The Last Days of Patton

Following World War II and the events depicted in the wildly successful "Patton" (1970), victorious George C. Scott (as George S. Patton) remains in Germany to work on the defeated county's reconstruction. The US general's decision to employ ex-Nazis (and sympathizers) irks superior Richard Dysart (as Dwight "Ike" Eisenhower) and Patton is reassigned to a desk job. Even worse, he is involved in a serious car crash. While Mr. Scott suffers life-threatening injuries, flashbacks continue to reveal events from General Patton's young adulthood (as Ron Berglas). The title strongly hints our hero will very likely not survive...

This belated sequel to "Patton" (1970) appeared as a CBS-TV three-hour (including commercials) epic movie. It was a popular success, but surprisingly garnered only one "Emmy" award (for make-up) and one further nomination. Allyn Ferguson's music lost, but it is one of this story's main strengths. It evokes the 1940s. The more critically acclaimed 1970 film won most of that year's "Oscar" awards. It featured make-up and music that looked and sounded more like 1970 than the 1940s. The soundtrack music was beautifully composed, but Jerry Goldsmith should have added 1940s flavor, as Mr. Ferguson does...

Scott continues to breathe life into the role for which he is most famous. There isn't much excitement left in Patton's life, but Scott and director Delbert Mann manage to move it along well, considering. Both this sequel and the original 1970 "Patton" will seem too long for the average viewer. Along with an improvement in setting, "The Last Days of Patton" boasts superior supporting performances. Most valuable player is Murray Hamilton (as Hobart "Hap" Gay). And, Patton's love-life is well-represented by cheated-on wife Eva Marie Saint (as Beatrice Ayer) and former "Dark Shadows" TV regular Kathryn Leigh Scott (as Jean Gordon).

******* The Last Days of Patton (9/14/86) Delbert Mann ~ George C. Scott, Murray Hamilton, Eva Marie Saint, Kathryn Leigh Scott

It is OK that they made a sequel concerning Patton's life at the end of the war. Proud of his Anglo-Saxon heritage, he has some identification with the Germans for this reason and because he was strongly anti-communist. Whether he made some of the specific remarks he made here is open to question (it can more easily be proved that he said something than he did not say something, of course). In any event, it is historically true that he made an impolitic remark that, like his soldier-slapping, got him into trouble and transferred away from his military governor position.

But after he is seriously injured (spinal column and paralysis) in the auto accident, the movie drags on way too long, over an hour when he is in a hospital bed. There are reminisces from him and many parties, flashbacks, and many well wishers and helpers. The problem is that nothing really happens of significance, it is just a failed attempt at tear-jerking. Patton himself was fiery, so not a person who lends to easy identification with all the softness. For those worried about being bored, I would stay away or leave halfway through. Clearly, a maximum of 20 minutes was needed to cover this period and the director's insistence on doing much more wrecked the movie, in my book. Adding to the pre-injury time would have been a better decision.

The first Patton movie was a classic, but some stupid TV exec had to convince George C. Scott that this sequel was a good idea. Of course you wouldn't expect much from a TV movie, but this... What were they thinking? This depressing slop just seems to drag on and on, until at the end you're almost happy he's finally dead. The last few days of Patton's life would never be fit for an entire movie. The ending of one, maybe, but it should impossible to stretch Patton dying in a bed into feature length. Yet somehow they did, and even longer. My theory is that at the last minute, someone told the writer they wanted a two-parter. That would explain the huge amounts of padding in this film. My advice, stick to the original and forget this one ever existed.

I found this movie compelling to watch. Selecting only the final days of its subject's life, it is not really a biopic. There is no plot--the life of any person seldom has a plot. I call it a character study, probably the least spectacular of all dramas. What character studies lack in spectacle, they're supposed to make up for with a fascinating portrait of the subject's personality--like looking at a great oil painting of a famous person--except that it's a motion picture. Having said that, I found this film to be remarkably well done and could have been better were it not budgeted as a TV movie. I think the film's theme (rather than plot) is how a person handles his own impending death. When the subject is General Patton, a first-class soldier and real hero, a man who always wanted to die by the last bullet of the last battle of the last war of his life, and the circumstances of his dying is by a fender-bender that breaks his neck and renders him an invalid for 12 days, a recipe for a real dramatic character study emerges. How a man like Patton handled the absurdity of his transition to death is the human question that permeates the whole movie. It starts off by his return to the States for the first time since November 1942. He has his wife on his arm, and the couple is surrounded by reporters. The reporters demonstrate that, whether pro or con, Patton is a legend and he makes good copy. Beatrice at his side reminds us that he was also a family man--and a good one--a man who compliments his wife publicly. The film is filled with reminiscing flashbacks which shows two things: that Beatrice was a good match for Patton, particularly the scene where she drives the tank prototype, at her husband's request, to demonstrate the ease with which it can be driven before the Army brass; a man who is sorely tempted to see no more point to continue living is tugged one way by memories (thus, acknowledgment) of having lived a good life and tugged another way to put up a cheerful front in facing the absurd, anticlimactic present. Beatrice realizes this in a scene with General "Hap" Gay in a darkened hospital room where she reveals her understanding that her husband has everyone fooled by his charm and bravado--but her husband is slipping and he knows it. The movie shows that Patton's heroism was not an act put on for his soldiers or for the public or the press--nor was it self-delusion--his heroism ran deep--steeped as he was in his knowledge of history, his own ancestry and family, the film shows that the dying, invalid Patton was heroic in another way: he was kind and generous to his doctors and their staff; he tried greatly to spare his wife any unnecessary hurt. Even in his attitudes towards the de-Nazification policy--is not driven by any political motive. No real warrior takes any pleasure in seeing a vanquished people suffer after they've been disarmed. Given his upbringing and values he had demonstrated all his life, I believe that Patton saw his job as military governor of Bavaria to help the Bavarian people survive the winter and to get back on their feet. Even if he were wrong about de-Nazification, the film is interested in the character that drove the man. His attitude towards the Soviets was probably also driven by what he saw as very cruel and heartless conduct by the Soviet forces against the conquered German population. This movie is not for everyone. It will not entertain anyone who needs real spectacle to remain entertained. The natural audience for this kind of movie is a more mature--or emotionally deep--audience.

I'm curious about the assertion that some have made that the film was a "character assassination." I myself saw nothing that would lead one to come to such a conclusion. Certainly, the film indicated he was not without faults, but I believe this only served to make this formidable militarist icon more approachable, actually breathing life into a dusty history lesson.

I enjoyed the film a great deal, even though I think it could have benefited by some reduction in the length. The ending was quite moving- -giving us a personal glimpse into the last moments of a living, breathing human being--instead of just a decorated martinet. It forced me to turn my thoughts to my own mortality and the events that have shaped my own life. As a result, I had a long and fruitful discussion with my parents which had been long over due.

I'd recommend the film highly, giving it an "8" out of 10.