Patton

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"Patton" earned 10 Academy Award nominations, winning Best Picture, Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Actor, Best Art/Set Decoration, Best Film Editing, and Best Sound. There was no nomination for Best Actress, though, because the only women in this 1970 film are lineless nurses scuttling about and a correspondent briefly doing her job. Yet, if there's a war film aside from a romantic affair like "From Here to Eternity" that will appeal to women as well as men, it's this one. That's because the focus is on the man himself, rather than war, and Patton's determination to win comes across in much the same way as it might in a sports biopic or one of the old biographies of musicians or scientists. In every case, the underlying question that hooks us is the same: What is it that makes a flawed but great person the stuff of history, rather than an ordinary wayfarer in life like the rest of us? That question is so much a part of "Patton" that even at 172 minutes the film never seems to drag.

It all starts with the script, the first draft of which was penned by none other than Francis Ford Coppola, who did extensive research but could not secure the cooperation of the Patton family. That's why this epic portrait doesn't include a single scene depicting Patton's personal life. But we still learn a lot about this flamboyant character. He not only studied ancient military history, he believed in reincarnation and felt that he'd participated in many of those early battles. He was a brilliant but traditional military tactician who was also a showboater. Like Gen. Douglas MacArthur, his American counterpart in the Pacific, he had the kind of gigantic ego that drove him to seek headlines and newsreel cameras as much as victory.

In one of the roles that he seemed born to play, George C. Scott turns in a bravura performance as the pearl-handled revolver-carrying general who came into prominence when he was given command of the U.S. II Corps and, with British Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery, drove the Germans out of North Africa. Then came the campaign in Sicily and a subsequent slapping incident that almost ended his career. But his value to the Allies was such that an apology was all that came of it. Patton would go on to lead the U.S. Third Army during the late stages of Operation Cobra in Normandy, then race to fight the Battle of the Bulge against German forces under Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt. According to some historians, Patton's U.S. Third Army was responsible for more than 50 percent of all German casualties from Normandy through the Battle of the Bulge, and Coppola's initial script and Scott's performance both capture the complexities of Patton's personality. Patton was not a popular man, and this is no whitewash. As many of Patton's flaws are depicted as the traits that made him so successful.

There's one scene where Patton meets with the British to complain about the lack of air support for his troops, and is basically told that the air space has been secured. The next breath, a Messerschmitt shows up and drops a bomb on the building. When it returns to strafe the village, Patton had hopped out the window and was standing in the middle of the dirt road, pistol out, shouting and shooting at the pilot. On one of the bonus features, we see Gen. Omar Bradley's aide on-camera talking about that scene, which, he says, was completely fabricated. But, he adds, even though it all happened so quickly that no one had time to react, it was something Patton would have done. Bradley himself was brought onboard as the film's technical advisor, and as the film establishes, Bradley was as close to Patton as anyone.

This Blu-ray version of the film comes with an introduction by Coppola, who tells how he was fired from the picture because of the now-famous opening scene that has Patton walking onstage in front of an enormous American flag and addressing the audience as if they were his troops. Coppola patched together snippets of Patton's speeches and sayings to construct that opening, which even Scott hated, because he felt that if it came at the beginning it might be difficult for him to create a character that could live up to this patchwork credo of Patton's. But ironically the scene stayed, and it's one of the distinctive things that set "Patton" apart from other war films and indeed put the focus squarely on the man. Aside from Scott and Karl Malden as Gen. Bradley, few others get much air time or focus. Mostly, this is a limited star vehicle with an ensemble cast. Faces come and go, but it's Scott's we see in almost every frame, and it's to Scott's credit that we don't tire of him.

That's not to say that this war movie is devoid of action. There's plenty, but because it's not the focus, we get the feeling that it's largely atmospheric and situational, a way to remind us of Patton's role. Almost as much attention is paid to non-battle skirmishes--the arguments that can make or break a proposed campaign. Filmed largely in Spain, "Patton" offers convincing locations and special effects to go with a make-up job that turned Scott into a virtual look-alike. His performance of the ultra-competitive general really carries this film, and so it's ironic that Scott refused to accept the award because he thought that awards created a competition among actors that turned them into a "meat parade." In retrospect, though John Wayne campaigned for the part and was turned down, and Rod Steiger, Lee Marvin, Robert Mitchum and Burt Lancaster all reportedly were offered the part but said no, it's impossible to think of anyone but Scott as the tempestuous leader, and "Patton" remains one of the best war movies of all time.

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