The Ultimate Warrior, By George

Rating: 8/10 (25 March 2005)

Like many Americans, George C. Scott had divided feelings about George S. Patton. In an interview with Rex Reed shortly after "Patton" came out, Scott called the general a homicidal madman. Yet later Scott spoke of his deep admiration for the World War II commander and his warrior mettle, and even returned to play the character again 16 years later in a mawkishly eulogizing TV miniseries, "The Last Days Of Patton."
Both the great and the nasty Patton are up on the screen in Scott's original, 1970 portrayal. The result is one of the finest one-man shows in Hollywood history. Just the scowl on his face as he first appears, in front of a giant American flag that sets a scene both patriotic and slyly satirical, is an assay of theatrical command, one that builds by shadings and degrees as the film progresses.
"Patton" derives much of its dramatic tension not from war scenes or arguments, but its central character's inner turmoil. Patton was a student of military history so enamored of the past he claimed to have been reincarnated "across the travail of ages." Yet he was also a dynamic tactician of the era's most advanced form of combat, armored warfare. He could schmooze his superiors in cultured French, but was prone to childish tantrums. He demanded unquestioned loyalty, but had a hard time following orders when his own grabs for glory were overruled.
A lot of the tension here comes from the audience wondering if Patton is going to lose it in this or that scene and blow a chance at the brass ring. Sometimes he does, sometimes he doesn't, and sometimes, as with a speech he innocently delivers to some English ladies, he is undone in a way he can't be blamed for. Patton is presented to us as a sick man ("by God I love it so" he says of war at one point), but a necessary one, rated so highly by his German opponents that their high command withholds valuable troops from the front thinking Patton's about to attack them far to the rear in Calais.
Through the first two hours of the three-hour movie, we often see Patton at his worst, for example putting entire regiments in danger just so he can beat Monty to Messina. But the film subtly manipulates us to side with "ole Blood and Guts" despite his faults. When he slaps a soldier, it comes right after a tender moment with Patton decorating a grievously wounded GI. He clashes with his superior Gen. Eisenhower, but the film shows this in the form of arguments between Patton and Ike's brusque envoy Bedell Smith rather than Eisenhower himself, who had just passed away in 1969 and who would have made a less likely target of audience antipathy.
The last hour is kind of glorious resolution, the "Ordeal and Triumph" which was the title of one of the film's source books. Patton plows through France and single-handedly wins the Battle of the Bulge for an encore. The fact that this is historically accurate makes it easier to appreciate and rally around, along with Scott's subtle shadings of humor (he eases back on the gas and lightens up) and a score by Jerry Goldsmith which is one of the great movie themes of its era and should have gotten the film its ninth Oscar.
I'm less sold on the rest of the film, especially the actors around Scott. They are stiff and wooden. A couple are quite bad. The only recognizable actor other than Scott, Karl Malden, plays a stolid and dull counterpart to Patton in Gen. Omar Bradley, too nice to be believable. I guess since the real Bradley was working on the film as "senior military adviser," it was hard for Malden to play it up more.
Clearly Scott wasn't likewise inhibited. The result gives us an excuse to sit back and watch one of America's most gifted actors breathe life into one of its most brilliant and conflicted generals, and offer quiet thanks there are really guys like crazy George steeling the martial mettle of our liberal democracy. You wouldn't like Patton much if he lived next door to you, but you'd be glad for him in the tank beside your foxhole.