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Our Columnists Reflect on Oscar's Best Films |
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"PATTON" |
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 That's Gordon Greb emerging from the hatch of a tank during World War II, checking his watch to make sure he's not late for his appointment to be chewed out by Gen. George C. Patton. |
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20th Century-Fox/1970 Directed by Franklin Schaffner with George C. Scott, Karl Malden |
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"Patton" celebrated a controversial war hero
of TheColumnists.com
“Patton”
is one of the best war propaganda films Hollywood ever made.
If the Pentagon ever needs more recruits, they should get this
film out of the vaults, blow off the dust, and show it widely
to the young.
What this docudrama teaches is that to win a war America needs
a “blood and guts” commander, a man who isn’t
afraid of leading his own men into battle. Gen. George C. Patton
was just such a man, so who wouldn’t follow him straight
into Hell? It was typical of Patton to say, “War! God, I
love it!”
This is a beautifully filmed, nearly three-hour feature film,
which was made principally by men who were veterans of World
War II. A few knew Patton personally, others were aware of him
at the time. The picture’s battle scenes showing GIs fighting
Germans from North Africa to Bastogne were filmed in Spain, using
troops from that country in American uniforms and equipment.
With George C. Scott brilliantly playing the title role, the
film is essentially a biography of Patton, the war hero, showing
warts and all. Scott actually served four years in the Marine
Corps and Karl Malden, who portrays Gen. Omar Bradley, served
three years in the Air Corps. Screen director Franklin J. Schaffner
was a naval officer in North Africa and Europe, then served with
the OSS in India, Burma and China.
Of the film’s two writers, Francis Ford Coppola, born in
l939, was too young to have served but his co-author, former
Maj. Edmund H. North of the Signal Corp, was in uniform making
training films during the conflict. They lifted incidents out
of Bradley’s memoir and Ladislas Farago’s biography
of Patton. The picture was one of President Richard Nixon’s
favorite films and he watched it frequently during the conflict
in Vietnam and Cambodia.
General Patton took over the Second Corps after its humiliating
defeat at Kasserine Pass in early l943 and turned the young Americans
under his command into battle-hardened soldiers in a hurry. U.S.
fighting tanks were small, light and fast but no match against
German Panzers which had 88mm. guns. But Patton was able to punish
Rommel’s heavy tanks with his hidden artillery in their
next engagement and the morale of GIs rose after that. When any
nation needs to win a conventional war, this is how you do it.
"Patton" begins the way God created the universe. When
the theater lights darken and you’re ready to see the title
and credits, you suddenly hear a loud “word” booming
from the sound track -- “Attent-shut!” – which
has brought some Army Camp soldier audiences smartly to their
feet. A few seconds later the big screen shows General George
S. Patton standing on a stage all by himself. With George C.
Scott the actor in the title role, we learn in an instant by
his voice and demeanor that here is a general you don't ignore
when he's speaking up.
Stepping forward in front of a huge American flag, Patton is
ramrod straight in combat uniform (helmet, sidearm, and boots,
and his fatigue coat fully decked out with medals) and we in
the audience feel as though we’re back in World War II amongst
the troops about to be led into battle.
The General’s words are straight-forward and profane against
the enemy.
“Men," he bellows, "all this stuff you've heard
about Americans not wanting to fight, wanting to stay out of
the war, is a lot of horse dung.”
It undoubtedly irked Patton that the British
were still dubious of American fighting skills as late as l944.
Sir Harold Alexander charged that American troops lacked the
proper fighting temperament and would be “quite useless”
in the European Theater of Operations.
But Patton had a different take.
“Americans traditionally love to fight," he said. "All
real Americans love the sting of battle… Americans play
to win all the time. I wouldn't give a hoot in hell for a man
who lost and laughed. That's why Americans have never lost, and
will never lose a war... because the very thought of losing is
hateful to Americans…”
Soon Patton will take these men across the channel into France,
to attack and break out of the German defenses surrounding Normandy,
and with his gung-ho tankers start racing pell-mell for Berlin.
When the Krauts tried a counter offensive in the winter of l944
and trapped American units in a Battle of the Bulge, Patton swung
his huge Third Army around--12 divisions and 150,000 or more
men--to come to their rescue.
Before leaving England he had told his men: “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.”
When George C. Scott learned he stood a good chance of winning
the Best Actor Award, he announced he would refuse to accept
it, claiming the entire affair was a “meat” parade.
Scott refused to show up, told a friend to go on stage to take
it but to return it to the Academy the next day. No one quite
understood Scott’s rationale, though the Oscar winner continued
to refuse other awards as well.
Producer Frank McCarthy, a retired brigadier general, accepted
the Best Picture Award. He had served as an aide to General George
C. Marshall during the war and he donated his Oscar to be displayed
at the Virginia Military Institute from which he had graduated.
The Best Director Oscar went to gifted Franklin J. Schaffner,
who won early directing honors in television (Studio One, Playhouse
90) before moving to the big screen in Hollywood.
Taking the Best Screen Writing Oscar were two men who were not
only writers but also producers and directors themselves–Francis
Ford Coppola, a film school alum of UCLA and Edmund H. North,
grad of the Culver Military Academy. Coppola would direct, just
two years later, one of the most popular and most honored films
of all time, "The Godfather." That and its 1974 sequel,
"The Godfather--Part Two," both won the Best Picture
Oscar for their years.
With Oscars also being earned for Best Film Editing, Best Sound,
and Best Art and Set direction, one wonders why Academy members
failed to grant an Oscar to Jerry Goldsmith for composing its
haunting theme music. It was nominated.
When I saw this picture in l970, it took me back to my own days
as an ordinary Army private, training at armored forces school
at Fort Knox, Kentucky. We learned to salute, recite the General
Orders from memory, and march sharply in close order drill. We
ate dust and dirt as we crawled, climbed, jumped, or ran from
morning till night. When we weren’t marching to music by
John Phillip Souza played on the PA system, we were deafened
by constantly firing our own weapons on the range.
One day we were taught how to shoot .45 mm revolvers, M-1 rifles
or machine guns and the next day we were instructing others how
to do it. We got into a tank to learn how to rotate and fire
the .37 mm cannon at a moving target. It was early spring of
1943 and we were being readied to join Patton’s combat troops
in North Africa.
We were fresh-faced kids out of college or high school. Halfway
through basic training we were called out to parade one day before
President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who had come down from Washington,
D.C. to see what his citizen army could do. The hopes of the
president and the country rested on us. We had been given a job
to do. It was to “kill or be killed.”
After all my training I never actually joined Patton overseas.
When American and British forces won a sudden victory, Germany’s
North Africa Corps surrendered, Rommel flew home to take charge
of German's Fortress Europe, and the U.S. Army decided to use
me in other ways.
When the war ended and cartoonist Bill Mauldin of the Stars and
Stripes came to Fort Dix, N.J. to be discharged, I was the camp
newspaper editor . I asked him about meeting Patton. Mauldin
laughed and said he couldn’t add anything, saying his opinions
about the four-star general were pretty well known. They actually
were negative.
War veteran and author Paul Fussell today doesn’t hesitate
to express his attitude. He was commissioned an infantry officer,
saw combat in France and Germany, and was present when Patton
gave his famous fighting speech to the troops in England. Fussell
muttered to other GIs around him, “What an asshole.”
Fussell, now an emeritus literature professor at the University
of Pennsylvania, does not glorify Patton or war in any of his
books.
General Sherman, whose Union Army devastated the South during
the Civil War, ripping the countryside to shreds and burning
Atlanta on the way, spoke on the subject of war in l879 before
the Michigan Military Academy, saying, “I am tired and sick
of war. Its glory is all moonshine…War is hell.” If
Patton and Sherman were alive today, we could probably hear them
give us a pretty good debate on the subject.
Meanwhile, the great movie "Patton" does an exemplary job of showing one of our most admired--and hated--military leaders putting his philosophy of war to work in decisive action on the battlefront.
©2008 by Gordon Greb. The photo illustration is courtesy of 20th Century Fox. This column first posted Feb. 18, 2008.
OTHER 1970 BEST PICTURE NOMINEES: "Airport," "Five Easy Pieces," "Love Story," "MASH."
OSCAR TRIVIA: Producer Frank McCarthy had been trying to interest a movie studio in making a movie biography of George Patton since 1951, but no interest was shown until 20th Century Fox finally saw it as a major film for 1970...Patton competed in the 1912 Olympic Games in Stockholm in the first moden pentathlon competition...In 1916, Patton was an aide to Gen. J.J. Pershing during his pursuit of Pancho Villa in Mexico...George C.Scott reprised his role of Gen. Patton in a three-hour 1986 TV movie "The Last Days of Patton. The film was directed by veteran Delbert Mann, Oscar-winning director of "Marty" (1955).
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