PATTON, YOU MAGNIFICENT BASTARD! I SAW YOUR MOVIE!

I decided to make yesterday “Movies by Dead People” day, and sat down to watch John Huston’s 1940 classic “The Maltese Falcon,” followed by Franklin Schaffer’s 1970 Best Picture-winning “Patton.”

While “The Maltese Falcon” is a great movie, and Humphrey Bogart might be as good in it as in “Casablanca,” I was totally unprepared for “Patton.” It is a technically-magnificent war movie, with battle scenes that are as thrilling as Coppola, Kubrick, or Spielberg’s battle scenes. But “Patton” is also that rarer of jewels—a successful biopic of a famous historical figure. The combination of Francis Coppola’s dense, yet fluid screenplay, and by George C. Scott’s bravest of performances, manages to penetrate the considerably well-armored exterior of its blustery subject, without ever making General George S. Patton into a pansy.

He starts out gruff, hard-nosed, and fiercely determined, standing in front of huge American flag and addressing the audience as if we are soldiers under his command. So many of the shots seem to be of him looking down on us. We find him physically imposing, yet somehow charismatic. We will be brave soldiers, he tells us. When he leads us into battle, we will not disgrace our army or our country.

By the end of the movie, Patton is just as gruff, hard-nosed, and fiercely determined as before. But we have undergone the journey across war-torn Europe with him. We love the big guy now, having lived, and survived, with him.

The film covers Patton at the height of his career, through his fall from glory, and into his resurrection. As Commander of American forces in the European theater during World War II, he matched wits with Rommel, the Nazi’s number one general, and defeated him. I found it really neat that the Americans were already starting to consider Patton a dinosaur, but the Nazis were scared shitless of him. They respected his knowledge of military history. The movie argues that they may have respected it too much.

Rommel anticipated Patton invading Italy through Sicily, based on how the ancient Greeks entered the country the same way. Was it the most effective route to the northeastern corner of Italy, and was it General Patton’s plan? Yes on both counts. However, he ultimately had to scrap the plan in favor of British General Montgomery’s alternate strategy. According to the movie, it’s entirely possible that the Germans might have been more successful in Italy, had the Allies listened to Patton. But Eisenhower needed to keep the Alliance in good standing, so he always let the Brits get the glory, much to his own number one’s consternation.

And so, in one of the movie’s best plot-turns, Patton decides to defy both the British Army and Eisenhower by leading his forces north from Sicily to Palermo, then east, and taking the northeastern corner of Italy before Montgomery’s forces could. Patton worked his soldiers like dogs, and risked their lives to sniper fire and kraut bombers, just so he could show up his British rival. And he succeeded! This sort of ruthlessness and arrogance ultimately led to Ike stripping him of his command (Well, there was also some tiff about his slapping a soldier who suffered from a bad case of nerves.) Ironically, it also illustrated what the Nazis greatly feared about him: His willingness to risk whatever cost to accomplish a military endeavor.

I won’t go too deeply into the other two-thirds of the movie, since it’s something everyone should see. Suffice to say, Patton still wants to kill krauts and japs, but he’s effectively an outcast. Eventually, he gets a shot at redemption when the Americans invade Germany. No longer the supreme commander, he still gets to run the “wing” of the army, the arm that gets to sweep and crush and burn the German countryside. Obviously, Patton is very adept at this job. But the man is a romantic hero, not a mere pillager.

When an airborne unit finds itself cut off and surrounded by Nazi forces, Patton is there to do the impossible: March through a raging blizzard and perilous mountainside in record speed to reach his comrades. At this critical juncture in both the war and his career, Patton doesn’t alienate. He gets up in front of his men and pulls a Henry the Fifth-type speech, which inspires everybody to pull together. For the first time, we realize that all the man’s bluster, when put towards a truly heroic goal, is both damn effective and damn cool. If I had been a soldier in Patton’s unit, I probably would have put the entire mountain on my back and hauled ass through the freezing snow. And I’d have given Hell to those Nazi bastards!

Is it possible to leave this movie thinking Patton is a heartless bastard, rather than a likable guy who had a fatal flaw of hearing nobody’s voice but his own? I didn’t. How could I hold a grudge against someone who thought he was the reincarnation of great generals from ancient times? And this was the supreme commander of American forces! How neat is that? It further illustrates that the man had interesting quirks and depths. But don’t misinterpret the reincarnating angle. Patton wasn’t nutty; he just thought war was his destiny. He had found himself in a position of military authority during the greatest of wars, and figured the reason was inscribed by the heavens. If anything, I see him as a man who made the most of his current situation. He would have been just as happy writing poetry, but not when there was a war going on!

“Patton” is one of those types of movies that never gets made nowadays. It’s a war film, but it emphasizes the heroism and glory of a just war. Soldiers aren’t portrayed as ignoramuses or psychopaths, as they seem to have become since Oliver Stone’s “Platoon.” Like the General himself, “Patton” is a relic of a forgotten time. Like the General, it is bold, dynamic, and unforgettable.