replaced "fucking" when he was criticizing The Saturday Evening Post. Also, Scott's gravelly and scratchy voice is the opposite of Patton's high-pitched, nasal and somewhat squeaky voice, a point noted by historian S.L.A. Marshall. However, Marshall also points out that the film contains "too much cursing and obscenity [by Patton]." Patton was not habitually foul-mouthed. He used dirty words when he thought they were needed to impress."
Lee Marvin, Burt Lancaster, John Wayne, Robert Mitchum and Rod Steiger declined the role of Patton. Steiger later said it was his greatest mistake. Charlton Heston was considered for the role of Omar N. Bradley before Karl Malden was cast.
According to Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein's book The Final Days, it was also Richard Nixon's favorite film. Nixon first viewed Patton with his family at a private screening in the White House Family Theater on April 5, 1970. Nixon became obsessed with the film, repeatedly watching it with Henry Kissinger over the next month. He screened it several times at the White House and during a cruise on the presidential yacht USS Sequoia in the Potomac River.
The scene where Gen. Lucian K. Truscott Jr. tells Patton "You're an old athlete yourself General, you know matches are sometimes postponed" refers to the fact that George S. Patton actually had represented the US at the 1912 Olympic Games in Stockholm by competing in the Modern Pentathlon. Patton finished a creditable fifth in the competition. Remarkably, it was the shooting element that let him down. In true Patton style he used his military .38-cal. revolver instead of the lighter .22-cal. favored by most of the athletes. Patton was also an expert fencer. He re-wrote the U.S. Army's manuals on swordsmanship, removing the "parry". His idea was for all attack--defense just wasted energy. Such was his mastery of swordsmanship that he designed the last saber ever to be worn into battle as a weapon, the M1913 Cavalry Saber, commonly known as the "Patton Saber".
The scene during the Battle of the Bulge where Patton orders the Third Army Chaplain to compose a weather prayer actually happened. The Chaplain, Colonel James Hugh O'Neill, reluctantly composed a weather prayer, which Patton had printed on the back of post cards and handed out to the men of his army. When the weather cleared, Patton was so grateful, he awarded the chaplain a bronze star on the spot.
Best Performance: George C. Scott (Patton)/Coppola and North (Writers)
Best Secondary Performance: Francis Ford Coppola (Writer)/Franklin Schaffner (Director)/Karl Malden (Bradley)
Most Charismatic Award: Karl Malden (Bradley)/Jerry Goldsmith (Music)
Best Scene:
Cold Open
Tank Battle in Tunisia
How to Take Sicily
Taking Messina First
The Slap
Battle of the Bulge
Favorite Scene: Tank Battle in Tunisia/Death of Jensen/Battle of the Bulge
Most Indelible Moment: Cold Open
In Memorium:
Jan Schwieterman, 52, American actor (Good Burger)
George Foreman, 76, American boxer, producer, actor, and pitchman (George Foreman Grills, The Masked Singer, Big George Foreman: The Miraculous Story of the Once and Future Heavyweight Champion of the World; 2-time Heavyweight Champion of the World)
Best Lines/Funniest Lines:
Patton: 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: Fixed fortifications are monuments to the stupidity of man. If mountain ranges and oceans can be overcome, then anything built by man can be overcome.
Patton: What's the matter, Brad? I've been nominated by the President.
Bradley: I know, but it doesn't become official until it's approved by the Senate.
Patton: Well, they have their schedule, and I have mine.
Patton: Rommel... you magnificent bastard, *I read your book*!
Clergyman: I was interested to see a Bible by your bed. You actually find time to read it?
Patton: I sure do. Every goddamn day.
Capt. Richard N. Jenson: What are you doing there, soldier?
Soldier getting up from floor: Trying to get some sleep, sir.
Patton: Well, get back down there, son. You're the only son of a bitch in this headquarters who knows what he's trying to do.
Patton: They're ivory. Only a pimp from a cheap New Orleans whorehouse would carry a pearl-handled pistol.
Lt. Col. Charles R. Codman: You know General, sometimes the men don't know when you're acting.
Patton: It's not important for them to know. It's only important for me to know.
Patton: [to a doctor] One more thing. There will be no battle fatigue in my command. That's an order. Battle fatigue is a free ride. Yellow Belly's ticket to the hospital. I'm not going to subsidize cowardice.
Patton: The Carthaginians defending the city were attacked by three Roman legions. The Carthaginians were proud and brave but they couldn't hold. They were massacred. Arab women stripped them of their tunics and their swords and lances. The soldiers lay naked in the sun. Two thousand years ago. I was here.
Patton: You don't believe me, do you, Brad? You know what the poet said? Through the travail of ages, midst the pomp and toils of war, have I fought and strove and perished countless times upon the star, as if through a glass and darkly the age-old strife I see, where I fought in many guises, many names, but always me.....Do you know who the poet was? .... Me.
Colonel Gaston Bell: General McAuliffe refused a German surrender demand. You know what he said?
Patton: What?
Colonel Gaston Bell: "Nuts!"
Patton: [laughing] Keep them moving, colonel. A man that eloquent has to be saved.
Patton: Rommel's out there somewhere waiting for me.
Jensen: Yes, sir.
Patton: You know, if I had my way, I'd send that genius son of a bitch an engraved invitation in iambic pentameter; a challenge in two stanzas to meet me out there alone in the desert.
Jensen: I'll deliver it.
Patton: Rommel in his tank and me in mine. We'd stop about 20 paces. We'd get out. We'd shake hands. Then we button up and we do battle just the two of us. And that battle would decide the outcome of the war.
Jensen: It's too bad jousting's gone out of style. It's like your poetry, General. It isn't part of the 20th century.
Patton: You're right, Dick. The world grew up. Hell of shame...Dick, I want a 24-hour guard put around this area. If we don't, the damn Arabs will dig them up just to get their clothes. Our graves aren't gonna disappear like everybody else's who's fought here. The Greeks, the Romans, the Cathaginians...God, how I hate the 20th century.
Patton: There's only one proper way for a professional soldier to die: the last bullet of the last battle of the last war.
Patton: This is where it pays off, the training and the discipline. No other outfit in the world could pull out of a winter battle, move a hundred miles, go into a major attack with no rest, no sleep, no hot food. God... God, I'm proud of these men!
Patton: Captain Richard N. Jensen was fine boy, loyal, unselfish, and efficient. I am terribly sorry. There are no coffins here since there is no wood. We will have a trumpeter and an honor guard, but we will not fire the volleys as it make the people think an air raid was one. I enclosed a lock of Dick's hair in a letter to his mother. He was a fine man and a fine officer, and he had no vices. I shall miss him a lot. I can't see the reason such find young men get killed. There are so many battles yet to fight.
General Omar N. Bradley: There's one big difference between you and me, George. I do this job because I've been trained to do it. You do it because you LOVE it.
Translator: Excuse me sir, but General Caskov would like to know whether you'll join him to drink the surrender of Germany.
Patton: My compliments to the General. Please inform him that I do not care to drink with him or any other Russian son of a bitch.
Translator: [Nervous] I can't tell him that!
Patton: You tell him that. Tell him word for word.
Translator: [In Russian] He says he will not drink with you or any Russian son of a bitch.
Russian general: [In Russian] Tell him he is a son of a bitch, too. Now!
Translator: [Very nervous] The General says he thinks you are a son of a bitch, too.
Patton: [laughing] All right, I'll drink to that; one son of a bitch to another.
Capt. Oskar Steiger: Patton, sir, is a military historian. He know that Sicily, not Sardinia, has always been the key to Italy. Patton will attack Sicily at Syracuse at the Athenians did.
Colonel Gen. Jodl: This is the 20th century.
Capt. Oskar Steiger: But you must understand, sir, Patton is a 16th century man.....Don't you see, Patton is a romantic warrior lost in contemporary times. The secret of Patton is the past. He'll urge an attack on Sicily because that's what the Athenians did.
Patton: Now there's another thing I want you to remember. I don't want to get any messages saying that "we are holding our position." We're not holding anything. Let the Hun do that. We are advancing constantly and we're not interested in holding onto anything except the enemy. We're going to hold onto him by the nose and we're going to kick him in the ass. We're going to kick the hell out of him all the time and we're going to go through him like crap through a goose!
Gen. Sir Harold Alexander: You know, George, you'd have made a great Marshal for Napoleon, if you'd lived in the 18th Century.
Patton: Oh, but I did, Sir Alex, I did.
Patton: Now, there's one thing that you men will be able to say when you get back home. And you may thank God for it. Thirty years from now, when you're sitting around your fireside with your grandson on your knee and he asks you, "What did you do in the great World War II," you won't have to say, "Well... I shoveled shit in Louisiana."
Reporter: What about your language, General?
Patton: Well, when I want it to stick, I give it to them loud and dirty. Then they'll remember it.
Reporter #2: What do your troops feel about that, General Patton?
Patton: Damn it, I don't want these men to love me. I want them to fight for me.
Patton: We're gonna keep fighting. Is that CLEAR? We're gonna attack all night, we're gonna attack tomorrow morning. If we are not VICTORIOUS, let no man come back alive!
[after discussing taking Messina before Montgomery]
Bradley: I do know that you’re gambling with the lives of those boys…just so you can beat Montgomery into Messina. And if you pull it off, you’re a big hero, but if you don’t…what happens to them? The ordinary combat soldier. He doesn’t share in your dreams of glory, he’s stuck here. He’s stuck living out every day, day-to-day, with death tugging at his elbow. There’s one big difference between you and me, George. I do this job because I’ve been trained to do it. You do it because…you love it.
Patton: In about fifteen minutes, we're going to start turning these boys into fanatics - razors. They'll lose their fear of the Germans. I only hope to God they never lose their fear of me.
Random soldier: There he goes, “Old Blood and Guts.”
Other soldier: Yeah, our blood. His guts.
Patton: Now, an army is a team - it lives, eats, sleeps, fights as a team. This individuality stuff is a bunch of crap. The bilious bastards who wrote that stuff about individuality for the Saturday Evening Post don't know anything more about real battle than they do about fornicating.
Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery [after arriving in Messina to find Patton is already there]: Don’t smirk, Patton. I shan’t kiss you.
Patton: Pity, because I shaved very close this morning in preparation for getting smacked by you.
Patton: [to Bradley] “Despicable.” That’s the first time in my life anybody ever applied that word to me.
Bradley: Well, at least it’s a personal reprimand, it’s not official.
Patton: The man was yellow. He should’ve been tried for cowardice and shot. My God. Have they forgotten about all the people who’ve taken a hell of a lot worse than a little kick in the pants. I ruffled his pride a little bit. What’s that compared to war?
Patton: [to Lieutenant Colonel Charles R. Codman, on the wasteland of a battlefield, after talking to the tank captain] Look at this, Cod. I love it. God help me I do love it so. I love it more than my life.
The Stanley Rubric:
Legacy: 6.67
Impact/Significance: 9.67
Novelty: 7.33
Classic-ness: 7.33
Rewatchability: 8.33
Audience Score: 8.4 (75% Google, 93% RT)
Total: 47.73
Remaining Questions:
If Patton had been given free reign, would the war have ended earlier?
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