Patton (1970) 20th Century Fox 📢 Director: Franklin J. Schaffner 💰 Producer: Frank McCarthy 👫 Cast: George C. Scott, Karl Malden. 🏆 Awards ceremony: -43rd Academy Awards: April 15, 1971. Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, Los Angeles, California. 🎭 Other films nominated for Best Picture this year: -Airport. -Five Easy Pieces. -Love Story. -M.A.S.H. 📕 Plot summary: The story of General George Patton (GEORGE C. SCOTT), who led a group of American soldiers into battle in North Africa in 1943. The battles later include the invasion of Sicily before heading north through France and into the Battle of the Bulge. 💥 Standout scene: Patton's apology speech to a crowd of soldiers gathered around a water fountain after he is accused of slapping a soldier he deemed to be cowardly. There's another good scene early on where Patton arrives at the soldier's barracks and then hospital where he makes his feelings known on cowards. 🔑 Facts: -The 43rd Academy Awards. -Nominated for 10 Academy Awards, it won 7: Best Picture, Director, Actor (George C. Scott), Screenplay (original), Art Direction, Editing, Sound. -This was Karl Malden's second Best Picture appearance (after On The Waterfront). -George C. Scott's opening profanity-laden speech takes up the first six minutes of the film before we get into the opening credits. 🙂 Personal opinion: There are long passages of boredom and then all of a sudden out of nowhere we'll get a great scene with Patton yelling at cowardly soldiers. There is too much bad and boring and not enough great and glorious. The film suffers from loose editing and allowing long scenes to drag and become boring. It wasn't stimulating or interesting or exciting and I found my attention span wandering off frequently throughout the 2¾ hours of running time which zapped my concentration and enthusiasm. The cinematography is restrained, the script is lousy and executed poorly. One fine performance can't glue the rest of the shit together despite a small handful of well-framed action scenes involving low-flying airplanes over a tank-filled battlefield. A few graphic scenes did surprise me for a movie that has a PG (Parental Guidance) video rating. Jerry Goldsmith's score sounded similar to some of his music later used in ALIEN (1979). Seriously, was this film really the best 1970 had to offer? It's 3 hours of nothing; let's face it, it's no Dirty Dozen is it? Did it deserve the Oscar? ❌NO. Tora! Tora! Tora! deserves a mention here. ⭐️4/10

Review date: 18 March 2025