Quite a change from last week’s film, the PG-rated Patton (1970, 20th Century-Fox) took home seven Academy Awards for its ten nominations: Art Direction, Sound, Film Editing, Writing (Story and Screenplay–based on factual material or material not previously published or produced), Directing for Franklin J. Schaffner, Actor for George C. Scott as General George S. Patton, Jr., and Best Picture (it failed to win in the Special Visual Effects, Cinematography, and Music [Original Score] categories). There’s a funny story about the film’s screenplay. Francis Ford Coppola, who ended up winning an Oscar for Patton (as well as another Oscar for The Godfather and three Oscars for The Godfather II), researched the great general and wrote a screenplay for the film. However, the powers that be didn’t like much of Coppola’s creativity (for instance, the film’s opening scene in which Patton gives a colorful speech in front of a gigantic American flag), and he was fired from the project. A few years later, while working on The Godfather (1972), Coppola had an inkling that he was about to lose his job with that film as well. However, his script for Patton was resurrected and made into a BP winner, earning him his first Academy Award and cementing his job with The Godfather (at least, that’s how Coppola sees it)—as well as his place in film history.

Patton is one of those World War II Best Picture winners, though the film focuses more on the title personage than the conflict itself. George S. Patton, Jr. was born in California in 1885 on what would later become Veterans Day (November 11). Early in his life, he determined to become a military hero and follow in the footsteps of his ancestors who had fought in the Revolutionary War and Civil War. He was a West Point graduate and an Olympian, finishing fifth in the pentathlon at the 1912 Summer Olympics in Stockholm, Sweden. Well-known for his skill with a sword, Patton nonetheless distinguished himself by leading the first American armored vehicle assault during the U.S. Border War with Mexico during that country’s revolution in 1916. When the United States entered World War I in 1917, Patton was assigned to lead the American Expeditionary Force tank corps. He studied the new war machines and tactics for their use and effectiveness—and excelled. But in WWII, Patton earned his long-desired fame as a war hero, playing major roles in the Allied invasion of Sicily and in commanding the 3rd U.S. Army as it rolled through France and into Germany, capturing 10,000 square miles of German-held land in the span of a 10-day march in 1945. Just a few short months after the close of WWII, Patton broke his neck in a freak car accident while returning from pheasant hunting. During the 12 days of hospitalization that followed, he vacillated between joking and frustration, sadly telling his wife that he supposed he wasn’t “good enough” to have the honor of dying in battle like his ancestors had. General Patton passed away in his sleep on December 21, 1945, of pulmonary edema and congestive heart failure caused by the injuries he sustained during the car accident. A staunch believer in reincarnation, Patton doubtless anticipated a glorious return to the battlefield in some future life.

The real General Patton.

Had he been right about being reborn into another life, Patton might have had additional opportunities for war glory in the 1970s as the Vietnam War plodded on for the first half of that decade. President Richard Nixon’s expansion of the war with an invasion of Cambodia only stoked the furor of protesters at home, many of whom were college students. In the same year Patton was released, four protesters at Kent State University in Ohio were killed by National Guard troops. So as we begin the tumultuous decade of the 1970s this week, we are continuing a trend of unrest we saw in the 1960s. While the 60s gave us such delightful films as My Fair Lady and The Sound of Music, we also got In the Heat of the Night and Midnight Cowboy—indications of social discontent, disruption, and disease. With the 1970s, we will see more dark and disturbing films—The Godfather films and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, to name a few—but I think the value in watching these movies comes in the insight they can provide into our history, helping us to understand what people were thinking and feeling in the not-too-distant past. For that reason, I’m looking forward to sharing this upcoming decade of films with you all. Thanks in advance for reading!

For more thoughts on Patton and its significance, please check out the full post this weekend!