University of Virginia Library

Producer Captured In Oscar's Glow

—Ed.)

"Patton" has been a labor of
love for you for 19 years. Can you
tell us how this project evolved?

During World War II, I had the
very good fortune to be executive
officer under General Marshall. We
had a chance to observe General
Patton training troops and in
combat, and I observed that Gen.
Patton was the most interesting
commander in the war. First of all,
you could prove mathematically
that he was the most successful
field army commander in terms of
ground gained and that sort of
thing, but when he was not in
battle he was always in trouble.
The other commanders did
everything so right that the curves
of their lives were always going up.

Gen. Patton's curve looked more
like an electrocardiogram for a man
with a serious heart attack. In my
opinion, that made him very good
theatrical material, and I
determined to try to make a movie
about him if I could get into the
movie business.

You knew Patton. What did you
personally think of him?

I'm not sure that I would have
survived as a member of his staff
because he was a very ruthless man.
Once you gained his confidence, at
least I was told this by members of
his staff, he developed a great
affection for you, but I'm not sure
I would have had the patience that
some of the others did. I preferred
working under a commander who
worked less on impulse and more
on logic, the way Gen. Marshall
and Gen. Eisenhower and Gen.
Bradley did.

In the making of the movie,
what sort of difficulties did you
experience with Patton's family?

For one thing, Gen Patton was
such a flamboyant character that
when he did anything wrong, it
became headlines in the United
States. So Mrs. Patton had an idea
that the media was persecuting him.
When we wanted to make the
movie, she said "Please don't do it.
I've had enough of the media,
enough of the persecution of Gen.
Patton." Out of respect for her we
didn't do anything about it.
Subsequently, the Pentagon
wouldn't help at all because his son
was in the Army and prevailed
upon them not to help me. And so
many more years went by until I
found out I could make the film in
Spain. We fled to Spain and made
the picture there. Now as it turned
out, we couldn't have made it here
anyway because the tanks and
material needed were only available
in Spain. Finally, the Pentagon
helped us at least in a token manner
by reading and approving the script,
and the family liked it well enough,
so we're all very happy together.

What do you think would have
become of Patton had he not died
in an automobile accident just after
the war?

Oh, I think he would have
become a very tragic figure. Upon
being retired and coming home, I
think he would have become
involved in some right wing
political causes, perhaps extreme.
He was a man of discipline, he
believed in authority. His training
was so completely military and so
authoritarian that I can't imagine
his having participated in any
activity that would not have been
embarrassing to him or at least have
created some unpopularity. I think
when it came to Korea and
Vietnam, had he been alive, he
would have gone absolutely insane.
He would have found himself
completely incompatible with
everything we've ever done there.

George C. Scott is one of the
most controversial figures in
Hollywood. What was your
relationship with Mr. Scott?

As producer of the picture. I
was in control of it, and if I hadn't
been in complete control of it, I
wouldn't have been an effective
producer. George Scott, who I
think is the best actor I've ever seen
on any stage or screen, had very
strong views about the script, and
wanted to rewrite certain parts of it
after we started shooting. This was
not practical because it had to be
approved by the head of the studio
and General Bradley, who is still
living and whose rights of privacy
we had to protect. When Scott
would want a rewrite. I would have
to say. "I'm sorry, we can't do
that," and he would then become
difficult. The changes we made for
Scott were only changes to
facilitate his graceful delivery of the
lines. But when an actor tries to
change the characterization, then
you have to put your foot down
and say no. So we had professional
differences, as happens on nearly
every picture and nearly every big
enterprise, but we overcame them
all and the picture got made the
way it was written, and Scott,
despite his recalcitrance on
occasion, I think did a really
magnificent job.

How do you account for the
fact, that despite his reluctance,
George C. Scott was still voted the
Academy Award for best actor?

Well first of all, Scott didn't say
from the beginning that he
wouldn't accept it. He waited until
he was nominated together with
four other actors, and having been
nominated he said in effect that if
elected he would not serve. When
he made that announcement,
people in Hollywood were very
angry; they felt they and the
Academy had been insulted. But
when they began to consult with
each other, most of them, at least
most of those who really thought
he gave the best performance,
realized that they were giving the
Award for the performance and not
for the man's own personal
expression. So, to prove their
integrity, they voted their real
choice of performance and
therefore he won.

What did happen to the Oscar
that Scott won?

Well, I didn't accept it. I made a
speech, stating that I thought that
he was a great actor and that the
Academy had proved its worth by
giving him the award regardless of
his personal desires. But I carefully
didn't use the word "accept" and I
didn't use the word "thank you"
because Scott wouldn't accept it
and he didn't want to thank
anybody. So I gave it back to the
Academy, and they're holding it,
and if he ever wants to pick it up,
he can.

How do you feel about the
Academy Awards in principle?

I think they're wonderful in
principle because they give all the

Caricature by David Ritchie

Dinner With General George C. Scott

people who work in movies, that is
all the creative people, an
opportunity to express their
opinion as to who gives the best
performance, what's the best
picture, and all the rest. I think it's
very helpful. You have to realize
these selections are not made by a
group of eminent jurists, they are
made by the rank and file creative
people in the picture business, who
have a right to choose what they
think is best. It's as democratic as
anything could be. The ballot is
completely secret. There are no
polls to influence one as there are
in politics, and I don't know how it
could be better done.

Is there much politicking
involved in the Oscar race?

No one has ever asked me that
before, but the answer is yes. Some
people get out and push like heck.
For example, the campaign waged
in the trade papers by "Love
Story" must have cost many, many
thousands of dollars, let me guess
$50,000. But our theory at 20th
Century Fox was that the best
thing you could do was to persuade
people to come see the movie. Most
people voting won't vote for things
they haven't seen. We conducted
our campaign at almost no cost,
inviting people to come to
screenings at the studio.

How do you value an Oscar as
compared to an award from the
New York Film Critics, which on
the surface seems based more on
artistic merit?

Well, they're two very different
things. Critics go one way, the
public feels another. The people in
the industry sometimes vote still
another way. I think the reason we
won, instead of "Five Easy Pieces"
or "Love Story," is that people
who make movies and know what
difficulties are involved in making
movies would vote very differently
from people who go out to get a
good cry at "Love Story," or to say
how avant garde "Five Easy Pieces"
is. So the criteria are altogether
different, and there's no real way to
compare them.

Did you think when you first
started working on "Patton" that it
would be an award winner?

No, because I first started
thinking about it twenty years ago,
and at that time the kind of picture
made about a general was always a
flag-waving picture; pictures were
made for the purpose of glorifying
generals. The philosophy and
attitudes of the country were very
different from what they are now.
So I think it would have been a
different kind of picture, and not
an Academy picture at all. It would
have been a swashbuckling action
picture, rather than the deep
character study which we
attempted to achieve some twenty
years later.

Are you surprised at the success
of an essentially "hawkish" picture
like "Patton," at a time when most
of the public has strong "dovish"
leanings?

When you say it's "hawkish"
and the public is "dovish," you
miss a point. People come into this
movie with a certain attitude and
usually walk out with their own
attitudes heightened. For example,
there are many people who say that
because this picture is very frank
about war and about the
ruthlessness of Gen. Patton, that
it's an anti-war picture. And there
are others coming out saying, "Oh
God, if we just had somebody like
that in Vietnam!" So "hawks" look
upon it as "hawkish" and "doves"
look upon it as very "dovish." With
all the people that are anti-war, as
most of our people I think are,
there have been no demonstrations
against the picture at all, as I had
earlier feared.

"Patton" cost 12.5 million
dollars to make, and unlike many
other recent big budget movies, it's
making money. Is the era of big
budget films almost over and, if so,
why?

I don't think so. It's in eclipse at
the moment because, as a result of
the smashing success of "The
Sound of Music," all the studios
started out to imitate it. A lot of
those pictures went under, so
everybody became cost-conscious,
the debts at the banks grew. The
Fox debt is 77 million dollars,
resulting from failures such as
"Star!" and "Doctor Doolittle." So
then there set in a reaction, and all
the studios started to make smaller
pictures in imitation of "Easy
Rider" and a few of those that
came along for little money. But all
of this will balance out, because if
you make a movie that costs 12.5
million dollars and it brings you
back eventually 50 million, which
we think "Patton" will do, that's
much better, in terms of dollars,
say, than you can do even with
"Easy Rider," which was an
enormous success. Generally
speaking then, to make money you
have to spend money. I think
there's room for all of them if
they're good pictures.

Robert Evans, vice president of
Paramount Pictures, seems to be in
favor of reverting back to the
"studio system" where the director
doesn't have the final say in making
a film, such as Elaine May with "A
New Leaf." How do you feel about
this and how do you think it will
affect the industry as a whole?

Well, very few directors have
ever had the final say in making a
picture because movie companies
are public corporations. Their stock
is on the market and therefore
they're owned by the public. Now,
the stockholders are only interested
in one thing: in getting dividends.
In my opinion, any company which
says to a director or a producer,
"Here's the money, go out and
make any movie you like," that
company is guilty of abandoning its
responsibility to the stockholders,
because it's not controlling the
money properly.

Would you produce a
sexploitation film, a "skin flick?"

I wouldn't make one for a
sensational purpose. For one thing,
they're not doing very well. A
couple of years ago, those films
with sex acts thrown in as if they
were musical numbers to divert you
because they didn't have any plot
did well because they were entirely
new. This was the American
audience's almost full emergence
from puritanism. I didn't
particularly object to them morally
but I felt they were not very
entertaining. When you see a
certain amount of that, it isn't
erotic any more. On the other
hand, there's a picture called
"Women in Love," which I thought
was a great picture. It had a certain
amount of explicit sex, but it was
there exactly where D.H.Lawrence
put it, and it was a legitimate
element of the story.

The Hollywood community is
thought to be a trend-setter. One
trend that Hollywood has seemed
to popularize is the use of drugs,
especially marijuana. Is your
experience such that you find older
actors as well as younger ones
taking part in this sort of activity?

No. In the first place, with
regard to the younger actors, I
don't think they are any more
prone to the use of drugs than any
other segment of our population.
As a matter of fact, I think the
colleges are much more so. Most of
the actors I know, at least those
that are successful, are quite
dedicated people, and if they use
pot, I think they use it mostly in
their spare time. You don't see it
on the set. As far as my generation
is concerned, and it's well ahead of
yours, it almost doesn't exist. I've
been to parties occasionally where
pot was passed in my age group,
but it almost never happens. And I
think one reason is that we're sort
of freaked out on booze. Having
grown up during prohibition, we
became accustomed to the
stimulation of alcohol, usually
properly used. I don't know how
long it's been since I've seen anyone
in my age group drunk at a party.
The need for anything stronger or
more dangerous seems not to exist.
I think that anything you hear
about Hollywood and drugs or
Hollywood and sex is likely to be
exaggerated. Now, I don't think it's
just another great big home town. I
would think that if you went into
middle America and picked any
small town, you would find that
Hollywood is a little more
excessive, but I don't think it's
any more excessive than New York,
and I don't think in any
department it's more excessive than
any big, sophisticated college
campus I know of, like, shall I say,
the University of Virginia.

I'm sure you're aware that much
of the novel, The Godfather, is
based on the supposition that
Hollywood is controlled by the
Mafia. Is this conceivable?

No. It is not in any sense
Mafia-oriented. I've lived and
worked in Hollywood for 25 years,
and I've never seen one suggestion
of that.

What advice would you have for
a college student interested in
making a career in films?

It's very difficult. Actors are
always about 90% unemployed
because there are so many people
who claim to be actors who are
really driving taxis. But apart from
acting, through the crafts and the
trades, editing and the rest of that,
there's about 50 to 60%
unemployment. A producer is not
likely to entertain the idea of
taking on a young student who
wants to learn the craft when he
has people who have been working
for him for 20 years who are
presently out of work. So it's not a
good time, except for writers. It's
always a good time for writers.
There are a lot of scripts being
passed around, but most of them
are terribly inferior. I would say
that I read an average of 20
properties a week. But I can hardly
remember one that I read and
didn't like that was produced by
anyone else. So there's an awful lot
of dross floating around and it's
awfully difficult to find a good
property. So if you can write a
good screenplay or treatment, your
chance to sell it is good because the
market is in very short supply of
good stories.

Copyright, 1971
The Cavalier Daily