Starring: George C. Scott, Karl Malden
Screenplay: Francis Ford Coppola & Edmund North
Studio: 20th Century Fox (2 DVDs)
Video: 2.20:1 anamorphic/enhanced for 16:9 color, 1080p HD
Audio: English DTS HD 5.1 Master Audio, Dolby Digital 5.0, Spanish & French mono
Subtitles: English, Mandarin, Cantonese, captioned
Extras: Introduction and Commentary track by Coppola, Theatrical trailer, “History Through the Lens: Patton – A Rebel Revisited,” “Patton’s Ghost Corps,” “The Making of Patton,” Production stills gallery accomp. by Jerry Goldsmith’s complete musical score, Behind-the-Scenes stills gallery accomp. by audio essay on the historical Patton
Length: Feature: 172 minutes
Rating: *****
Can’t believe I had never seen this blockbuster before; perhaps because I’m such a Dove. Coppola, who wrote the screenplay as a young man and then saw it finally produced years later, says in his intro that both the Doves and the Hawks liked the film at the time. It is a great film which won seven Academy Awards in 1970, but Patton himself had plenty of chinks in his Great Man armor.
The studio couldn’t get cooperation from the late general’s family, so delved mainly into Patton’s military record for this extensive coverage of his life during WW II, resulting in a film so long it has an intermission in the middle. There are also so many extras here that a second Blu-ray disc is required. The documentaries showing the real Patton in action reveal how accurately George C. Scott played the military leader. His characterization is a compelling portrait of the rebellious general. He was tough, no doubt about it. The scene in the hospital tent where he hits the young soldier suffering from shell shock and even threatens to shoot him is just one example of Patton’s unreasonable attitudes. While some of his other excesses, such as insisting his troops advance even when their gasoline supply was cut off, are shown, but it takes one of the supplied documentaries to reveal his actions which caused the needless deaths of many hundreds of U.S. soldiers in the “Ghost Corps.” He was also an admitted prima dona who saught to create a larger-than-life impression thru an accent on his ostentatious style of dress, his use of profanity and other tricks. He was always vying with British commander Montgomery to gain the limelight for his victories.
If you have seen the film in the past, it might be a good idea to start first with the separate disc of bonus materials, which is quite interesting on its own merits. The transfer looks excellent thruout, and the DTS surround sound captures the full spatial feeling of the plane fly-bys, the shells exploding, and the gunshots. The battle scenes are quite realistic, especially the major one in North Africa, which involved many tanks and men from the Spanish army masquerading as German tanks and soldiers. The use of clips from Movietone Newsreels here and there in the film to set up the history of what those at home were seeing is well done. The scene selection navigation never worked for me, even though I had installed the most recent firmware update on my Pioneer Blu-ray player, and initial loading took forever.
– John Sunier
