9 / 10
Patton is one of the great American war films. Seen twice across decades. The 9 rating is honest evaluation. Franklin J. Schaffner directing. George C. Scott in the title role. Karl Malden as Omar Bradley. The screenplay co-written by Francis Ford Coppola and Edmund H. North. Won seven Academy Awards including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, and Best Original Screenplay. Scott famously refused his award. 172 minutes documenting General George S. Patton’s North Africa, Sicily, and France campaigns. The opening speech in front of the giant American flag became one of cinema’s most quoted sequences.
The Setup
The film opens with George S. Patton (George C. Scott) delivering a speech to his troops before an unspecified upcoming operation. He stands before an enormous American flag in dress uniform. He speaks for approximately seven minutes. The speech mixes profanity, patriotism, military theory, and personal philosophy. The audience meets Patton through the speech before the film provides any narrative context.
The narrative begins in February 1943 at Kasserine Pass in Tunisia. American forces have suffered a severe defeat. Patton takes command of II Corps and reorganizes it. The discipline he imposes restores combat effectiveness. He drives the corps through the rest of the North African campaign. The Allied victory in Tunisia clears the path for the invasion of Sicily.
The film documents Patton’s career across Sicily, the political consequences of the soldier-slapping incidents, his exile to a deception command in England during the run-up to D-Day, his return to combat as commander of the U.S. Third Army, the breakout through France, the Battle of the Bulge, and the eventual race to Berlin that ended with Patton stopping at the Elbe River. The runtime is patient. The film documents both the military accomplishments and the personal compromises.
The Opening Speech
The opening speech is the film’s most studied sequence. George C. Scott delivers approximately seven minutes of material in front of an enormous American flag. The camera holds on him through most of the speech. He speaks the language of the actual Patton. Scott did extensive research on Patton’s speaking style, accent, and physical mannerisms. The performance is part impersonation and part interpretation.
The speech is composite. The actual Patton delivered multiple speeches to his troops across the war. The screenplay combines material from several documented speeches into a single sequence. Some phrases come directly from documented Patton statements. Other phrases were written by Coppola and North to convey the spirit of Patton’s rhetoric. The audience receives the speech as the character’s introduction without knowing which lines are historical and which are dramatic license.
The speech is also the film’s clearest statement about Patton’s contradictions. He praises courage and condemns cowardice. He celebrates American military culture and the killing required to win wars. He speaks of God and shit in the same sentences. He compares battle to professional athletics and to religious devotion. The contradictions are the character. The speech sets up the entire film. The man delivering this speech is the man who will be capable of everything that follows.
For Writers
The Patton opening speech shows how to introduce a complex character through a single extended monologue. The speech runs seven minutes. The film does not provide any narrative context before or during the speech. The audience meets Patton through his rhetoric and reaches conclusions about him before the plot begins. The lesson for writers is that character can be established through performance rather than through plot. If your character has a strong distinctive voice, you can let the voice do the introduction work. The audience does not need to be told what to think about the character. The audience can listen and decide. The Patton opening trusts the audience to absorb the contradictions without being walked through them. Most films would have provided expository setup. Patton refused.
The George C. Scott Performance
George C. Scott plays Patton at the peak of his career. The performance won the Academy Award for Best Actor. Scott refused the award. He had refused his earlier nomination for The Hustler (1961) for Best Supporting Actor. He believed competitive acting awards damaged the profession by reducing artistic work to commercial competition. The refusal was consistent with his prior position rather than a one-time protest.
The performance is the film. Scott understood that Patton’s contradictions could not be played as confusion. They had to be played as fully integrated personality. The man who slaps soldiers for combat fatigue is the same man who weeps at the dedication of Allied cemeteries. Scott does not signal between these states. He plays them as the same person responding to different stimuli. The integration is what makes the performance one of cinema’s greatest character studies.
Scott’s physical work supports the performance. He approximated Patton’s actual voice through extensive research. He wore Patton’s uniform style and his ivory-handled pistols. He learned Patton’s reading and writing routines. He spoke the languages Patton spoke (French and Latin appear in the film). The total commitment to inhabiting the historical figure exceeded what most actors of his era attempted. The performance has aged into the definitive cinematic depiction of an American general.
The Karl Malden Performance
Karl Malden plays General Omar Bradley as Patton’s professional opposite. Bradley is calm, deliberate, and politically astute where Patton is volatile and undiplomatic. The two officers were classmates at West Point but had moved through different command tracks during the interwar period. Bradley was reserved by personality and conventional by temperament. Patton was theatrical and unconventional. The contrast between them is the film’s central professional dynamic.
Malden plays Bradley with appropriate restraint. The performance is small in comparison to Scott’s. The smallness is the point. Bradley is the kind of officer who succeeds by not drawing attention to himself. Patton is the kind of officer who succeeds by drawing all the attention to himself. Both approaches produced successful careers. Patton became a household name. Bradley became Chief of Staff of the Army and was promoted to five-star General of the Army. The film does not condescend to either officer.
Malden’s broader career included A Streetcar Named Desire (1951), where he won Best Supporting Actor, and On the Waterfront (1954), where he was nominated. Patton is one of his strongest later roles. The performance does not require theatrical fireworks. The performance requires the disciplined restraint that anchors Scott’s volcanic Patton in plausible institutional context.
The Soldier-Slapping Incidents
The film documents two soldier-slapping incidents that nearly ended Patton’s career. In Sicily in 1943, Patton struck two soldiers hospitalized for combat fatigue. He called them cowards. He threatened to shoot them. The incidents were reported through journalist Drew Pearson. The resulting scandal led to Patton being relieved of field command and assigned to a deception command in England.
The film treats the incidents seriously rather than minimizing them. Scott plays Patton’s slapping with full commitment. The audience sees the rage rather than a sanitized version. The audience also sees the eventual consequence. Patton has to formally apologize to the soldiers and to his entire command. The apology is shown. The humiliation is shown. The film refuses to soften Patton’s worst behavior or his subsequent accountability for it.
The treatment is one of the film’s clearest achievements. Most biographical war films of the 1970 period would have either omitted the slapping incidents or treated them as misunderstandings. Patton documents them as documented historical events with serious institutional consequences. The audience receives Patton as a complete person rather than as a celebrated figure with the inconvenient parts removed.
The Francis Ford Coppola Screenplay
Francis Ford Coppola co-wrote the screenplay with Edmund H. North. Coppola was a young screenwriter at the time. He had not yet directed The Godfather (1972). The Patton assignment came from his work on You’re a Big Boy Now (1966) and his collaboration with Roger Corman. The Twentieth Century Fox studio paid him approximately $50,000 for the screenplay. The fee was modest by 1970 standards but significant for a writer at his career stage.
Coppola’s contribution included the opening speech and the broader structural decision to use Patton’s military philosophy as the film’s organizing principle. The film documents the historical events from Patton’s perspective rather than from a neutral documentary perspective. The structural choice is what gives the film its specific dramatic energy. The audience is inside Patton’s understanding of the war rather than watching the war from outside.
The screenplay won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay (the basis for the award category was research-based original work rather than direct adaptation from a single book). The screenplay drew on Ladislas Farago’s biography Patton: Ordeal and Triumph and on A Soldier’s Story by Omar Bradley himself. The combination of sources produced a screenplay that was both historically informed and dramatically structured. Coppola subsequently directed The Godfather. The Patton screenplay was his career breakthrough.
The Franklin Schaffner Direction
Franklin Schaffner came to Patton after Planet of the Apes (1968). His broader filmography includes The Best Man (1964), Papillon (1973), and various other productions. Schaffner was a competent commercial filmmaker rather than an auteur. The Patton assignment rewarded his particular discipline. The film required disciplined handling of a difficult subject with a difficult lead actor.
The direction is patient and unobtrusive. The camera holds on Scott during the major performance sequences. The combat sequences are clean rather than spectacular. The location work is functional. Schaffner does not impose a visual style on the material. The material itself provides the visual interest. The choice is correct for the production. A more stylized director would have damaged the film by competing with the performances.
The production filmed across multiple European locations. Spain doubled for various North African and European settings. The Spanish army provided period equipment and extras. The cooperation supported the realism that became the film’s signature. The production economy was significant. The film was made for approximately $12 million in 1970 dollars. It made approximately $61 million at the box office. The financial return was substantial.
For Writers
Patton refuses to soften its subject’s worst behavior. The soldier-slapping incidents are documented as documented historical events. The personal arrogance is shown. The political failures are shown. The professional brilliance is shown alongside all of it. The film does not ask the audience to forgive or condemn. The film asks the audience to receive the complete person. The lesson for writers is that biographical fiction works better when it refuses to choose between celebration and condemnation. If your subject is celebrated, your fiction has to include the flaws that complicated the celebration. If your subject is condemned, your fiction has to include the achievements that produced the celebration to begin with. Patton holds both meanings simultaneously across 172 minutes. The discipline required is enormous. The discipline produces the best biographical war film America has made.
The Cold War Context
The film was released in 1970, during the height of opposition to the Vietnam War. The choice to celebrate a flag-waving World War II general was politically charged. The film was received differently by different audiences. Vietnam War supporters embraced Patton as a model of American military virtue. Vietnam War opponents read the film as critique of military culture rather than as celebration. The film accommodates both readings.
The dual readability is the screenplay’s most lasting achievement. Coppola and North wrote a film that celebrates Patton’s military effectiveness while documenting the personal and political costs of his approach. Audiences who wanted celebration found celebration. Audiences who wanted critique found critique. The film is one of the cleaner examples of a work that operates as both endorsement and indictment of its subject.
President Nixon was an enthusiastic supporter of the film. He watched Patton multiple times during the planning for the Cambodia invasion in 1970. The widely reported viewings produced specific cultural commentary about whether the film had influenced military policy. The implication was overstated. Nixon admired Patton as character but did not derive operational decisions from the film. The cultural moment remains as evidence of how the film operated in 1970 American politics.
The Ending
The film closes with Patton at the end of the European war. He has reached the Elbe River and stopped per orders. The Russian army is approaching from the east. Patton wants to keep going. He believes the Soviet Union will be the next enemy and that the moment to defeat them is before they consolidate their occupation of Eastern Europe. He is overruled. The war is over. Patton’s command is being demobilized.
The closing voice-over is Patton’s. He reflects on Roman generals returning from successful campaigns. The triumphal march. The slave whispering “all glory is fleeting” into the general’s ear. The historical reference is the film’s argument about Patton himself. The glory was fleeting. Patton died in a car accident in Germany on December 21, 1945, approximately eight months after the European war ended. He never returned to the United States in triumph. The voice-over closes the film on his understanding of his own situation.
The actual Patton’s death is not depicted in the film. The closing voice-over and the historical reference let the audience supply the knowledge. Audiences who know Patton’s biographical fate read the ending as foreshadowing of his death. Audiences who do not know the biographical fate read the ending as professional reflection on aging out of a career. Both readings are correct. The film accommodates both.
Craft: One Of The Great American War Films
Craft Note
Patton operates at peak across multiple departments. The George C. Scott Academy Award-winning performance is one of cinema’s great character studies. The Karl Malden supporting work anchors the institutional context. The Coppola-North screenplay won the Academy Award and remains studied as biographical adaptation. The Franklin Schaffner direction is disciplined and unobtrusive. The Jerry Goldsmith score with the famous Patton main theme has become one of cinema’s recognized military themes.
The film won seven Academy Awards including Best Picture and Best Director. The sweep was substantial. The recognition was earned. The film’s reputation has aged into one of the strongest American war films and one of the strongest biographical films of any genre. Subsequent productions including Saving Private Ryan (1998) and Band of Brothers (2001) owe structural debts to Patton’s approach to the European theater.
The 9 rating reflects honest evaluation. The film does not reach 10 because the pacing in some middle sequences reflects 1970 conventions that have been compressed by subsequent filmmaking, and the celebration of military culture has aged in complicated ways. The structural and performance achievements remain undeniable. The film is essential viewing for anyone interested in war cinema, in biographical adaptation, or in George C. Scott’s career.
The Verdict
A 9. Patton is one of the great American war films. George C. Scott in his Academy Award-winning role. Karl Malden as Omar Bradley. Coppola and North’s Academy Award-winning screenplay. Franklin Schaffner directing. 172 minutes documenting Patton’s North Africa, Sicily, and France campaigns. The opening speech in front of the giant American flag. Seven Academy Awards including Best Picture. The film belongs in any serious war cinema conversation.
FAQ
Did George C. Scott really refuse the Academy Award?
Yes. Scott had refused his earlier nomination for The Hustler (1961) for Best Supporting Actor. He believed competitive acting awards damaged the profession by reducing artistic work to commercial competition. The Patton refusal was consistent with his prior position rather than a one-time protest. The Academy still recorded him as the winner.
How accurate is the opening speech?
Composite. The screenplay combines material from several documented Patton speeches into a single sequence. Some phrases come directly from documented Patton statements. Other phrases were written by Coppola and North to convey the spirit of Patton’s rhetoric. The audience receives the speech as character introduction without knowing which lines are historical.
What were the soldier-slapping incidents?
In Sicily in 1943, Patton struck two soldiers hospitalized for combat fatigue. He called them cowards. He threatened to shoot them. The incidents were reported through journalist Drew Pearson. The resulting scandal led to Patton being relieved of field command and assigned to a deception command in England during the run-up to D-Day. The film documents both incidents seriously.
How does Karl Malden’s performance work?
Malden plays Bradley with restraint that contrasts with Scott’s theatrical Patton. Bradley is the kind of officer who succeeds by not drawing attention to himself. Patton is the kind of officer who succeeds by drawing all the attention to himself. The contrast between them is the film’s central professional dynamic. Malden anchors Scott in plausible institutional context.
How does Francis Ford Coppola fit in?
Coppola co-wrote the screenplay with Edmund H. North before he directed The Godfather (1972). The Patton screenplay was his career breakthrough. He was paid approximately $50,000 for the work. The screenplay won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. The opening speech was Coppola’s specific contribution.
How did the film fit in 1970 American politics?
The film was released during the height of opposition to the Vietnam War. The film accommodates both pro-war and anti-war readings. Audiences who wanted celebration found celebration. Audiences who wanted critique found critique. President Nixon watched the film multiple times during planning for the Cambodia invasion. The cultural moment remains as evidence of how the film operated in 1970 politics.
How did Patton die?
Car accident in Germany on December 21, 1945, approximately eight months after the European war ended. He was 60. He was being driven by a young sergeant when a truck collided with their vehicle. He was the only person seriously injured. He died 12 days later from complications. The film does not depict his death directly. The closing voice-over and the historical reference let the audience supply the knowledge.
How does Jerry Goldsmith’s score work?
The main Patton theme uses a trumpet triplet motif that has become one of cinema’s most recognized military themes. The theme appears throughout the film at appropriate moments. Goldsmith’s broader career included Chinatown (1974), Alien (1979), The Omen (1976), and dozens of other productions. The Patton theme remains one of his most identifiable compositions.
Should I watch this if I do not normally watch war films?
Yes. Patton is essential viewing for anyone interested in biographical adaptation, in George C. Scott’s career, or in films that handle complicated historical figures honestly. The performance work alone justifies the viewing. The structural achievement of holding celebration and critique simultaneously is rare.