Hello guys i have some movie suggestions for you..."TAPS"(Timothy Hutton/sean penn/tom cruise/george c scott)..."Toy Soldiers"(lou gosset jr/will wheaton)..."Maverick"(mel gibson/jodi foster/james garner)..."A Bridge too Far"(sean connery/gene hackman/robert redford and many more)..."Space Cowboys"(clint eastwood/tommy lee jones/donald sutherland/james garner)..."Basic"(john travolta/samuel jackson)...have a great day guys..
Kilroy was one of early pre-internet memes. James J. Kilroy was a shipyard inspector who'd inspect ships as they were being built, making sure welds were up to code and all. He'd mark his inspections by writing "Kilroy was here". Troops shipping over to Europe would find these writings all over the ships in various places and they started writing them everywhere they went, almost competing for the weirdest places they could write them. As new troops would come, they'd just find these writings everywhere they went, wondering who this mysterious Kilroy was who had been everywhere.
Actually, Kilroy was the message-Chad was the face peering over the wall. He was British-a popular Chad had him saying “Wot? No engine?” on the side of glider aircraft. 4:26
George C. Scott won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance, but he declined it, citing a dislike of the voting process and the concept of acting competitions. He was the first actor to do so.
My Father was a Sergeant with the 101st at Bastogne. My Uncle, his brother was a corporal with Patton's 3rd Army. They met in Bastogne and hugged for the first time in 3 years. For the rest of their lives, every time they got together, My Uncle would talk about how Patton saved the 101st and my Father would argue that the 101st didn't need saving.
My Grandfather (Bill Morgan) was also in the 101st, 506th..i think. He was dropped on D-day, Operation Market garden and Bastogne. It would be really cool if your father and my grandfather knew each other? After the war, Bill had 3 kids and became postmaster in his town. he passed away in the mid 90's. I miss him till this day.
They all read Percy Hobart's books and articles about armored tactics. Hobart was that mix of lunatic and genius that isn't understood by most during his time, but most successful people who come after them trace their successes back to them. He was effectively kicked out of the British army a few times because of both his lack of social skills and respect for rank, and the fact he had no desire to learn any.
@@Darnakas The title of the book shown (Tank attacks) seems to be a mix between Guderian's "Achtung Panzer" and Rommel's "Infanterie Attacks", both released in 1937 (in German)
It was one of the greatest prayers in history. For that day God heard that chaplain and the good lord did his part as he always does in the endless war against evil here on Earth. Remember God will never solve all our problems. He simply offers a helping hand to those wise enough to recognize it.
Interesting enough there was questions about the accident that killed Patton and comparisons to the death of Rommel in a car crash shortly before the end of the war. Rommel died from cyanide poisoning but the official explanation was injuries suffered in a crash. The big problem that Patton had was a deep belief that the safety of the USA depended on us conquering the USSR and he felt that our best chance to do so with minimal fuss was to just go through Germany and roll into Russia while we had the troops there anyway. The book that Rommel wrote about tank warfare was written in between WWI and WWII while the military was still trying to figure out how to best utilize tanks. He was considered to be one of the architects of how to utilize tanks on the battlefield and as they said he wrote the book on it. If you haven’t watched it yet you should check out The Longest Day and the movie called The Battle of the Bulge. Both good movies in the same style as this one.
@@stevedavis5704 Battle of the Bulge is a terrrrrrible movie. Doesn't stick to the history any way. It's an ok action/generic war flick, but that's about it.
I was a Corporal of Marines in Desert Storm. Its hard to describe the awful majesty of war. But I witnessed it. The power that is displayed and used is staggering. I drove a machinist van with no brakes at 60mph to the kuwaiti minefields with 3 lanes of vehicles on my left and right. All carrying weapons and racing to the battle. It was the a legendary moment in my life. War has a terrible attraction to men that I think Patton really understood. Its horrible that you love it.
I am in the Royal Navy and your expression “it was the legendary moment of my life” resonates with me in a way I find hard to explain. There are moments when I’ve found myself watching the ships that I’ve done the replenishment plans for sailing in the North Sea and Atlantic and it’s been just me and the experience and nobody else.
Some men take their attraction to war so far as to make of it a game or sport. History shows us that leaders of this kind are a renewable resource indeed. 🤔
In WWI, it was called Shell Shock, WWII it was Battle Fatigue. This movie portrays a time before we had much understanding of what is now Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome. "First Blood" really brought to the forefront that PTSD could affect even the best & bravest soldiers.
On the "through the glass, darkly" bit when Patton was discussing the dead Carthaginians, he wasn't just recounting history. Patton believed deeply in reincarnation, and that he had lived, and died, many times in the past as soldiers in various empires. When he talks about the carts in the snow, he's referencing what he thought as his own memories as a French officer under Napoleon.
I had an uncle who stopped Patton's jeep once on Sicily. They gave each other the "big" salute. My uncle loved him. The speech he gave was taken for pieces of speeches he gave to his troops. Patton suffered from dyslexia. He did not learn how to read until he was around 9. He had a high pitched voice that he hated. Follow up by watching The Last ten Days of Patton. Being almost hit by the oxcart in this movie was a foreshadowed his death.
True about the dyslexia. In tbe early 1970's,.there was an elderly retired Army brigadier general who took walks around the neighborhood. According to my dad, he was Patton's roommate at West Point. I was just a kid, so I didn't really have any intelligent questions to ask him, but I did ask him about Patton. General Gage said, that Patton had to work very hard to study, because he had "trouble reading". He also said, that he was tough & often got into fights.
My Father was a Sergeant with the 101st at Bastogne. My Uncle, his brother was a corporal with Patton's 3rd Army. They met in Bastogne and hugged for the first time in 3 years. For the rest of their lives, every time they got together, My Uncle would talk about how Patton saved the 101st and my Father would argue that the 101st didn't need saving.
That scene really did happen in real life minus Patton jumping out the window and shooting at the German planes, from my understanding it was a low altitude strafing and bombing run by the Germans and was over in seconds so no timings. He really did say something to the effect of wanting to give each of those guys a medal for proving his point.
Actually, he visited Sweden twice, first during the 1912 Olympics and then in november 1945. The then Swedish Army Chief of Staff Archibald Douglas threw a dinner for him. He also met with the Swedish pentathlon team he competed against in 1912. One week after he returned from Sweden he had the car accident...
He shot in Marksman competition. They scored him down for not seeing all the bullet holes on target. He claims and maybe true, that "'...the bullet they didn't score went thru the same bulls-eye hole of earlier bullet."
George S Patton also pretty much "invented" the US Army's first "armored division" when he and a buddy outfitted a vehicle with a mounted machine gun and went off-road chasing Pancho Villa all over the northern Mexico desert😅😅
He competed in modern pentathlon, which involves 5 events: of fencing, freestyle swimming, equestrian show jumping, pistol shooting, and cross country running. They are the skills that a 19th century soldier would need. They sport is still done in current Olympics.
Patton was legitimately in what's considered the last Wild West Gunfight. When the US chased after Pancho Villa under General Black Jack Pershing's command, Patton was a young aide to the general but still carried his Ivory Handled Colt revolver with him. He shows up on this street and ends up running into (while they were on horse back) 3 of Villa's leaders, including his second in command. They had a straight up gunfight 3x1 in the street as they charged past Patton. Patton killed one, mortally wounded the Second in Command and missed the third man. He did not take a scratch. This plays into his inability to understand ShellShock/PTSD. For Patton, who had supreme self courage, he couldn't conceive of being so worn down by battle that you shut off. It just was not in the real of possibility for that man. He was just the kind of person that was born for conflict. He couldn't imagine himself living in a peaceful world, as tragic as that thought is. At the end of the war he so mistrusted the Soviets that he wanted to take the German Soldiers and equipment and turn it on the Soviets and destroy them.
President Roosevelt & Winston Churchill toyed with a similar idea during the war when Himmler approached the Americans & British via diplomatic channels via Sweden...Himmler's proposal was to take Hitler down and stop the war in western Europe but keep fighting the Soviets and this was before FDR & Winston found out what a murderous guy Himmler was.
and he should've. He spoke out on the war and said they made a mistake in taking out Germany and should've went after the Bolsheviks. “We have destroyed what could have been a good race of people [Germans] and we are about to replace them with mongolian savages and all of Europe with communism” He was killed December 1945
I read a book about Patton some years ago. One anecdote caught my attention. When it hit the news that Patton had died, some Marines on the other side of the world lifted a toast to him, calling him the greatest Marine that the Army ever produced.
Authentic in that it's real people performing real actions, sure. But even by 1970, most authentic WW2 equipment was either retired, scrapped, destroyed, or just inoperable. The tanks in this film are not the M3 Lee and M4 Sherman models used in World War 2, but are instead M47 and M48 Patton tanks created after WW2. There are tons of anachronisms in the film; a film critic might say this a deliberate choice to accentuate the theme of Patton being an anachronism, but no, it's just a practical reality due to the scarcity of the authentic equipment available at time of filming.
@@terpfen There were however plenty of M4 Sherman tanks still in existence and still serving in various militaries around the world even in 1970. Quite a number of (modified---) Shermans saw battle in the 1967 Arab-Israeli War. So I am thinking the producers could have secured a number of them for "Patton".
@@williamjpellas0314 Not by time of filming in 1969. Much of the film was shot in Francoist Spain, which had a good number of US WW2 surplus vehicles that were loaned to production, but still not the M3 Lee or M4 Sherman tanks. They simply weren't available for film production, and thus weren't used.
"Tora, Tora, Tora" was a great movie and I've often wondered where they got all those Jap Zeroes and torpedo planes. When they first fly over Hawaii, you can see the shadows on the ground so it wasn't early CGI. Even the P-40s on the ground being bombed were realistic. One more... the superstructure of the battleships looks concurrent with the time. A real nice job.@@terpfen
My uncle was on Patton's staff as his map keeper. He love his General and always cried about his death. His favorite story was three days before the battle of the budge, he told his staff he believed the Germans were going to attack and to work out multiple counter attacks. He knew his job.
An amazing film, many epic moments and the opening scene is iconic. My grandfather (Dutch and tasked with doing German paperwork on the eastern part of the Netherlands) learned they were probably going to be transported soon deeper into Germany and potentially sent to labor camps. He was able to fake the appearance of a nasty toothache and abscess, as the Dutch were still generally issued weekend travel papers for medical issues. The Friday night travelled west to go see a Dutch dentist, Saturday talked his way further west past checkpoints using his pass. Then Sunday/Monday he snuck as far west as he could. He hid out and luckily Patton’s forces pushed the line over where he was hiding. He was then taken prisoner by the U.S. and quickly released. As he was in parts of the Netherlands he did not know, nor had anyone to contact he just stayed around the American troops. A doctor at a hospital eventually put him to work talking to the injured Dutch people, they eventually gave him other duties to do (basic medical aid). Several weeks later Patton was going through the field hospital area and he my grandfather was asked by Patton why he wasn’t in uniform. He said he was a Dutch prisoner and he had no place to go so he kept doing what the soldiers told him to do. And Patton told officer something like “my god man get this man a job then”. He was appointed to assist several other medical teams until they discovered he was actually an accountant. Eventually they put my grandfather on to supply duties in the now post-war recovery groups. Eventually after about a year he found out that they allowed people to serve officially in reconstruction and get paid. After doing that for a period of time he was able to sign up for a program that allowed him to travel to the United States where he became an auditor in the GAO for many many years.
On December 9, Patton was on a pheasant hunt when his car was hit by a US Army truck. Patton sustained a cervical compression fracture and complained that he couldn't move and had trouble breathing. He was placed in traction, to relieve the pressure on his spinal cord, but died on December 21, 1945.
Old guy here. My Dad was in the same type campaigns. He started in North Africa, then to Sicily, then to Italy, France, and eventually to Germany where he was part of the US Occupation after Germany surrendered. He took me to see this movie when I was seven years old in the theater, at the time of its release - 1970
My dad served under Patton from the landings in Morocco to the battles to take Messina and said the General would frequently just show up eat with his men and asked their opinions on what was going on in their battles, delivery of supplies, etc., and he had a lower casualty rate than any other American general in the war. Even the parents of the soldier who got slapped wrote him a supportive letter. The decoy act worked! Hitler kept his main defensive divisions at Calais instead of Normandy. Another fantastic George C. Scott movie was "A Christmas Carol," released in 1984 where he did the best Ebenezer Scrooge of all time.
Oddly enough General Patton is a bit of a hero in Plzen, Czech Republic. There's a monument to him, museum, America Square and America street. Every year there's a thank you America festival, as well. General Patton liberated Plzen from the Germans., and the Czechs never forgot...
The speech at the beginning of the movie was a real event. Patton gave that speech to the 7th Army the night before they landed in Africa. Up until then, the US Army had only been training in Louisiana. All the big Generals, like Patton, served in WW1 with General Pershing and his aide who was the current Commander of the Joint Chief of Staff [Marshall] for the then War Department which later became the Department of Defense, General Marshall. This was the night before the start of Operation Torch landing in North Africa. Thank you. This speech is in Patton's book.
It wasn’t given to Seventh Army. The speech was given extemporaneously off notes to various formations of the Third Army during training in 1944. Patton gave different versions to different groups, and different people were present and took separate notes, so the movie’s speech is stitched together from those various sources.
I was honored to meet Patton's son (Maj. Gen. George S. Patton IV) and grandson (who was my age) around 1972 when the son was Commandant of Fort Knox. Looked exactly like his father, tall and fit. They both enjoyed the movie. Patton performed brilliantly in WWI, there is much printed history about that. He and Ike were very close, and together learned much of their craft under Gen. Fox Connor in Panama between the wars. Patton was a genius of logistics and also showmanship, which was exceptionally useful in the US Army in WWII in the time of newsreels. He regularly rode vehicles towards the front, keeping as visible as possible, then flew in scout planes back to HQ. He was superb in picking great staff. And the relief of Bastogne was nothing less than a miracle.
My grandfather served on Patton’s staff from when he was in France through the end of the European war. He always told me that while all movies take liberties for dramatic effect, he thought they did a really good job with this one. Even 50 years later, it was clear to me that my grandfather took Patton’s premature death really hard after spending a lot of time with him, and he also probably would have gone on to have an outsized influence on the Korean War. There are number of excellent WWII movies that don’t get enough attention today. Patton is one, and others such as The Longest Day, Midway, Judgement at Nuremberg, Midway, Tora! Tora! Tora!, Das Boot and The Bridge at Remagen are well worth a watch. If you haven’t watched those, prioritize The Longest Day (1962) and Judgement at Nuremberg (1961).
I read somewhere that Patton believed he was the reincarnation of Agamemnon. Great Generals always studied the battle plans of other great generals from the past, as they believed this would ultimately help them in winning decisive battles.
I’m so happy that you watched this film! As ever, a highly intelligent, sensitive reaction. You’re exactly right, this is essentially a character piece.
The decoy move worked so well that Hitler himself held up reinforcements to Normandy long enough for the Allies to reinforce their position and land enough supplies to sustain the offensive. The 101st denies that they needed to be rescued, but Patton's breakthrough into Bastogne allow wounded to be evacuated and much needed supplies to be rushed in. I say there is enough glory for the heroism of both groups.
This movie is like a tragedy. A misunderstood general that wanted to fight for glory and immortality like Napoleon or Hannibal, his only fear being the possibility of missing out the war. In the end the only person that understood him was a german officer and they never managed to meet each other
Say what you will about Patton's idiosyncracies, but for decades after WW2, American troops would tell stories about charging with Patton. No foot soldier ever really bragged about getting orders from Bradley, Eisenhower, Montgomery, or any other general.
@@charlize1253 British soldiers bragged about serving under Monty. He was much loved. He was also far more successful than Patton. In fact, Monty was the most successful Western Allied General in the ETO.
@@RandomStuff-he7lu I've read dozens of books about WW2, and I've never heard anyone say Monty was the "most successful" Allied commander. In Normandy, the Brits were the last to achieve its D-Day objectives of all the allies, only taking some objectives 6 weeks after they were supposed to be seized on D-Day. Operation Market-Garden, his plan, was so absurd (move multiple tank divisions hundreds of miles along a single one-lane road with only paratroopers to seize five critical bridges, and expect it all to stay on a tight schedule) that when the Germans captured a copy of the plan, they thought it must be a decoy, and it resulted in the mass surrender of the British 1st Airborne Division in Arnhem. During the Battle of the Bulge, the first orders he gave were to retreat, and the only reason the German attack rapidly fell behind schedule and stalled was because of mass disobedience of his orders by American officers and troops who stayed and fought in place. When Monty then gave an interview to a reporter taking credit for the Bulge anyway, Churchill personally went to Parliament and gave a speech correcting the record to acknowledge that American troops stopped the German advance. I don't know how anyone could call this "successful."
I had a grandfather who served in Patton's 3rd Army who fought during the Battle of the Bulge, and had the frostbitten feet to prove it! Patton was one of the best American military commanders of his time, but he had no fan club amongst the higher ups, especially general Marshall who was the joint chiefs of staff at the time. He did everything possible to let Patton know how much he didn't care for him or his command style, including promoting Eisenhower above him in rank, and using the slapping incident as his wedge to degrade him and deprive Patton of the one thing he lived for, combat. It was a real shame, given Patton's prowess as a tactician and battle historian. Yes, he didn't know when to keep his mouth shut, but as always, there's a method to the madness.
It's also well known that Patton was a virulent racist whiich both Bradly and Marshall despised. I would say he was actually kind of overrated as a commancer, he was good at straegy but he wasn't good at outside the box thinking.
@@cvonbarron Patton had contemporary views of race relations and kept them passively in his journals; he never acted on his prejudice. In actuality, he racially integrated Third Army when official US Army policy was to keep troops racially segregated, such as with the case of the 761st Tank Battalion. His orderly, Sgt William Meeks, was black and was with Patton the entire war. For Patton's funeral, his widow removed Walter Bedell Smith as a pallbearer and put Meeks in Smith's place. As for outside the box thinking, all US Army leaders were indoctrinated in Field Service Regulations 1923, which basically made Ulysses Grant's 1864 Wilderness campaign tactics the official doctrine of the US Army. This basically meant that the US Army still fought as if it was WW1; they would mass firepower on a target and then send in the infantry after the explosions stopped. Patton innovated the use of combined arms, the cooperation of air, infantry, armor, artillery, and all other available units, to either destroy the enemy without having to send in infantry, or to hold the enemy on the defensive and send more units further ahead to continue the advance. He arguably innovated the entire concept of tactical air control, know today as TACP, by putting radios in his armor that could communicate with air assets and direct their attacks against specific targets in the field without needing to plan and launch specific missions, saving hours and days of time. Patton was a brilliant commander who did not fit in the increasingly politicized US Army, and was simply disregarded and ignored when combat ended. That is a reflection on Eisenhower and Marshall, not Patton.
My Father was a Sergeant with the 101st at Bastogne. My Uncle, his brother was a corporal with Patton's 3rd Army. They met in Bastogne and hugged for the first time in 3 years. For the rest of their lives, every time they got together, My Uncle would talk about how Patton saved the 101st and my Father would argue that the 101st didn't need saving.
Jerry Goldsmith wrote the score. One of several collaborations with director Franklin J Schafner. He decided to evoque Patton's obsession with reincarnation by using in the main theme a trumpet playing a triplet of notes with an echo chamber. Brilliant.
Was watching an old Perry Mason TV rerun from 1958 one day & that Patton tune was playing when Perry visited a client at a Naval Base. Come to find out, Jerry Goldsmith worked on the Perry Mason series for a long time and one day, he was asked to come up with an original military tune so the producer wouldn't have to pay royalties to other composer.
Jerry Goldsmith also wrote a good deal of the soundtracks for the Star Trek franchise. If you recall ST2: The Wrath of Khan, when Khan was speaking about his rule "on Earth, two hundred years ago, I was a prince..." - you could hear the trumpet triplet behind him...
One of the biggest differences between Patton and Bradley was that Bradley went into battle, hoping not to lose while Patton went into battle to win. Bradley was a solid general but in many ways too concerned about his men, which many times led to slow grinding actions that led to perhaps fewer losses in each battle but meant that his men had to fight more battles.
The thing about the slapping incident in Sicily is that it was actually quite a bit worse than what the movie shows. There were actually two soldiers that he slapped, one a pre-war regular army soldier, the other a draftee. Both men had excellent records as soldiers, however both had just recently seen several of their friends killed in the previous days. Both men had been sent by their commanding officers back to the hospitals to rest, recognizing that they needed to get away from the front. Patton actually threatened to shoot one of them with his revolver, and it was only the quick thinking of the hospital staff that prevented that from happening. Afterwards, when Patton apologized, quite a few soldiers did forgive, but almost just as many did not. One man simply was quoted as saying "we despise him (Patton)." I actually saw a documentary on the fighting in Sicily that talked about the incident, and one of the veterans interviewed stated that he still had not forgiven Patton for the incident.
Finally! We get to the untouched movies that are overlooked by so many. Like Patton, Bridge Over the River Kwai, Sgt York, The Green Berets, Papillon, and more recent one's like The Secret Life of Walter Mitty.
My uncle served under Patton from North Africa until the end of the war. He said everything you read and hear about him is true. He was very proud of having served under him. He drove tanks and half tracks.
George C. Scott reprised his role as Patton in the sequel, made for television movie called "The Last Days of Patton". It covered his last few months including the auto accident and attempts to save him.
This movie was filmed in Spain. You may notice that @ 6:35 you hear a woman calling out "Oiga !" - Spanish for "listen" or "look here." A minor blooper in the movie (since, if Patton was in North Africa, the natives would be speaking Arabic). The Spanish army also assisted with production by having their soldiers dressed as the Germans. Apparently, this was something they did routinely for films.
Imagine being 11 years old and watching this on a big screen. My father was a marine in the South Pacific in WWII , so I guess I was raised to be impressed by this.
George C. Scott's performance was phenomenal! It was so powerful that a lot of people (myself included) thought that the real Patton sounded like that. I was floored to find out that Patton's actual voice was piercingly high pitched! One of my all-time favorite war movies!
Patton's belief that he'd lived many lives as a warrior is one of the most fascinating things about him. He was eccentric & quite a character but that particular belief doesn't necessarily mean crazy. Three of the most intelligent, well-educated, accomplished & sanest people I've ever known consider Reincarnation a very real possibility. They have strong, valid reasons to feel that way. As do I. As do millions of people around the world (including more people here in the Western world than would've before). It's a very interesting subject & the more you learn about history & philosophy, the more open-minded you become. Thanks for reacting to such a classic film. I was a kid when it came out & I remember all the talk about it & the Oscars. One of the best war movies ever. Pretty educational too. 💙✨️💙✨️💙✨️💙✨️💙✨️💙✨️💙✨️💙
So glad you guys covered this movie! Still one of my all-time favorites: great script, great acting, and great action. Patton was a man born too late. He had an old-school fighting mentality, which is why he firmly believed he was reincarnated from ancient warriors. As a result, he said and did imperious things that an ancient leader could get away with. He couldn't adjust to the new sensitivities of modern times. In the new Army, you had to be empathetic to people and, at his rank, as much a politician as a military strategist - skills Patton lacked. He could win battles and lead men, but his self-confessed ego and competitiveness made him many enemies along the way. Enemies that took delight in taking him down a peg whenever the opportunity arose. Also, the media loves controversy and Patton served it up to them. Which caused his superiors to come down on him, even though he was a superbly talented general. My great-Uncle served in the 1st Armored Division in North Africa under the inept Gen. Fredendall who was replaced by Patton, as depicted at the beginning of this movie. Unfortunately, my Uncle was killed in the Battle of Kasserine Pass on Valentine's Day, 1943. He was posthumously awarded a Silver Star for valor in battle. Patton arrived less than one month after his death. I wonder if he would have lived longer had Patton been leading him instead?
That was my Dads boss in WWII! He fought in the 4th Armored Division, 66th Armored Field Artillery Battalion where he severed as a scout. He fought from the time the 3rd Army broke out from Normandy, northern France, the Battle of the Bulge, Central Germany, stopping to help liberate the Buchenwald concentration camp and ended the war in Czechoslovakia. He was in review with Patton several times and said that he had such a command presence that the hair stood up on his arms. He also said that this movie is as close to Patton as you can get. Except for his voice, Patton had kind of high, squeaky voice, not like George C. Scott's. And yes, a lot of his men said that they hated him but wouldn't fight for any other general in WWII!
I think Patton meant "he was there" because he studied those battles. He emersed himself in them so much that he actually felt as if he was there and was able to understand the tatics, real time decisions, counters, and situations that arose from them. He was also able to see the results of those actions....ie win here and lose there. Which was the greater victory? Awesome man and movie!
Yes, that movie had a superb cast. I liked Henry Fonda as Colonel Kiley up there in his little Piper Cub, trying to reconnoiter the German forces though all that winter fog.
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His book on Armour tactics was never released in his lifetime,he was still working on it in 1943,after the African campaign.His book on Infantry tactics,however,was published in 1937.
What during World War II was called 'Shell Shock' or 'Battlefield Fatigue' is known in modern day as PTSD. There was little understanding of the mental tolls soldiers worked under 70 or 80 years ago.
Ever hear George Carlin's routine about "soft language?" He complained that as we moved from Shell Shock to Battle Fatigue and onto Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome all we got were fancier and more clinical words that experts and TV reporters could bandy about but that nobody spent adequate effort treating it.
The opening scene, Oscar! When he talks to his commander about going hand to hand....so brutal. A unit across the quad from mine, 1/27 Wolfhounds, was in the last major sized battle that went hand to hand. That battalion went up against a BRIGADE sized unit of Chinese and North Korean soldiers.
Interesting but it doesn't sound accurate. The Tet Offensive in 1968 definitely went to hand-to-hand fighting in urban combat and it had a huge number of NVA and Viet Cong against the Americans.
In fact the real Patton decided that the best way to compensate for his not-deep voice was to swear profusely (despite the whole “But he prays firmly in his knees” deal).
You guys really have no peers among the reaction channels. I've stopped watching all the others; they bore me, but you guys have such good observational talent and intelligence and really delve into the films.
Kudos to you guys for reacting to a truly wonderful movie that no one else seems to know exists. George C. Scott gives one of the great performances in cinematic history!
I literally grew up watching Patton, Kelly's Heroes, Bridge on RIver Kwai, Big Red 1, Massacre at Fort Holman, Tora Tora Tora so many others this just brought memories. My late dad fought in Burma (Myanmar) with the British as part of the Royal West African forces, Nigeria like many African former colonies that participated. Hence the war movies in the household. I remember the cupboard with odd medals and trinkets long lost now. This brings back many heart warming buried memories. Thank you
Patton was relieved for a couple of reasons, but not so much because of the slapping incidents: He started the California/Arizona Maneuvering Area (also known as the Desert Training Center) to train tank crews, and also, he was made commander of an imaginary armoured division as a decoy, prior to the D-Day invasion, to draw all the attention of the German army away from the planned landing zones. However, once the invasion was over, they took the leash off of him.
Patton got in trouble during his governorship of Bavaria because he felt that it was better to have ex-Nazis run the postwar bureaucracy in Bavaria, since they at least already had some experience in keeping the lights on, as it were...some felt it was being too generous to the very Germans we just got done fighting, although he countered that he thought his job was to beat the Wehrmacht, not denazify the whole country...and after an argument with Ike, he was relieved of command. The alleged coversation about going after the Red Army (and making it look like an accident) does not appear to be accurate...or at least it was not obstensibly the reason he got relieved. Of our combat generals, Patton was often lauded as one of our best...but he wasn't necessarily a great post war governor, basically because he didn't know how to play politics. Ironically, Gen. Douglas MacArthur in the Pacific was less known for his battlefield exploits, and he was often criticized for making some bad strategic decisions during the defense of the Phillipines early in WW2...but he was an AMAZING post-war governor in Japan, and great credit should be given to him for helping Japan recover and rebuild from the war. Japan is now a vital ally in the Pacific, with a stable democratically-elected govt. And of course the one thing BOTH generals had in common: massive egos lol
I wish more people would act to this movie. It is a gem that few look into. interesting fact, Patton had staff whose only duty was to see to his cigars. He traveled with multiple humidors loaded with cigars and their job was to make sure those cigars were well taken care of.
The scene in the hospital tent when George C. Scott is awarding medals to the wounded soldiers is my favorite scene. It honestly makes me cry every time. That scene along with a scene in MacArthur (1977) and a well known scene in The Lion King (1994) always makes me turn on the water works.
The german role of Hauptmann (Captain) Steiger, the guy who analyzed Patton, was played by Siegried Rauch; a well known german actor. Also he played with Steve McQueen in the 1970's 'Le Mans', in 1979 'Escape to Athena' next to Roger Moore - Telly Savalas and David Niven and finally in 'The Big Red One' with Lee Marvin and Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker)!
Patton was killed when a truck hit his car while still in the ETO. He survived the impact with, i beleive, a broken neck. They bolted his head to a head board but he died a few days later.
My Father was a Stanford Graduate, and a B-17 Navigator, over Germany. North Africa. He did live in the 18th century. The movie was based on the early 1940s.
Awesome review as always. PATTON is a classic film of the "New Hollywood" and still holds up as a masterpiece of acting and mise-en-scene. Thank you for presenting the film in its original Panavision aspect ratio!
This movie brings up an unique element I forgot since I last watched this movie (thanks to George C. Scott): WWII had some of the most egotistical/narcissistic generals of any modern war, and dare I say, the wars of old. In *"Ike: An American Hero", author Michael Korda* writes about all of the constant egos that Eisenhower had to deal with and wrangle in just to keep people on the same page. Each general under Ike had their own ambition(s) of immortality. It was constant, and damn near more frustrating than the war itself because of what was at stake. Eisenhower was chosen was because he *didn't* have the ego, and luckily the right people in charge were aware of that. He was good friends with Patton, and had even worked with him to break down and refine tank design and warfare, but even Patton had to be given a wrap on the knuckles a number of times. Patton loved his men almost more than he loved himself... but it's because he saw his men *as himself*. He was exceedingly complex, witty, and he genuinely understood how to practice war because he thought he was born for it.
Patton happened to be driving a car for a bunch of friends who were on a hunting trip in dense fog. Patton's car was hit by a truck whose driver did not see it, and Patton was severely injured. It was a low-speed crash, and Patton was the only one hurt. He lived for more than a month in the hospital, but in the end died of his injuries. He died in Europe, and is buried in Luxembourg. (I saw his grave in 2007.)
Just an FYI, the followup to this is "The Last Days of Patton". Awesome reaction! The US took a bit to get into the swing of things (we took a lot of beatings in various theaters of war, like the beginning of the movie showed), but one thing we excelled at was logistics. There's a story about how, last in the war, the Germans captured a jeep and were horrified to find a cake from Iowa sent to a soldier from his mom a mere six days earlier. At that point they knew they had lost the war.
@@davidw.2791 Of course they were, there were over 4 million german soldiers (3 million dead or missing) engaged on the Eastern Front since June 1941 what could there be for the West if not leftovers, be it men or equipment? In Stalingrad they were forced to resort to cannibalism to survive, Hitler thought the success of Operation Barbarossa meant the war would be over in months and the german people ended up paying for that grotesque miscalculation.
The opening scene of the speech in front of the flag was actually shot last. George C Scott refused to do it when originally planned in the shooting schedule. He felt it would overshadow the rest of his performance. So it was filmed last and then edited into the beginning.
Makes sense as the film also deliberately has him have Four Stars there. It’s kind of a time loop reincarnation thing. He’s addressing The Boys in 1942 but his soul already lived through 1945. ❤
I saw a talk by a military historian on the careers of American WWII generals. You can apply this down to colonels and majors in the scenes where Patton screams, for instance, to his commanders, “You’ve got four hours to break through or I’ll fire you and find someone who can!” American Generals, though, were constantly fired, some returning to the States as trainers, many to return to combat. You have to understand, on Dec 7, 1941 that the American Army was smaller in numbers to Portugal’s Army. To fight a two front war the US Army had to expand 100-1000 fold. Now, growing privates is relatively easy. Identifying competent commanders at every level of the organization is a challenge. Today, if an officer is relieved, his career is over. Back then, in the midst of the largest war ever, officers might be sacked for incompetence but were given opportunities, depending on the circumstances, to redeem themselves.
Good job with this reaction. There is a lesser known Patton movie called "The Last Days of Patton." Scott also played Patton in that movie. It's a true follow-up to this movie.
The slapping actually occurred. The movie condensed two slapping incidents into one, but they were historic events. Patton was verrrrrrrrry much in the doghouse after that. Battle fatigue was the WWII name for PTSD. I love the speech George C. Scott gave about fulfilling his destiny.
Intermission was very popular in long movies back in the sixties, and at least through the early seventies when this was made. Part of the tradition of the theater.
Growing up in Lancaster, NY, my mom knew a guy in her neighborhood who was Patton's radio operator. A few times she and some the other kids on the block would ask about the war, and he would tell stories and bring out pictures of him in the CP with Patton, etc.
Did you notice? During the Battle of the Bulge scenes the music begins with a theme called the "German March." But if you listen closely, when they keep playing this music, Patton's theme starts to interfere and cut into it until it is completely overtaken by Patton's theme. This symbolizes Patton pushing into the Germans and cutting his own bulge into the Bulge.
Patton, after serving in the 1st World War, and developing armored tactics between the war, trained soldiers, demonstrated the utility of mobile tactics in several maneuvers, then organized the amphibious force that crossed the entire Atlantic, and landed on the coasts of North Africa, and got the Vichy French to surrender after the landings. That part of Morocco was a French protectorate. His major training area, organized by him was in south east California, and Arizona. There is a Patton Museum on interstate 10, at Desert Summit, near Indio.
Great reaction to an iconic Academy Award winning movie plus the fact that you guys managed to get a four hour movie down to a one hour reaction and keep it interesting and watchable is awesome..well done!
At one point there was a documentary on one of the free streaming services about his death shortly after the war ended. I believe it was called "Killing Patton". I wholeheartedly recommend it, if you are interested in what happened to him after the war. Glad you watched this one.
Surprised that "A Bridge Too Far" didn't make the poll. It is one of the greatest war movies ever made and has an absolute all-star cast (Laurence Olivier, Sean Connery, Ryan O'Neal, Robert Redford, Gene Hackman, Liv Ullman, James Caan, and more). It is one of the greatest depictions of courage and heroism under impossible conditions. The Polish general's [Gene Hackman] line "Tell the General we are coming. We are coming tonight." still gives me goosebumps.
One of the tanks you see blown up in German camouflage paint and markings is actually an American tank, not an authentic German tank or reproduction of one. Ironically enough, the model of the American tank was called the "Patton tank" named in his honor. Kasserine Pass was a shattering American defeat, the first time we got out "nose bloodied". The general before Patton led his forces into and ambush, and it was carnage.
NOBODY reacts to Patton and I mean NOBODY! I salute you guys for visiting these forgotten classics.
One of my favorite movies of all time. Any time it's on tv, I will always stop and watch it.
Hello guys i have some movie suggestions for you..."TAPS"(Timothy Hutton/sean penn/tom cruise/george c scott)..."Toy Soldiers"(lou gosset jr/will wheaton)..."Maverick"(mel gibson/jodi foster/james garner)..."A Bridge too Far"(sean connery/gene hackman/robert redford and many more)..."Space Cowboys"(clint eastwood/tommy lee jones/donald sutherland/james garner)..."Basic"(john travolta/samuel jackson)...have a great day guys..
@@redentortiongco5686+1 for TAPS! One of my favorites and too unappreciated! 👍
@@redentortiongco5686 My friend was in Taps. Scott Dargitz. Rip.
That is true. I don't get why that is
Kilroy was one of early pre-internet memes. James J. Kilroy was a shipyard inspector who'd inspect ships as they were being built, making sure welds were up to code and all. He'd mark his inspections by writing "Kilroy was here". Troops shipping over to Europe would find these writings all over the ships in various places and they started writing them everywhere they went, almost competing for the weirdest places they could write them. As new troops would come, they'd just find these writings everywhere they went, wondering who this mysterious Kilroy was who had been everywhere.
And the Nazis ended up thinking "Kilroy" was some kind of super-spy and actually tried to track him down!
The reason Kilroy had to mark his inspections is because he was accused of not actually doing his job so he started just to prove he was.
@@richardcutts196
FINALLY.
Someone that knows the Why behind Kilroy ! ☆
Actually, Kilroy was the message-Chad was the face peering over the wall. He was British-a popular Chad had him saying “Wot? No engine?”
on the side of glider aircraft. 4:26
George C. Scott won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance, but he declined it, citing a dislike of the voting process and the concept of acting competitions. He was the first actor to do so.
His body of work speaks louder than an Oscar win ever could.
I love when actors do ahit like that 😂
Apparently on Oscar night he stayed home and watched a hockey game. I always liked that detail. 😊
@@reservoirdude92 Correct, but also remember this was back when Oscars mattered.
That's George in a nutshell.
My Father was a Sergeant with the 101st at Bastogne. My Uncle, his brother was a corporal with Patton's 3rd Army. They met in Bastogne and hugged for the first time in 3 years. For the rest of their lives, every time they got together, My Uncle would talk about how Patton saved the 101st and my Father would argue that the 101st didn't need saving.
I would’ve loved to have heard them argue.
Family meals or dinners at Christmas or Thanksgiving would be epic.
Your father was correct. The 101st outnumbered the Germans and weren't at risk of being overrun.
Technically, the 101st wasn't "rescued," they were "relieved."
My Grandfather (Bill Morgan) was also in the 101st, 506th..i think. He was dropped on D-day, Operation Market garden and Bastogne. It would be really cool if your father and my grandfather knew each other? After the war, Bill had 3 kids and became postmaster in his town. he passed away in the mid 90's. I miss him till this day.
"Rommel you magnificent bastard! I read your book!!"😂
Always a favorite line of mine.
That's the one line i remember from this movie
Actually it was written by Heinz Guderian 😂
They all read Percy Hobart's books and articles about armored tactics.
Hobart was that mix of lunatic and genius that isn't understood by most during his time, but most successful people who come after them trace their successes back to them.
He was effectively kicked out of the British army a few times because of both his lack of social skills and respect for rank, and the fact he had no desire to learn any.
@@Darnakas The title of the book shown (Tank attacks) seems to be a mix between Guderian's "Achtung Panzer" and Rommel's "Infanterie Attacks", both released in 1937 (in German)
*Patton, "Weather's perfect...Cod, get me that chaplain. He stands in good with the Lord, and I want him decorated."* 👍
And he did it. The author of the “Weather Prayer,” Fr. James Hugh O’Neill, was awarded the Bronze Star.
@@MotoNomad350 It was a good prayer!
It was one of the greatest prayers in history. For that day God heard that chaplain and the good lord did his part as he always does in the endless war against evil here on Earth. Remember God will never solve all our problems. He simply offers a helping hand to those wise enough to recognize it.
@@vincecommando7575 And God is busy, so he needs a prayer to get his attention.
I'm pretty sure the cart accident at the end is a reference to Patton's actual death in a car accident just a few months later in December, 1945.
100% it is.
Danm you beat me to it.
Interesting enough there was questions about the accident that killed Patton and comparisons to the death of Rommel in a car crash shortly before the end of the war. Rommel died from cyanide poisoning but the official explanation was injuries suffered in a crash. The big problem that Patton had was a deep belief that the safety of the USA depended on us conquering the USSR and he felt that our best chance to do so with minimal fuss was to just go through Germany and roll into Russia while we had the troops there anyway. The book that Rommel wrote about tank warfare was written in between WWI and WWII while the military was still trying to figure out how to best utilize tanks. He was considered to be one of the architects of how to utilize tanks on the battlefield and as they said he wrote the book on it. If you haven’t watched it yet you should check out The Longest Day and the movie called The Battle of the Bulge. Both good movies in the same style as this one.
@@stevedavis5704I would personally recommend A Bridge Too Far over the Battle of the Bulge, but to each their own.
@@stevedavis5704 Battle of the Bulge is a terrrrrrible movie. Doesn't stick to the history any way. It's an ok action/generic war flick, but that's about it.
I was a Corporal of Marines in Desert Storm. Its hard to describe the awful majesty of war. But I witnessed it. The power that is displayed and used is staggering. I drove a machinist van with no brakes at 60mph to the kuwaiti minefields with 3 lanes of vehicles on my left and right. All carrying weapons and racing to the battle. It was the a legendary moment in my life. War has a terrible attraction to men that I think Patton really understood. Its horrible that you love it.
I am in the Royal Navy and your expression “it was the legendary moment of my life” resonates with me in a way I find hard to explain. There are moments when I’ve found myself watching the ships that I’ve done the replenishment plans for sailing in the North Sea and Atlantic and it’s been just me and the experience and nobody else.
Thank you for your service.
Some men take their attraction to war so far as to make of it a game or sport. History shows us that leaders of this kind are a renewable resource indeed. 🤔
Like Robert E. Lee said, "It is well that war is so terrible, otherwise we should grow too fond of it."
@@RichardDicksondlyrch68 - That was the quote that immediately came to my mind.
"A man that eloquent has to be saved!"
Nuts!!!
This might as well be a quote from Grand Budapest Hotel.
In WWI, it was called Shell Shock, WWII it was Battle Fatigue. This movie portrays a time before we had much understanding of what is now Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome. "First Blood" really brought to the forefront that PTSD could affect even the best & bravest soldiers.
Correct! In the Civil War, they referred to it as "melancholia!"
"He will be destroyed too. The pure warrior... a magnificent anachronism..." What a movie. One for the ages.
On the "through the glass, darkly" bit when Patton was discussing the dead Carthaginians, he wasn't just recounting history. Patton believed deeply in reincarnation, and that he had lived, and died, many times in the past as soldiers in various empires. When he talks about the carts in the snow, he's referencing what he thought as his own memories as a French officer under Napoleon.
I had an uncle who stopped Patton's jeep once on Sicily. They gave each other the "big" salute. My uncle loved him. The speech he gave was taken for pieces of speeches he gave to his troops. Patton suffered from dyslexia. He did not learn how to read until he was around 9. He had a high pitched voice that he hated. Follow up by watching The Last ten Days of Patton. Being almost hit by the oxcart in this movie was a foreshadowed his death.
True about the dyslexia. In tbe early 1970's,.there was an elderly retired Army brigadier general who took walks around the neighborhood. According to my dad, he was Patton's roommate at West Point. I was just a kid, so I didn't really have any intelligent questions to ask him, but I did ask him about Patton. General Gage said, that Patton had to work very hard to study, because he had "trouble reading". He also said, that he was tough & often got into fights.
His death was not the accident portrayed to history.
My Father was a Sergeant with the 101st at Bastogne. My Uncle, his brother was a corporal with Patton's 3rd Army. They met in Bastogne and hugged for the first time in 3 years. For the rest of their lives, every time they got together, My Uncle would talk about how Patton saved the 101st and my Father would argue that the 101st didn't need saving.
Bill O'Reilly "killing patton" is very worth the read.
"You were discussing, uh, air supremacy, Sir Arthur."
Best line in the whole film.
That scene really did happen in real life minus Patton jumping out the window and shooting at the German planes, from my understanding it was a low altitude strafing and bombing run by the Germans and was over in seconds so no timings. He really did say something to the effect of wanting to give each of those guys a medal for proving his point.
"Where Ya goin', General?" "I'm going to Berlin and personally shoot that paper-hangin' son-of-a-bitch."
Patton was on the 1912 Olympic team with legendary athlete Jim Thorpe. Also was in WWI
Actually, he visited Sweden twice, first during the 1912 Olympics and then in november 1945. The then Swedish Army Chief of Staff Archibald Douglas threw a dinner for him. He also met with the Swedish pentathlon team he competed against in 1912. One week after he returned from Sweden he had the car accident...
He shot in Marksman competition. They scored him down for not seeing all the bullet holes on target. He claims and maybe true, that "'...the bullet they didn't score went thru the same bulls-eye hole of earlier bullet."
George S Patton also pretty much "invented" the US Army's first "armored division" when he and a buddy outfitted a vehicle with a mounted machine gun and went off-road chasing Pancho Villa all over the northern Mexico desert😅😅
He competed in modern pentathlon, which involves 5 events: of fencing, freestyle swimming, equestrian show jumping, pistol shooting, and cross country running. They are the skills that a 19th century soldier would need. They sport is still done in current Olympics.
Patton was legitimately in what's considered the last Wild West Gunfight. When the US chased after Pancho Villa under General Black Jack Pershing's command, Patton was a young aide to the general but still carried his Ivory Handled Colt revolver with him. He shows up on this street and ends up running into (while they were on horse back) 3 of Villa's leaders, including his second in command. They had a straight up gunfight 3x1 in the street as they charged past Patton. Patton killed one, mortally wounded the Second in Command and missed the third man. He did not take a scratch.
This plays into his inability to understand ShellShock/PTSD. For Patton, who had supreme self courage, he couldn't conceive of being so worn down by battle that you shut off. It just was not in the real of possibility for that man. He was just the kind of person that was born for conflict. He couldn't imagine himself living in a peaceful world, as tragic as that thought is.
At the end of the war he so mistrusted the Soviets that he wanted to take the German Soldiers and equipment and turn it on the Soviets and destroy them.
President Roosevelt & Winston Churchill toyed with a similar idea during the war when Himmler approached the Americans & British via diplomatic channels via Sweden...Himmler's proposal was to take Hitler down and stop the war in western Europe but keep fighting the Soviets and this was before FDR & Winston found out what a murderous guy Himmler was.
Not only Patton, but Winston Churchill wanted to finish the job and deal with Stalin there and then.
Imagine how different the world would be had Patton been allowed to deal with Russia. Would there ever had been a Sovirt Bloc?
@@notmyrealname1730There would've been a whole lot more dead people, unfortunately. Dunno how it would turn out besides a giant quagmire.
and he should've. He spoke out on the war and said they made a mistake in taking out Germany and should've went after the Bolsheviks. “We have destroyed what could have been a good race of people [Germans] and we are about to replace them with mongolian savages and all of Europe with communism” He was killed December 1945
I read a book about Patton some years ago. One anecdote caught my attention. When it hit the news that Patton had died, some Marines on the other side of the world lifted a toast to him, calling him the greatest Marine that the Army ever produced.
Find and read "Lucky Forward" a great book on Patton.
The great thing about older movies, is no CGI actors. All those extra people really lends authenticity.
Authentic in that it's real people performing real actions, sure. But even by 1970, most authentic WW2 equipment was either retired, scrapped, destroyed, or just inoperable. The tanks in this film are not the M3 Lee and M4 Sherman models used in World War 2, but are instead M47 and M48 Patton tanks created after WW2. There are tons of anachronisms in the film; a film critic might say this a deliberate choice to accentuate the theme of Patton being an anachronism, but no, it's just a practical reality due to the scarcity of the authentic equipment available at time of filming.
@@terpfen There were however plenty of M4 Sherman tanks still in existence and still serving in various militaries around the world even in 1970. Quite a number of (modified---) Shermans saw battle in the 1967 Arab-Israeli War. So I am thinking the producers could have secured a number of them for "Patton".
@@williamjpellas0314 Not by time of filming in 1969. Much of the film was shot in Francoist Spain, which had a good number of US WW2 surplus vehicles that were loaned to production, but still not the M3 Lee or M4 Sherman tanks. They simply weren't available for film production, and thus weren't used.
"Tora, Tora, Tora" was a great movie and I've often wondered where they got all those Jap Zeroes and torpedo planes. When they first fly over Hawaii, you can see the shadows on the ground so it wasn't early CGI. Even the P-40s on the ground being bombed were realistic. One more... the superstructure of the battleships looks concurrent with the time. A real nice job.@@terpfen
My uncle was on Patton's staff as his map keeper. He love his General and always cried about his death. His favorite story was three days before the battle of the budge, he told his staff he believed the Germans were going to attack and to work out multiple counter attacks. He knew his job.
That prayer is exactly as recorded in Patton's memoirs
An amazing film, many epic moments and the opening scene is iconic.
My grandfather (Dutch and tasked with doing German paperwork on the eastern part of the Netherlands) learned they were probably going to be transported soon deeper into Germany and potentially sent to labor camps. He was able to fake the appearance of a nasty toothache and abscess, as the Dutch were still generally issued weekend travel papers for medical issues. The Friday night travelled west to go see a Dutch dentist, Saturday talked his way further west past checkpoints using his pass. Then Sunday/Monday he snuck as far west as he could. He hid out and luckily Patton’s forces pushed the line over where he was hiding. He was then taken prisoner by the U.S. and quickly released. As he was in parts of the Netherlands he did not know, nor had anyone to contact he just stayed around the American troops. A doctor at a hospital eventually put him to work talking to the injured Dutch people, they eventually gave him other duties to do (basic medical aid). Several weeks later Patton was going through the field hospital area and he my grandfather was asked by Patton why he wasn’t in uniform. He said he was a Dutch prisoner and he had no place to go so he kept doing what the soldiers told him to do. And Patton told officer something like “my god man get this man a job then”. He was appointed to assist several other medical teams until they discovered he was actually an accountant. Eventually they put my grandfather on to supply duties in the now post-war recovery groups. Eventually after about a year he found out that they allowed people to serve officially in reconstruction and get paid. After doing that for a period of time he was able to sign up for a program that allowed him to travel to the United States where he became an auditor in the GAO for many many years.
Fantastic story! Thank you for sharing that.
do not forget the soundtrack !!!!! amazing work of the great JERRY GOLDSMITH !
On December 9, Patton was on a pheasant hunt when his car was hit by a US Army truck. Patton sustained a cervical compression fracture and complained that he couldn't move and had trouble breathing. He was placed in traction, to relieve the pressure on his spinal cord, but died on December 21, 1945.
George C Scott reprised his role as Patton for a TV movie covering Patton in post-war Germany up until his death.
they set him up
Old guy here. My Dad was in the same type campaigns. He started in North Africa, then to Sicily, then to Italy, France, and eventually to Germany where he was part of the US Occupation after Germany surrendered. He took me to see this movie when I was seven years old in the theater, at the time of its release - 1970
My dad served under Patton from the landings in Morocco to the battles to take Messina and said the General would frequently just show up eat with his men and asked their opinions on what was going on in their battles, delivery of supplies, etc., and he had a lower casualty rate than any other American general in the war. Even the parents of the soldier who got slapped wrote him a supportive letter. The decoy act worked! Hitler kept his main defensive divisions at Calais instead of Normandy. Another fantastic George C. Scott movie was "A Christmas Carol," released in 1984 where he did the best Ebenezer Scrooge of all time.
Oddly enough General Patton is a bit of a hero in Plzen, Czech Republic. There's a monument to him, museum, America Square and America street. Every year there's a thank you America festival, as well. General Patton liberated Plzen from the Germans., and the Czechs never forgot...
The speech at the beginning of the movie was a real event. Patton gave that speech to the 7th Army the night before they landed in Africa. Up until then, the US Army had only been training in Louisiana. All the big Generals, like Patton, served in WW1 with General Pershing and his aide who was the current Commander of the Joint Chief of Staff [Marshall] for the then War Department which later became the Department of Defense, General Marshall. This was the night before the start of Operation Torch landing in North Africa.
Thank you. This speech is in Patton's book.
It wasn’t given to Seventh Army. The speech was given extemporaneously off notes to various formations of the Third Army during training in 1944. Patton gave different versions to different groups, and different people were present and took separate notes, so the movie’s speech is stitched together from those various sources.
I was honored to meet Patton's son (Maj. Gen. George S. Patton IV) and grandson (who was my age) around 1972 when the son was Commandant of Fort Knox. Looked exactly like his father, tall and fit. They both enjoyed the movie.
Patton performed brilliantly in WWI, there is much printed history about that. He and Ike were very close, and together learned much of their craft under Gen. Fox Connor in Panama between the wars. Patton was a genius of logistics and also showmanship, which was exceptionally useful in the US Army in WWII in the time of newsreels. He regularly rode vehicles towards the front, keeping as visible as possible, then flew in scout planes back to HQ. He was superb in picking great staff. And the relief of Bastogne was nothing less than a miracle.
My grandfather served on Patton’s staff from when he was in France through the end of the European war. He always told me that while all movies take liberties for dramatic effect, he thought they did a really good job with this one. Even 50 years later, it was clear to me that my grandfather took Patton’s premature death really hard after spending a lot of time with him, and he also probably would have gone on to have an outsized influence on the Korean War.
There are number of excellent WWII movies that don’t get enough attention today. Patton is one, and others such as The Longest Day, Midway, Judgement at Nuremberg, Midway, Tora! Tora! Tora!, Das Boot and The Bridge at Remagen are well worth a watch. If you haven’t watched those, prioritize The Longest Day (1962) and Judgement at Nuremberg (1961).
All great movies. Good recommendations!
I read somewhere that Patton believed he was the reincarnation of Agamemnon.
Great Generals always studied the battle plans of other great generals from the past, as they believed this would ultimately help them in winning decisive battles.
I’m so happy that you watched this film! As ever, a highly intelligent, sensitive reaction. You’re exactly right, this is essentially a character piece.
The decoy move worked so well that Hitler himself held up reinforcements to Normandy long enough for the Allies to reinforce their position and land enough supplies to sustain the offensive. The 101st denies that they needed to be rescued, but Patton's breakthrough into Bastogne allow wounded to be evacuated and much needed supplies to be rushed in. I say there is enough glory for the heroism of both groups.
This movie is like a tragedy. A misunderstood general that wanted to fight for glory and immortality like Napoleon or Hannibal, his only fear being the possibility of missing out the war. In the end the only person that understood him was a german officer and they never managed to meet each other
Vert well put. I hope they see your comment.
Here's the thing. Rommel likely never heard of Patton as the Germans had basically no intel on him. He wasn't considered important enough.
Say what you will about Patton's idiosyncracies, but for decades after WW2, American troops would tell stories about charging with Patton. No foot soldier ever really bragged about getting orders from Bradley, Eisenhower, Montgomery, or any other general.
@@charlize1253 British soldiers bragged about serving under Monty. He was much loved. He was also far more successful than Patton. In fact, Monty was the most successful Western Allied General in the ETO.
@@RandomStuff-he7lu I've read dozens of books about WW2, and I've never heard anyone say Monty was the "most successful" Allied commander. In Normandy, the Brits were the last to achieve its D-Day objectives of all the allies, only taking some objectives 6 weeks after they were supposed to be seized on D-Day. Operation Market-Garden, his plan, was so absurd (move multiple tank divisions hundreds of miles along a single one-lane road with only paratroopers to seize five critical bridges, and expect it all to stay on a tight schedule) that when the Germans captured a copy of the plan, they thought it must be a decoy, and it resulted in the mass surrender of the British 1st Airborne Division in Arnhem. During the Battle of the Bulge, the first orders he gave were to retreat, and the only reason the German attack rapidly fell behind schedule and stalled was because of mass disobedience of his orders by American officers and troops who stayed and fought in place. When Monty then gave an interview to a reporter taking credit for the Bulge anyway, Churchill personally went to Parliament and gave a speech correcting the record to acknowledge that American troops stopped the German advance. I don't know how anyone could call this "successful."
One of the greatest movies ever made, about one of the most interesting military leaders in history.
I had a grandfather who served in Patton's 3rd Army who fought during the Battle of the Bulge, and had the frostbitten feet to prove it!
Patton was one of the best American military commanders of his time, but he had no fan club amongst the higher ups, especially general Marshall who was the joint chiefs of staff at the time. He did everything possible to let Patton know how much he didn't care for him or his command style, including promoting Eisenhower above him in rank, and using the slapping incident as his wedge to degrade him and deprive Patton of the one thing he lived for, combat.
It was a real shame, given Patton's prowess as a tactician and battle historian. Yes, he didn't know when to keep his mouth shut, but as always, there's a method to the madness.
It's also well known that Patton was a virulent racist whiich both Bradly and Marshall despised. I would say he was actually kind of overrated as a commancer, he was good at straegy but he wasn't good at outside the box thinking.
@@cvonbarron Patton had contemporary views of race relations and kept them passively in his journals; he never acted on his prejudice. In actuality, he racially integrated Third Army when official US Army policy was to keep troops racially segregated, such as with the case of the 761st Tank Battalion. His orderly, Sgt William Meeks, was black and was with Patton the entire war. For Patton's funeral, his widow removed Walter Bedell Smith as a pallbearer and put Meeks in Smith's place.
As for outside the box thinking, all US Army leaders were indoctrinated in Field Service Regulations 1923, which basically made Ulysses Grant's 1864 Wilderness campaign tactics the official doctrine of the US Army. This basically meant that the US Army still fought as if it was WW1; they would mass firepower on a target and then send in the infantry after the explosions stopped. Patton innovated the use of combined arms, the cooperation of air, infantry, armor, artillery, and all other available units, to either destroy the enemy without having to send in infantry, or to hold the enemy on the defensive and send more units further ahead to continue the advance. He arguably innovated the entire concept of tactical air control, know today as TACP, by putting radios in his armor that could communicate with air assets and direct their attacks against specific targets in the field without needing to plan and launch specific missions, saving hours and days of time.
Patton was a brilliant commander who did not fit in the increasingly politicized US Army, and was simply disregarded and ignored when combat ended. That is a reflection on Eisenhower and Marshall, not Patton.
@@terpfen damn, well put
he was knot known as a virulent racist , that is nonsense @@cvonbarron
My Father was a Sergeant with the 101st at Bastogne. My Uncle, his brother was a corporal with Patton's 3rd Army. They met in Bastogne and hugged for the first time in 3 years. For the rest of their lives, every time they got together, My Uncle would talk about how Patton saved the 101st and my Father would argue that the 101st didn't need saving.
"We were discussing air supremacy, Sir Arthur." 😆 One of my favorite moments from this film.
"Rommel you magnificent bastard I read your BOOK!"
That opening scene is sheer perfection, so powerful and iconic. Thank you for doing a masterpiece that other reactors ignore.
Jerry Goldsmith wrote the score. One of several collaborations with director Franklin J Schafner. He decided to evoque Patton's obsession with reincarnation by using in the main theme a trumpet playing a triplet of notes with an echo chamber. Brilliant.
Jerry Goldsmith was ripped off not winning the Oscar for Best Orginial Score.
Was watching an old Perry Mason TV rerun from 1958 one day & that Patton tune was playing when Perry visited a client at a Naval Base. Come to find out, Jerry Goldsmith worked on the Perry Mason series for a long time and one day, he was asked to come up with an original military tune so the producer wouldn't have to pay royalties to other composer.
Jerry Goldsmith also wrote a good deal of the soundtracks for the Star Trek franchise. If you recall ST2: The Wrath of Khan, when Khan was speaking about his rule "on Earth, two hundred years ago, I was a prince..." - you could hear the trumpet triplet behind him...
@@seregrian5675 Ricardo was a fine actor and a great human being.
One of the biggest differences between Patton and Bradley was that Bradley went into battle, hoping not to lose while Patton went into battle to win. Bradley was a solid general but in many ways too concerned about his men, which many times led to slow grinding actions that led to perhaps fewer losses in each battle but meant that his men had to fight more battles.
The thing about the slapping incident in Sicily is that it was actually quite a bit worse than what the movie shows. There were actually two soldiers that he slapped, one a pre-war regular army soldier, the other a draftee. Both men had excellent records as soldiers, however both had just recently seen several of their friends killed in the previous days. Both men had been sent by their commanding officers back to the hospitals to rest, recognizing that they needed to get away from the front. Patton actually threatened to shoot one of them with his revolver, and it was only the quick thinking of the hospital staff that prevented that from happening. Afterwards, when Patton apologized, quite a few soldiers did forgive, but almost just as many did not. One man simply was quoted as saying "we despise him (Patton)." I actually saw a documentary on the fighting in Sicily that talked about the incident, and one of the veterans interviewed stated that he still had not forgiven Patton for the incident.
Thanks for saving me the trouble of chiming in on this. Good comment & well researched.
I seem to recall reading that one of the soldiers who slapped had malaria.
Yep Patton wasnt very well liked among those under his command which covered quite a few people from the southern states which fell under his command.
Both soldiers also asked to be sent back to their units and were refused. One had Malaria.
@@Milner62 I could be wrong, but I understand he was very popular with the Third Army.
Yeah, the US Army thankfully looks down on officers slapping soldiers with PTSD! Good reaction!!!
Finally! We get to the untouched movies that are overlooked by so many. Like Patton, Bridge Over the River Kwai, Sgt York, The Green Berets, Papillon, and more recent one's like The Secret Life of Walter Mitty.
My uncle served under Patton from North Africa until the end of the war. He said everything you read and hear about him is true. He was very proud of having served under him. He drove tanks and half tracks.
George C. Scott reprised his role as Patton in the sequel, made for television movie called "The Last Days of Patton". It covered his last few months including the auto accident and attempts to save him.
This movie was filmed in Spain. You may notice that @ 6:35 you hear a woman calling out "Oiga !" - Spanish for "listen" or "look here." A minor blooper in the movie (since, if Patton was in North Africa, the natives would be speaking Arabic). The Spanish army also assisted with production by having their soldiers dressed as the Germans. Apparently, this was something they did routinely for films.
Fun fact the tanks used in the film are Patton Tanks named after the man himself.
Imagine being 11 years old and watching this on a big screen. My father was a marine in the South Pacific in WWII , so I guess I was raised to be impressed by this.
George C. Scott's performance was phenomenal! It was so powerful that a lot of people (myself included) thought that the real Patton sounded like that. I was floored to find out that Patton's actual voice was piercingly high pitched! One of my all-time favorite war movies!
I don't think I knew that until reading the comments here. So he was the David Beckham of his time! 😛
@@Johnny_Socko Perhaps. But Beckham could never match Patton's body count!
My father was in Patton’s 3rd Army-12th Armored Division, 23rd Regiment. His brother was port-side waist gunner on a B-17 flying in Italy. 4:00
Patton's belief that he'd lived many lives as a warrior is one of the most fascinating things about him. He was eccentric & quite a character but that particular belief doesn't necessarily mean crazy.
Three of the most intelligent, well-educated, accomplished & sanest people I've ever known consider Reincarnation a very real possibility.
They have strong, valid reasons to feel that way.
As do I. As do millions of people around the world (including more people here in the Western world than would've before).
It's a very interesting subject & the more you learn about history & philosophy, the more open-minded you become.
Thanks for reacting to such a classic film. I was a kid when it came out & I remember all the talk about it & the Oscars.
One of the best war movies ever. Pretty educational too.
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So glad you guys covered this movie! Still one of my all-time favorites: great script, great acting, and great action. Patton was a man born too late. He had an old-school fighting mentality, which is why he firmly believed he was reincarnated from ancient warriors. As a result, he said and did imperious things that an ancient leader could get away with. He couldn't adjust to the new sensitivities of modern times. In the new Army, you had to be empathetic to people and, at his rank, as much a politician as a military strategist - skills Patton lacked. He could win battles and lead men, but his self-confessed ego and competitiveness made him many enemies along the way. Enemies that took delight in taking him down a peg whenever the opportunity arose. Also, the media loves controversy and Patton served it up to them. Which caused his superiors to come down on him, even though he was a superbly talented general.
My great-Uncle served in the 1st Armored Division in North Africa under the inept Gen. Fredendall who was replaced by Patton, as depicted at the beginning of this movie. Unfortunately, my Uncle was killed in the Battle of Kasserine Pass on Valentine's Day, 1943. He was posthumously awarded a Silver Star for valor in battle. Patton arrived less than one month after his death. I wonder if he would have lived longer had Patton been leading him instead?
That was my Dads boss in WWII! He fought in the 4th Armored Division, 66th Armored Field Artillery Battalion where he severed as a scout. He fought from the time the 3rd Army broke out from Normandy, northern France, the Battle of the Bulge, Central Germany, stopping to help liberate the Buchenwald concentration camp and ended the war in Czechoslovakia. He was in review with Patton several times and said that he had such a command presence that the hair stood up on his arms. He also said that this movie is as close to Patton as you can get. Except for his voice, Patton had kind of high, squeaky voice, not like George C. Scott's. And yes, a lot of his men said that they hated him but wouldn't fight for any other general in WWII!
I think Patton meant "he was there" because he studied those battles. He emersed himself in them so much that he actually felt as if he was there and was able to understand the tatics, real time decisions, counters, and situations that arose from them. He was also able to see the results of those actions....ie win here and lose there. Which was the greater victory? Awesome man and movie!
The Battle of the Bulge with Robert Shaw of Jaws fame is another great WW2 epic.
Yes, that movie had a superb cast. I liked Henry Fonda as Colonel Kiley up there in his little Piper Cub, trying to reconnoiter the German forces though all that winter fog.
His book on Armour tactics was never released in his lifetime,he was still working on it in 1943,after the African campaign.His book on Infantry tactics,however,was published in 1937.
What during World War II was called 'Shell Shock' or 'Battlefield Fatigue' is known in modern day as PTSD. There was little understanding of the mental tolls soldiers worked under 70 or 80 years ago.
Ever hear George Carlin's routine about "soft language?" He complained that as we moved from Shell Shock to Battle Fatigue and onto Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome all we got were fancier and more clinical words that experts and TV reporters could bandy about but that nobody spent adequate effort treating it.
The opening scene, Oscar! When he talks to his commander about going hand to hand....so brutal. A unit across the quad from mine, 1/27 Wolfhounds, was in the last major sized battle that went hand to hand. That battalion went up against a BRIGADE sized unit of Chinese and North Korean soldiers.
Interesting but it doesn't sound accurate. The Tet Offensive in 1968 definitely went to hand-to-hand fighting in urban combat and it had a huge number of NVA and Viet Cong against the Americans.
Scott's voice was nothing like Patton's. Much deeper. But he did resemble Patton physically.
In fact the real Patton decided that the best way to compensate for his not-deep voice was to swear profusely (despite the whole “But he prays firmly in his knees” deal).
You guys really have no peers among the reaction channels. I've stopped watching all the others; they bore me, but you guys have such good observational talent and intelligence and really delve into the films.
Kudos to you guys for reacting to a truly wonderful movie that no one else seems to know exists.
George C. Scott gives one of the great performances in cinematic history!
I literally grew up watching Patton, Kelly's Heroes, Bridge on RIver Kwai, Big Red 1, Massacre at Fort Holman, Tora Tora Tora so many others this just brought memories. My late dad fought in Burma (Myanmar) with the British as part of the Royal West African forces, Nigeria like many African former colonies that participated. Hence the war movies in the household. I remember the cupboard with odd medals and trinkets long lost now. This brings back many heart warming buried memories. Thank you
Force 10 from navarone, dirty dozen
Patton was relieved for a couple of reasons, but not so much because of the slapping incidents:
He started the California/Arizona Maneuvering Area (also known as the Desert Training Center) to train tank crews, and also, he was made commander of an imaginary armoured division as a decoy, prior to the D-Day invasion, to draw all the attention of the German army away from the planned landing zones.
However, once the invasion was over, they took the leash off of him.
I was watching this reaction to Patton, then Intermission came and you mentioned Lawrence Of Arabia, so I clicked Subscribe.
I went to Texas A&M, formally a military school, and one of my buddies had to memorize this speech and recite it on a seniors request.
Patton got in trouble during his governorship of Bavaria because he felt that it was better to have ex-Nazis run the postwar bureaucracy in Bavaria, since they at least already had some experience in keeping the lights on, as it were...some felt it was being too generous to the very Germans we just got done fighting, although he countered that he thought his job was to beat the Wehrmacht, not denazify the whole country...and after an argument with Ike, he was relieved of command. The alleged coversation about going after the Red Army (and making it look like an accident) does not appear to be accurate...or at least it was not obstensibly the reason he got relieved.
Of our combat generals, Patton was often lauded as one of our best...but he wasn't necessarily a great post war governor, basically because he didn't know how to play politics. Ironically, Gen. Douglas MacArthur in the Pacific was less known for his battlefield exploits, and he was often criticized for making some bad strategic decisions during the defense of the Phillipines early in WW2...but he was an AMAZING post-war governor in Japan, and great credit should be given to him for helping Japan recover and rebuild from the war. Japan is now a vital ally in the Pacific, with a stable democratically-elected govt.
And of course the one thing BOTH generals had in common: massive egos lol
For an amusing look at the difficulties of de-Nazification, watch Billy Wilder's film "A Foreign Affair."
I wish more people would act to this movie.
It is a gem that few look into.
interesting fact, Patton had staff whose only duty was to see to his cigars.
He traveled with multiple humidors loaded with cigars and their job was to make sure those cigars were well taken care of.
Fun fact is that the tanks used as Panzers to recreate El-Guettar battle in the movie are in fact M60 Patton tanks.
The scene in the hospital tent when George C. Scott is awarding medals to the wounded soldiers is my favorite scene. It honestly makes me cry every time. That scene along with a scene in MacArthur (1977) and a well known scene in The Lion King (1994) always makes me turn on the water works.
George C. Scott and Gen. Patton could not have more different voices. Scott's voice is deep and raspy. Patton's voice was high pitched and squeaky.
The german role of Hauptmann (Captain) Steiger, the guy who analyzed Patton, was played by Siegried Rauch; a well known german actor.
Also he played with Steve McQueen in the 1970's 'Le Mans', in 1979 'Escape to Athena' next to Roger Moore - Telly Savalas and David Niven and finally in 'The Big Red One' with Lee Marvin and Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker)!
after binge watching with wife and friends. i knew sam would say " i loved that "
Patton was killed when a truck hit his car while still in the ETO. He survived the impact with, i beleive, a broken neck. They bolted his head to a head board but he died a few days later.
As a historian, I enjoy your fresh perspective on this.
My Father was a Stanford Graduate, and a B-17 Navigator, over Germany.
North Africa.
He did live in the 18th century. The movie was based on the early 1940s.
This movie won a number of academy awards.
Love this movie. Deserves every one of the awards it got back in the day
You are right Intermission is literally Latin for: We're going to f**k this s**t up now!
This is one of the great historical epics. And pretty accurate too, by Hollywood standards.
I'm glad you guys enjoyed it!
Awesome review as always. PATTON is a classic film of the "New Hollywood" and still holds up as a masterpiece of acting and mise-en-scene. Thank you for presenting the film in its original Panavision aspect ratio!
This movie brings up an unique element I forgot since I last watched this movie (thanks to George C. Scott): WWII had some of the most egotistical/narcissistic generals of any modern war, and dare I say, the wars of old. In *"Ike: An American Hero", author Michael Korda* writes about all of the constant egos that Eisenhower had to deal with and wrangle in just to keep people on the same page. Each general under Ike had their own ambition(s) of immortality. It was constant, and damn near more frustrating than the war itself because of what was at stake. Eisenhower was chosen was because he *didn't* have the ego, and luckily the right people in charge were aware of that. He was good friends with Patton, and had even worked with him to break down and refine tank design and warfare, but even Patton had to be given a wrap on the knuckles a number of times.
Patton loved his men almost more than he loved himself... but it's because he saw his men *as himself*. He was exceedingly complex, witty, and he genuinely understood how to practice war because he thought he was born for it.
It's one of my favorite movies. I wrote a book report on Patton in middle school and loved him as a kid
Wow! Great to see a reaction to Patton.
Patton happened to be driving a car for a bunch of friends who were on a hunting trip in dense fog. Patton's car was hit by a truck whose driver did not see it, and Patton was severely injured. It was a low-speed crash, and Patton was the only one hurt. He lived for more than a month in the hospital, but in the end died of his injuries. He died in Europe, and is buried in Luxembourg. (I saw his grave in 2007.)
Just an FYI, the followup to this is "The Last Days of Patton". Awesome reaction!
The US took a bit to get into the swing of things (we took a lot of beatings in various theaters of war, like the beginning of the movie showed), but one thing we excelled at was logistics. There's a story about how, last in the war, the Germans captured a jeep and were horrified to find a cake from Iowa sent to a soldier from his mom a mere six days earlier. At that point they knew they had lost the war.
@czos9239 February 1943 when the Battle of Stalingrad ended was the moment the Germans realised they had lost the war.
@@isabelsilva62023The cake and ice cream just proves that Germany is also screwed from the west too.
@@davidw.2791 Of course they were, there were over 4 million german soldiers (3 million dead or missing) engaged on the Eastern Front since June 1941 what could there be for the West if not leftovers, be it men or equipment? In Stalingrad they were forced to resort to cannibalism to survive, Hitler thought the success of Operation Barbarossa meant the war would be over in months and the german people ended up paying for that grotesque miscalculation.
Patton was a cousin to Marine general Chesty Puller, the two greatest american combat general's.
The opening scene of the speech in front of the flag was actually shot last. George C Scott refused to do it when originally planned in the shooting schedule. He felt it would overshadow the rest of his performance. So it was filmed last and then edited into the beginning.
Makes sense as the film also deliberately has him have Four Stars there. It’s kind of a time loop reincarnation thing. He’s addressing The Boys in 1942 but his soul already lived through 1945. ❤
I saw a talk by a military historian on the careers of American WWII generals. You can apply this down to colonels and majors in the scenes where Patton screams, for instance, to his commanders, “You’ve got four hours to break through or I’ll fire you and find someone who can!”
American Generals, though, were constantly fired, some returning to the States as trainers, many to return to combat.
You have to understand, on Dec 7, 1941 that the American Army was smaller in numbers to Portugal’s Army.
To fight a two front war the US Army had to expand 100-1000 fold. Now, growing privates is relatively easy.
Identifying competent commanders at every level of the organization is a challenge.
Today, if an officer is relieved, his career is over. Back then, in the midst of the largest war ever, officers might be sacked for incompetence but were given opportunities, depending on the circumstances, to redeem themselves.
Good job with this reaction. There is a lesser known Patton movie called "The Last Days of Patton." Scott also played Patton in that movie. It's a true follow-up to this movie.
The slapping actually occurred. The movie condensed two slapping incidents into one, but they were historic events.
Patton was verrrrrrrrry much in the doghouse after that.
Battle fatigue was the WWII name for PTSD. I love the speech George C. Scott gave about fulfilling his destiny.
The thing is about his man is that he was either loved or hated
Intermission was very popular in long movies back in the sixties, and at least through the early seventies when this was made. Part of the tradition of the theater.
Growing up in Lancaster, NY, my mom knew a guy in her neighborhood who was Patton's radio operator. A few times she and some the other kids on the block would ask about the war, and he would tell stories and bring out pictures of him in the CP with Patton, etc.
Did you notice? During the Battle of the Bulge scenes the music begins with a theme called the "German March." But if you listen closely, when they keep playing this music, Patton's theme starts to interfere and cut into it until it is completely overtaken by Patton's theme. This symbolizes Patton pushing into the Germans and cutting his own bulge into the Bulge.
Patton, after serving in the 1st World War, and developing armored tactics between the war, trained soldiers, demonstrated the utility of mobile tactics in several maneuvers, then organized the amphibious force that crossed the entire Atlantic, and landed on the coasts of North Africa, and got the Vichy French to surrender after the landings. That part of Morocco was a French protectorate. His major training area, organized by him was in south east California, and Arizona. There is a Patton Museum on interstate 10, at Desert Summit, near Indio.
Great reaction to an iconic Academy Award winning movie plus the fact that you guys managed to get a four hour movie down to a one hour reaction and keep it interesting and watchable is awesome..well done!
At one point there was a documentary on one of the free streaming services about his death shortly after the war ended. I believe it was called "Killing Patton". I wholeheartedly recommend it, if you are interested in what happened to him after the war. Glad you watched this one.
Surprised that "A Bridge Too Far" didn't make the poll. It is one of the greatest war movies ever made and has an absolute all-star cast (Laurence Olivier, Sean Connery, Ryan O'Neal, Robert Redford, Gene Hackman, Liv Ullman, James Caan, and more). It is one of the greatest depictions of courage and heroism under impossible conditions. The Polish general's [Gene Hackman] line "Tell the General we are coming. We are coming tonight." still gives me goosebumps.
He made it through the war and got fatally injured in a car accident December 9, 1945, but General Patton didn't die until twelve days later.
One of the tanks you see blown up in German camouflage paint and markings is actually an American tank, not an authentic German tank or reproduction of one. Ironically enough, the model of the American tank was called the "Patton tank" named in his honor. Kasserine Pass was a shattering American defeat, the first time we got out "nose bloodied". The general before Patton led his forces into and ambush, and it was carnage.
George Scott delivers one of best acting performances in film history.