A Reel 50: PATTON

“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.”

This month marks the 50^th anniversary of PATTON. 

Winner of seven Academy Awards including Best Picture, PATTON today is considered to be one of the greatest war films ever made. Directed by Franklin G. Schaffner from a script by Francis Ford Coppola (of THE GODFATHER fame) and Edmund H. North, the film was one-half war story and one-half biography of General George S. Patton…one of history’s most influential, successful, and controversial leaders during World War II. 

Based in part on the biography Patton: Ordeal and Triumph by Ladislas Farago, and General Omar Bradley’s memoir, PATTON began his march to the big screen as far back as 1953. The Patton family was approached by producers for help in making the film, seeking access to Patton’s diaries (Patton died in 1945). Unfortunately, the producers contacted the family the day after his wife, Beatrice Ayer Patton had passed away…and the family declined to assist in the making of the film. This left screenwriters Coppola and North to base the script on Farago’s biography and Bradley’s memoir. 

Liberties were taken for dramatic effect, and the script relied heavily on Bradley’s recollections of Patton to reconstruct his thoughts and motives. The film’s iconic opening, which was a loose recreation of Patton’s historic series of speeches to the Third Army in 1944, was toned down due to language, and took elements from each speech. 

The role of Patton would go to George C. Scott. A successful Broadway actor, Scott’s highest profile role at the time was in the Stanley Kubrick war-satire DR. STRANGELOVE. Scott researched extensively for the film, studying films of Patton and talking to those who knew him. Filming took place over 71 locations in six countries, mostly in Spain. The score was provided by prolific composer Jerry Goldsmith. 

PATTON was well-received. At the 43^rd Academy Awards, it would take home Best Picture, along with Best Actor for Scott, Best Director for Schaffner, along with Best Screenplay, Editing, Sound, and Art Direction. Scott would decline his Oscar, becoming the first in history to do so. Over time, PATTON would earn more accolades; in 2006, the Writers Guild of America ranked Coppola and North’s screenplay as the 94^th best of all time. The American Film Institute ranks it as the 89^th greatest of all time, and the character of Patton as #29 on their list of cinema heroes.             

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As a wee-lad, General Patton had a presence in our household. Dad was a dedicated admirer of the man, having read several times Patton’s autobiography War as I Knew It. 

Patton’s philosophy of grabbing your enemy by the nose and kicking them in the ass fell in line with dad and the generation he grew up in, so War as I Knew It and PATTON became required reading and viewing. This Blogger spent more than one Sunday afternoon watching the film with dad, and aside from Patton’s blood-and-guts attitude, there were, and still are deeper lessons to be found. Resilience and determination made the General tick; two elemental keys to victory in the face of any enemy, problem, or dire situation. Patton himself used wars of the past as a basis for his own strategies, teaching us that history can provide us with what we need to overcome. 

“If mountain ranges and oceans can be overcome, then anything built by man can be overcome.”