Trivia for
Patton (1970) More at IMDbPro »

• George C. Scott won the Academy Award for best actor and famously refused to accept it, claiming that competition between actors was unfair and a "meat parade".
  
  
• Producer Frank McCarthy was a retired brigadier general who served on the staff of Gen. George C. Marshall during World War II; he worked for 20 years to make a film about Patton.
  
  
• Rod Steiger, Lee Marvin, Robert Mitchum and Burt Lancaster all turned down the lead role.
  
  
• John Wayne eagerly sought the role of General Patton but was turned down by the producer.
  
  
• John Huston, Henry Hathaway and Fred Zinnemann each declined to direct the film. William Wyler agreed to direct, but differed with George C. Scott over the script and left for another film.
  
  
• Nearly half the budget was spent on soldiers and equipment rented from the Spanish army.
  
  
• The opening speech, which was shot last, was originally intended to be at the beginning of the second half (after the intermission).
  
  
• Many of the quotes from the opening speech are real quotes from George S. Patton. However, not all of them were said at one time; rather, the speech is an assemblage of Patton moments.
  
  
• Some of the stock actual war footage was shot by future director Russ Meyer, who was a combat cameraman in the U.S. Army's Signal Corps during World War II.
  
  
• This film was originally titled "Patton: Salute to a Rebel" and pre-release promotional material carried that title. The title was changed just prior to general release.
  
  
• Parts of the speech at the beginning were inspired by a real speech Patton gave before the 3rd Army finally landed in Normandy in late June and early July 1944. The parts of the speech used are watered-down versions of what Patton actually said.
  
  
• This was the second, and last, film to be produced in the Dimension 150 process.
  
  
• Although Francis Ford Coppola and Edmund H. North are credited as co-writers, they never worked together and actually never even met each other until they were collecting their awards.
  
  
• According to his co-star Karl Malden, Scott caused a shooting delay by immersing himself in a ping-pong tournament against a world-champion table-tennis player. Scott (who was in full costume and makeup) kept losing to the champ; yet he was determined to win at least one set, even if they had to stand there playing the entire night.
  
  
• Paul Frees dubbed the voice of the Morrocan Minister, and can also be heard at least two other times: once during the press interview soon after the soldier slapping scene, and again near the end of the film, when a reporter interviewing General Patton (who is riding his horse around an indoor track) leads him on by asking the General about similarities between the Nazi party in Germany and the Republican and Democrat parties in the United States.
  
  
• George C. Scott felt he hadn't really captured the full character of Patton. He would apologize to director Franklin J. Schaffner on the set for not fully realizing the complexity of the man.
  
  
• The American and British tanks in the film are World War II vintage M-24 "Chaffee" light tanks. The German tanks, however, are portrayed by American-built postwar M-47 and M-48 tanks. Ironically, both the M-47 and M-48 types are called "Patton" tanks.
  
  
• Part of the film was filmed at a Over Peover in Cheshire. This was the actual location that Eisenhower and Patton would meet (specifically at the pub, the Bells of Peover). The pub is till there, and flies both the Union Flag and the Stars and Stripes outside to commemorate its part in history.
  
  
• The invasion of Sicily via Syracuse that Patton describes being executed by Alciabiades was an embarrassing defeat for the Athenians and Alcibiades was condemned as a traitor.
  
  
• After Karl Malden as General Bradley loses his helmet when his jeep is blown up by German artillery, he says to his driver, "Give me that helmet, Sekulovich!" This is part of Malden's insistence that there always be a character named Sekulovich in all his films, in reference to his own birth name, Mladen Sekulovich.
  
  
• The movie begins without showing the 20th Century Fox logo, or any other indication that the film is starting. At military bases across the U.S., theater owners reported that soldiers in the audience would often stand up and snap to attention when they heard the movie's opening line ("Ten-hut!"), assuming it to be a real call to attention.
  
  
• The German planes are a Spanish version of the Heinkel He 111, built under license by CASA. These are the same planes as featured in the film The Battle of Britain. Ironically, these Heinkels are powered by British made Rolls Royce Merlin engines, the same engines that powered Spitfires and Hurricanes against the German Luftwaffe during World War II.
  
  
• The scene where Patton tells General Truscott that he did serve with Napoleon is in reference to a poem which Patton wrote titled, "Through a Glass Darkly". In the poem, Patton talks about vague memories of six separate past lives, from caveman, to Ancient Roman, to Napoleonic Frenchman, and being a soldier in each and every life.
  
  
• Initially, George C. Scott refused to film the famous speech in front of the American Flag when he learned that the speech was going to come at the opening of the film. He felt that if they put that scene at the beginning, then the rest of his performance would not live up to that scene. So director Franklin J. Schaffner lied to Scott and told him that the scene would be put at the end of the film.
  
  
• In reality, at the time he hit the wounded soldier, Patton had been without sleep for nearly 48 hours and after hitting him, returned a couple of hours later and apologized.
  
  
• Soldiers who served under the real Patton said that the general's voice was surprisingly high-pitched.
  
  
• The scene where General Truscott tells Patton "You're an old athlete yourself General, you know matches are sometimes postponed". Patton actually had represented the U.S.A. at the 1912 Olympic Games in Stockholm by competing in the Modern Pentathlon. Patton finished a credible fifth in the competition. Remarkably it was the shooting element that let him down. In true Patton style he used his military .38 revolver instead of the lighter .22 favored by most of the athletes. Patton was also an expert fencer. He re-wrote the U.S. Army's manuals on swordsmanship removing the 'parry.' His idea was for all attack. Defence just wasted energy. Such was his mastery of swordsmanship that he designed the last saber ever to be worn into battle as a weapon, the M1913 Cavalry Saber, commonly known as the "Patton Saber".
  
  
• This was one of President Richard Nixon's favorite films. He had his own print, and would often watch it in the White House, particularly before having to make an important military decisions in Vietnam and Cambodia.
  
  
• Patton's line about wanting to "lead a lot of men in a desperate battle" was actually written in a letter to his brother-in-law on the ship crossing the Atlantic on the way to North Africa.
  
  
• Somewhat perversely, "Patton" was re-released in early 1971 following the announcement of Oscar nominations on a double bill with a very different war film, also from 20th Century Fox and a Oscar nominee for best picture: MASH (1970).
  
  

Related Links