PATTON
Directed by: Franklin Shaffner
Written by: Francis Ford Coppola, Edmund H. North
Starring: George C. Scott, Karl Malden
Released: I970

“Besides war, every other human endeavor fades to insignificance”, says General George Patton (George C. Scott), gesturing to a road of roaring tanks on the move in Patton. Being an ambitious general, he knows that only by the human calamity called war, can his career be fulfilled. Patton was lucky in this way; as a general, he got in on the last two conflicts in human affairs where an all-out fight might be called heroic, or at least victorious. Technology has now made wars so dangerous to humans that they've gone away for the most part; the operations now called wars being called sideshows in Patton’s day.

Films haven’t really covered warmaking for many years – since WWII in fact, barring a few exceptions every year. Like the real thing, war films of the past have had a habit of eating up money. Gone are the days when the film Spartacus could rent the Spanish army to imitate Rome’s legionaries. At the time of the filming of Patton, the Vietnam conflict had made war into a dirty word, so the film has a schizo quality - is he a hero or war criminal?

What’s on the screen is George C. Scott in his son-of-a-gun mode as the WWII American General George Patton; he even looks just like the original. Patton was a man very sure of his importance, came from a rich family, sought competitive attention in the Olympics of I9I2 and the I9I6 Mexican Expedition and ran the tank corps for the Yanks in the Great War (WWI) with distinction, all the while worrying that a bullet was coming right for his head. The inter-war years were tough on Patton and he spent much of them in rich-man sports such as polo and yachting. World War II arrived like a godsend, and he was soon training tank armies in the Mojave Desert.

Beginning with a classic six-minute speech by Patton about the fighting spirit of Americans, the film first builds him up as a man-on-a-mission, then switches to nutball-on-a-mission, our nutball-on-a-mission. He was a warrior, the kind of attack dog you keep chained-up in the basement in peacetime. But comes a war with an aggressive enemy, and you look around nervously to see if he’s on the job. He’s the pittbull you use to hose their pittbull. His line about his men, "My men will lose their fear of the Germans, I only hope they'll never lose their fear of me." The men have a line about him, "They call him blood-and-guts, his guts - our blood.

The few battle scenes are pretty pathetic, but Patton’s first WWII victories, after American defeats to Germany's Afrika Korps at the Kasserine Pass in North Africa, are reenacted for WWII buffs. But by that time the Allies were reading the German's wireless messages, so Patton's genius, like Monty's, is in doubt. Also some nice scenes of authentic looking Luftwaffe planes strafing Patton’s headquarters; Patton blasting away at them with a handgun; then on to Sicily, and a lot of business about beating Monty (the British) to Messina.

The best kept secret of the “Allies” other than Enigma (breaking the German code) was that the Americans and the British High Commands didn’t get along; it was a shotgun marriage, forged by Churchill, because the UK badly needed the Yanks. So the film has a lot of business about Patton’s competitive hatred of the British General Montgomery. On another front, there are even some touches of homoeroticism thrown in, as when he kisses some wounded on the battlefield. It’s all pretty thin stuff, but cheaper to film than battle scenes. All this mucking about proves that the private life of most generals is not that interesting.

The thematic centerpiece of the film has Patton slapping a shell-shocked soldier and berating him in front of the staff of the hospital. This real historical incident was reported in the newspapers at the time, so it couldn't be covered up. When General Eisenhower learned of the incident, he ordered Patton to make amends, after which Patton apologized to the soldier and to all those present at the time; the film shows him apologizing to his army. He was relieved of duty and almost didn’t get back into the war, but pittbulls are needed in war.

Patton is an above average war movie guy flick, no love interests. It’s a stage to showcase the talents of George C. Scott, who some say was also a difficult person; anyhow he won the Best Actor Oscar for this one. A nice match of actor to original makes this film an interesting character study.


Note:
(a) Actress Marleine Dietrich claimed she acted as a one-woman German welcoming committee to all the Allied top brass of WWII.



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