Welcome gentle readers to another installment of the Sunday Morning Movie. Today we have The Last Days of Patton which details the inglorious final weeks of George Patton’s life. George C. Scott reprises his famous 1970 role in Patton.
Reviews:
Letterboxd says:
Although quite definitively a sequel, The Last Days of Patton is a wholly different sort of film from it’s epic predecessor. For one, it was a TV movie with a fraction of the budget, and tonally far more overtly introspective and melancholy. If Patton was about Patton the General, The Last Days of Patton is about Patton the Man. If one film was about his life, the other was about his death.
With no grand set pieces to dish out or even film to show it with, it seems to have been shot on videotape, the emphasis is more than ever on the performances and the script. Scott once again gives a great performance, although a more subdued and fragile one. His performance here recalls DeNiro in The Irishman or Pacino in The Godfather pt. 3, the same man of authority and action now a frail facsimile couched rigid in a hospital bed. The supporting performances are sound too, with Eva Marie Saint as Patton’s previously unseen wife Beatrice and Ed Lautner as a fellow General delivering some of the film’s most touching moments.
Although it has no hope of recapturing the sweep and grandeur of the 1970 film, and to it’s credit, it never tries, The Last Days of Patton is a surprisingly worthy and poignant successor that succeeds in telling a story that needed a separate film to deal with.
Glitternight.com says:
The best parts of the movie come early on when we’re shown Patton clashing with Eisenhower and soon-to-be-CIA scumbag Walter Bedell-Smith over Occupation policy in Germany. This drama is handled excellently, with the pros and cons of the issues given full presentation.
The arguments between Patton and Eisenhower made me appreciate once again what is wrong with so many similar exchanges in dramas made now. Recent dramas can’t resist the sophomoric tendency to depict one figure as Being In The Right and the other figure Being In The Wrong.
The Last Days of Patton makes the dramatic exchanges riveting because both men make valid points yet both men are also bested at times in the verbal fencing. It’s so refreshing compared to today’s tiresome “Watch the Figure In The Right Lecture And Harangue The Cardboard Villain” approach.
If the entire film was devoted to this clash and ended with Patton’s inevitable dismissal The Last Days of Patton would be a genuine classic. And by the way I’m overwhelmingly opposed to General Patton’s stand yet the dialogue makes his point of view understandable no matter how much you disagree with it.
Film Yap says:
It’s the classic “lion in winter” sort of tale, with the grizzled old warrior facing his own mortality, his reputation tarnished as wartime gives way to peace and celebrated fighters like Patton quickly turned into anachronisms. Literally until his dying breath, Patton yearned for the chance to take on the “mongrel” Russians, allies of necessity whom he predicted would become America’s greatest global foe.
Interestingly, despite the 16-year gap between the film and its made-for-TV followup, Scott was actually about the same age as the character during the second go-round. He was barely into his 40s when he first played Patton, who turned 60 shortly before his death.
My take:
This is a good movie. I was surprised to learn that Patton ended his days as a paraplegic as the result of a stupid automobile accident. You have to wonder how a human dynamo like him felt being so helpless. He was obviously a difficult man. The movie touches on his anti-Semitism for a second and discusses his willingness to work with former Nazis. Not to mention his rabid anti-Communism, this guy was ready to start the Cold War single-handedly. But one cannot help but feel some pity for the man, trapped in his broken body. Don’t let the fact that it’s a TV movie scare you off, it’s worth a watch.
Director: Delbert Mann
Writer: William Luce
Notable Actors: George C. Scott, Murray Hamilton, Eva Marie Saint
Plot (Spoilers!):
The movie begins with Patton in trouble after the end of World War Two. He has decided to disobey orders and retain Nazis in key positions to help rebuild Germany. He also apparently considered using SS forces to join with US Army forces to wage war against the Soviets. He has even befriended a Nazi aristocrat and has taken to fencing with him. General Dwight D. Eisenhower calls him onto the carpet. He is to be relieved of his command of the 3rd Army and reassigned to the command of the 15th Army, a “paper army” whose main job is to scribe the official history of the war. This is a great disappointment to Patton.
But life is about to get much worse than an embarrassing appointment. On the day before he is to transfer back to the United States, Patton decides to go hunting. On the way to the hunting grounds, he is involved in an automobile accident. It is bad. His spine is injured and he finds himself paralyzed from the neck down.
Patton finds himself trapped in his own body in a military hospital. Experts are flown in but the prognosis is grim. It is highly unlikely he will recover. He spends his time chatting with his colleagues and reminiscing about his youthful days before World War One, his time with his father and his wife. Eventually, his conditions worsens and on December 21st, 1945 he succumbs to his injuries.
In 2008 Robert Wilcox made a case that Patton’s death was no accident. The book is entitled Target: Patton. It’s been a while since I read it and I don’t have the book at hand. But if I recall correctly the author’s theory of the crime is that the collision was contrived and as the general rolled down the rear seat window to see what was going on he was shot in the head with a lead or otherwise weighted “bean bag” which broke his neck. Since he didn’t die on the scene as expected, he was finished off in the hospital. Later the car, a Packard IIRC, was “disappeared.” The book was published by Regnery, a right-wing outlet.
No, he was not finished off at the hospital.
He being cared for perfectly well in Germany and was stable. But an excuse was contrived to fly him back to the US, that he’d supposedly get better treatment. Paralyzed is paralyzed, FFS. He died IIRC in transit, due to a supposed cockup.
I do agree that the accident was no accident. The last thing the US officialdom wanted was a high profile loose cannon like Patton back in America.
Also see Brass Target, a film based on the novel The Algonquin Project.
Haven’t heard of this one which Wiki says was a CBS movie in 1986. Of course the original Patton was written but not directed by Francis Ford Coppola. Will have to see if the charismatic Scott can once again redeem the nutjob warmonger with his pearl handled revolvers. Probably lucky that Ike “held him back” against the Red Army and then not so lucky with the early demise.
Of all the US figures of The Second World War Patton is the ‘untouchable’. No one will tolerate any context or nuance about him, especially the taboo subject of any US generalship: ability.
What in the Interwar was known as the Bradley Clique; Bradley, Eisenhower and Patton, came out on top in the petty and inane rivalry between military cliques in the US army. Eisenhower, the most junior in political power of the three, was chosen over the other two largely because he wasn’t as insufferable and double dealing. Fredendall was rightfully sent home but in doing so the Bradley Clique took the opportunity to clean house and get rid of rivals.
The Bradley Clique had a personal PR apparatus that rivalled that of the equally overblown MacArthur, it was widely remarked upon on allied armies that they’d never seen such a large amount of flaks accompany generals before and it more resembled politicians running for office. This came out to extremely useful in the Ardennes fiasco where Bradley managed to be fooled the same maneuver that had taken out the overstretched French and Belgian military a few years earlier and added to the ignominy by literally hiding, along with Patton and Eisenhower, because the clique feared the Brandenburgers had been formed especially to kill them. (Bradley would later get his men slaughtered in Hürtgen Forest when he could have gone around.)
This PR hit team was later mobilized to undermine allied generals. The British particularly are still angry by history was rewritten to exonerate Patton in Sicily where to compound his inability in trying to get the credit for taking cities as if they were flags in a prewar exercise by covering war crimes in his subordinate units and damaging morale. In this conflict the clique flaks set their sights on Montgomery, especially Cornelius Ryan who was on Patton’s personal press team and who wrote “A Bridge Too Far” which covered up General Gavin’s craven behavior by blaming Montgomery instead, and spent the war trying to smear him largely without any basis. Montgomery especially earned the flaks further dislike by leading his Canadians to actually win The Battle of the Bulge while Patton was spending three weeks trying to get to Bastogne, already irrelevant but glorified by the tame US press corps, when he’s promised to have it done in four days. Eisenhower made no attempt to limit this incredible behavior and Churchill put up with it because he’s do any low thing to keep the USA in the war.
On the matter of ability.
Patton was a man who would promise too much and then have his troops butchered trying to make good his promises. Although he talked of maneuver he rarely did any. His main ability was to swindle logistics from other areas so he could overwhelm whatever was in front of him regardless of how the rest of the war went. Patton was the worst sort of general; one who saw it as a popularity contest.
He wasn’t the worst US general, Stillwell has that dubious honor for sure, but Patton’s low ability is probably the most remarkable given the various hagiographies written about him.
But as I said, you can’t say that sort thing.
Your breezy comment about Third Army losses is contradicted by a detailed account on Quora. That raises doubts about everything else you said, since you provided no links as we normally require:
https://www.quora.com/Was-general-Pattons-3rd-Army-casualty-rate-higher-than-other-army-generals-in-WW2
Patton did believe in reincarnation or so he claimed.
Patton believed in reincarnation, stating that he had fought in previous battles and wars before his time, additionally, his ancestry was very important to him, forming a central part of his personal identity.[33] The first Patton in North America was Robert Patton, born in Ayr, Scotland. He emigrated to Culpeper, Virginia, from Glasgow, in either 1769 or 1770.[34]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patton
And it’s not unfair to suggest that the US army had long had its share of showboats. See Custer, McClellan. The Navy had some too but it’s hard to criticize Nimitz.
Bottom line: in movies you need colorful characters.
I read about about the Sicilian Campaign in this book, The Battle Of Sicily, which noted that Patton’s initial landing on the coast was much more efficient than Montgomery’s and he had armor and vehicles landed much more quickly and was ready to advance much sooner. If “playing politics” was benefiting anyone’s career there, it seems more likely it was Montgomery’s.
And almost regardless, in hindsight, Patton’s move to take Palermo and then double back on Messina is objectively correct. It forced the Germans to defend two fronts. The campaign would’ve taken much longer had Patton sat there defending Montgomery’s flank all the way north from Catania to Messina.
It also seems like German opinion is pretty uniform in questioning why the Allies weren’t more aggressive (as Patton would have wanted), given their military weakness at the time.
This wasn’t WWI trench warfare, that would’ve favored Montgomery’s approach of meticulous bombardments and small advances.
As I recall, the book Brute Force: Allied Strategy and Tactics in the Second World War also found Montgomery wanting. I’d given it away many years ago, now I wish I’d kept it. Very detailed read, and benefiting greatly from the Nazi’s obsession with record keeping.
I think you have to consider the performance of Truscott. It’s easier to look good when you have competent lieutenants.
In France, Devers, Patch and French Gen LeClerc were pushed aside by team Ike.
It may be a low budget made-for-tv movie, but I’ll be damned if all those extras in some of the scenes weren’t performing parade ground moves, saluting and standing at attention much more sharply than anybody marching in Trump’s military parade. Yikes.
The history of a war is written by the victors. The history of who-did-what-to-win-the-war is written by the survivors. The next time I watch Patton will probably be the tenth since 1970. I seem to remember that General of the Army Omar N. Bradley, who died in 1981 as a secular saint, was a technical advisor on the production. The movie was not history, exactly, but that it is one of the best movies ever and featured one of the best performances ever (with an Academy Award for Best Actor declined).
Carlo d’Este covered this history in several good books. Jonathan W. Jordan’s Brothers-Rivals-Victors: Eisenhower, Patton, Bradley, and the Partnership that Drove the Allied Victory in Europe covers the three principals. I found his book to be balanced. The epigram at the beginning Chapter One is from a letter written by Patton to Eisenhower in 1920: “Ike, this war may happen just about twenty years from now. This is what we’ll do. I’ll be Jackson and you’ll be Lee. I don’t want to do the heavy thinking; you do that and I’ll get loose among our #%&%$# enemies.” That seems to sum it up, very accomplished individuals knowing what was coming after the Treaty of Versailles and how they would contribute when it happened.
And all three generals and their Allied counterparts got a big assist from Marshal Zhukov, even if this has been flushed down the memory hole.
Only in the West.
I remember learning that in Russia (and in Ukraine, at least prior to 2010), they taught that America basically sat the war out until the USSR nearly had it won, only to seize Western Europe for themselves or something like that. I can’t remember the exact wording, but there was definitely a negative connotation around the US’s actions.
Just judging from the sheer number of casualties they suffered, the German casualties they inflicted, and also the Nazi intent (see Generalplan Ost), it does seem that history supports the Soviet/Russian view more substantially than it does our view, though not that it’s 100% correct.
There’s definitely a lot of bitterness left in our historical memory about the many delays in opening the Second Front vis-a-vis what was promised (or what was seen to be promised). Also, one of the most popular TV series in Soviet history, Seventeen Moments of Spring, had as its main plot the attempt of Nazis and Allies to strike a bargain behind our backs. I’d say that is at least as influential as anything taught in schools (for what it’s worth, I remember that Allied contributions were duly acknowledged in the school textbooks, though lend-lease may have received more attention and emphasis than any landings or subsequent maneuvers against inferior German forces in the west).