The war epic was revived with Franklin Schaffner's admirable 'Patton.' Schaffner's control of his film is impressive, and the various campaign sequences are strikingly photographed through an audaciously wide lens...

George C. Scott was commonly referred to as a 'character actor' in view of his remarkably extensive range... Oddly for a character actor, Scott was almost always the same person on screen vigorous to the point of pugnacity, acting with his chin the way other actors do with their eyes-yet revealing, in his own eyes, unsuspected depths of humor and intelligence...

Now few actors have ever been so convincing in such a powerful and colorful character... Only Peter 0'Toole's eccentric T.E. Lawrence comes immediately to mind... Both, he and Scott, create their characters out of complementary contradictions... Lawrence detests the savagery of war but embraces it... Patton cannot separate the conduct of war from his own personal glorification, and both actors are giv ...more