Patton

original title:
Patton
other titles:
Blood and Guts, Patton: A Salute to a Rebel, (Patton - Rebell in Uniform)
country / year of production:
USA / 1969
original length:
171 min. , color
premiere:
4 February 1970, New York City
genre:
history film
based on:
Ladislas Farago. Patton: Ordeal and Triumph. New York: I. Obolensky, 1963.

Omar N. Bradley. A Soldier's Story. New York: Holt, 1951.
director:
Franklin J. Schaffner
film script:
Francis Ford Coppola , Edmund H. North
producer:
Frank McCarthy
cinematographer:
Fred J. Koenekamp
editor:
Hugh S. Fowler
composer:
Jerry Goldsmith
cast (role):
George C. Scott (General George S. Patton Jr.) , Karl Malden (Gen. Omar N. Bradley) , Karl Michael Vogler (Field Marshal Erwin Rommel) , Michael Bates (Field Marshal Sir Bernard Law Montgomery) , Ed Binns (Maj. Gen. Walter Bedell Smith) , George C. Scott , Karl Malden , Karl Michael Vogler , Michael Bates , Ed Binns
more:
plot synopsis:
A bio-pic on a difficult hero: General George S. Patton, famous tank commander of World War II. Patton’s first assignment is in North Africa where US troops suffered a mayor defeat by Rommel’s Africa Corps. Patton introduces some reforms, reinstalls strict discipline and wins the next battle. To his disappointment he must learn that Rommel was in Berlin during the battle, the duel with his favorite adversary has to be postponed.
His next mission is the invasion of Sicily where he outwits Montgomery and reaches Messina and Palermo before the British can. On Sicily his carrer almost comes to an end: when visiting a hospital he loses his temper and slaps and verbally abuses two soldiers suffering from shell-shock and battle fatigue because he thinks they are only feigning. The army therefore relieves him of his duties. During the next months prior to the Normandy invasion Patton holds public speeches as commander of the ficticious First Army, as part of the Allied deception.
After the invasion he is given back a command post. As head of the Thrid Army he fights his way through France and onto German territory. Here again, Patton is driven by his personal rivalery with Rommel and his ambition to advance faster than Montgomery, often pushing his troops to their limit.
Numerous side plots illustrate Patton's difficult character, his at times uncontrolable temper and habit towards insubordination. His contempt for diplomacy, eventually, leads to his being relieved as Occupation Commander of Germany.
keywords:
based on a true story , tanks , desert , invasion , authenticity
war:
Second World War (1939-1945)
literature:
Lawrence H. Suid. Guts & Glory. The making of the American military image in Film. Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 2002, 260-77.
remarks:
Was nominated for ten Academy Awards in 1971, of which it won seven.

For producer Frank McCarthy this project was a labour of love. During the war as secretary of the Army Chief of Staff, General Marshall, he had met General Patton personally. He not only considered him the most successful field commander of the US army but also "very theatrical and very flamboyant (... with) severall Achilles heels". In other word an ideal character for a movie.
But before he could start the project, his patience was put to an extreme test. For 19 years he argued and negociated with the Patton family and the Defense Department. For a long time, the family refuses to support the film, fearing that Patton would be portrayed as a "coarse, cursing, nosepicking, belching, gorilla of a man" (daughter Ruth Totten), who occasionally would slapped his subordinates. The Department of Defense in turn hesitated to pick up the project without the family's explicit permission, fearing legal difficulties.
At the beginning of the 60ies Washington retreated even further because of the support given to another gigantic production "The Longest Day".

Over the years Spencer Tracy, Burt Lancaster, Robert Mitchum, Rod Steiger, Lee Marvin and John Wayne were in discussion for the title role, before eventually George S. Scott was casted. Studio boss Daryll Zanuck proposed Scott after having seen ihm "The Bible", hidden behind Abraham's beard.

The first script version was written by a young graduate from UCLA film school: Francis Ford Coppola. Edmund North worked on the final version, which was approved by the Department of Defense in less than five weeks.
Two scenes of the original version were deleted: one that showed Patton inspecting a death camp, a famous scene from a newsreel, as well as North's concluding scene, in which the camera moved up and back from Patton's grave on the American war cemetry in Luxembourg, finally including the graves of all 6.000 graves of the Third Army. Studio boss Zanuck considered this ending too downbeat.

Of the total costs of $12,5 million $6 million went to the Spanish military for personell and material for the large-scale battle scenes.

The film was shot in Pamplona, Almeira and Segovia in Spain, Patton's landing on Sicily was reenacted on the beaches of Crete.
availability:
VHS, DVD, CD