The film showed an often overlooked, ugly, but nonetheless true aspect of Humanity: some of our greatest heroes, those who have reached the heights of power and prestige, who have accomplished mighty things, are not always the nicest of people.
It is one of American culture’s greatest weaknesses: we put our heroes upon marble pillars and insist that they be saints, and then act all outraged when they turn out to be flawed (and sometimes deeply so) human beings.
A point Patton illustrates very well.
In spite of his successes on the battlefield, he was held to a standard of behavior almost inimical to his nature, the very nature that made him such a hell-fire battle commander.
The Germans, for all the evil they perpetrated on the world during that period, were not physical cowards. They were tough, experienced combat veterans with pretty damned good equipment.
And of all the battle commander the Allies had arrayed against the Third Reich, Patton was one of the few who had them really worried.
Right, they were never sure what the crazy bastard was going to do next.
The movie plays up the strong contrast with Bradley, a humble, methodical mand who was just as fine a general but without the personality disorders (disorders even for a combat commander) that arguably made Patton as much of a problem as an asset for the overall Allied effort. His insubordination about the Sicily-invasion strategy was a prime example.
I once met one of Patton’s staff officers. He was long retired, obviously. I asked him what Patton was like. He said, “He was the greatest fighting general in US history.” I asked what he was like as a person. He paused a second and then said, “He had a really, really nice wife.”
I am almost completely uninterested in all things military (I really can’t overstress how uninterested in the military I am), and I loved this film. It is simply a very, very good film, and I strongly recommend everyone spend three hours of their life watching it. It is worthy.
It would be tough to support based on his success rate and miles per casualty rate. It was usually the Generals that moved slowly and dig in that had the heavy and often senseless losses.
The movie is very good and also historicaly accurate. I also liked the ending-where the german staff officer predicts that Patton will fall apart when the war is over.
Patton obviously enjoyed being a general-and probably wished that the war lasted a few more years.
I wonder how he would have written his memoirs?
Well we know he was and would have continued to agitate to roll into the Soviet Union or at least the Eastern Block. He would have done anything possible to get assigned to Korea or ended up in Politics trying to get the nod as the Republican candidate in '52.
His memoirs probably would have tried to justify his less beloved acts, but I doubt he would have simply glossed over them or pulled any punches.
I worked with a guy that served under Patton in Sicily and Italy in the War. He really respected “that damn son of a bitch”. He said he would rather have been in Patton’s army then any other.
George C. Scott won the Oscar for best actor (and, incidentally, he refused the nomination AND the award because he rejected the notion he was in competition with other actors). The film also won the Oscar for best art direction/set direction, best director, best film editing, best sound, best screenplay, best cinematography, best special effects, and best original score. Oh, it also won best picture.
Scott won the Oscar for Patton. Whether one likes or doesn’t like Patton the man the portrayal is damn near perfect. Watch the movie!
I do remember Oscar night that year. Scott wasn’t there as he didn’t like the Academy Awards. Goldie Hawn was the presenter for Best Actor, and she almost did a parody of herself as she opened the envelope. Her eyes went very wide and she squealed “Oh my *God *it’s George C. Scott!”
Well-known but probably apocryphal story: Some old military man, while watching the movie, kept frowning. Afterward, somebody asked him what he thought. He said the actor who played Bradley bugged him. Why? he was asked. Because they got George Patton to play himself, why not the other guy too?
(Believability of this anecdote depends, of course, on our accepting that the guy never heard about Patton and the truck.)
I wonder how different WWII might have gone if a certain incident had happened slightly differently.
Eisenhower tells a story in a book he wrote, Stories I Tell Friends, of how he and Patton were standing by while a truck, or some other large vehicle, was being towed up a hill by a metal cable. The taut cable broke and one end snapped through the air close enough to the two generals that the whoosh of it’s passage could be felt on their faces. They missed being decapitated together by inches.
First of all, the blu ray transfer is perfect. The cinematography was amazing.
I didn’t like the man Patton that Scott portrayed. However, Scott’s acting was perfect. I believed he was the character.
