In 1946 producer Frank McCarthy returned to Hollywood after serving in Europe during WWII – he was the personal assistant to General George Marshall – and pitched 20th Century Fox studio head, Darryl Zanuck, the story of General George Patton. Zanuck loved it and said, “Get me a script.” Well, twenty years and twenty writers later, still without an acceptable script, and now in financial desperation, McCarthy took a real shot in the dark. He went to USC film school and asked, “Who is your most talented student?” They replied, “That’s easy, Francis Coppola.” McCarthy visited Coppola, whose career was at its bumbling beginning was not going very well, and asked him if he’d like to rewrite the script for Patton for more money than he’d ever earned before.
Being newly married with a pregnant wife, Coppola immediately agreed. He read the previous drafts of the script, then quickly knocked out a really good rewrite. One of Coppola’s truly inspired ideas was to begin the film with General Patton addressing the troops. Darryl Zanuck loved the script and green-lit the film. After Writer’s Guild arbitration, the writing credit was given to Francis Coppola and Edmund H. North, whose best credit, The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951), was from 20 years earlier. When Patton won the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay, Coppola and North went up on stage, shook hands, and said, “Nice to meet you.”
In about 1996-97, when the internet was new and young, Francis Coppola started his website, Zoetrope.com, and I immediately subscribed. Then Coppola held an open chat with us early subscribers for about three hours. I don’t know how many people were online, but after he was asked several dumb questions in a row that led to short, uninteresting answers, and it appeared this chat idea wasn’t really working, I could not help but just take it over. I did this by asking short questions that engendered long answers. I said (typed), “I’m from Detroit. Isn’t that where you were born?” I, of course, already knew that, but nobody else did, and he was exceptionally pleased to explain. His father, Carmine, was the flutist for the Detroit Symphony Orchestra at the time. Francis was born at Henry Ford Hospital, and, as he said, “That’s where the Ford in my name came from.”
I then turned the chat to exactly where I wanted it to go, and where I knew Francis Coppola would love it to go, but certainly didn’t expect it. Nobody remembers that he won his first Oscar for the Patton script, which is a brilliant piece of writing. So, I asked, “How much of Patton’s opening speech is really Patton?” Coppola answered, “All of it.” I asked, “Even the ‘rip out their living guts and grease the treads of our tanks’?” Coppola answered, “Yes. I couldn’t make that up. And when I added that scene to the front of the script, that’s what got the movie made . . .” and he was off and running, saying, “People don’t realize that I wrote that script, and it’s some of my best writing.” In the three-hour chat that followed, I don’t believe that we ever got to The Godfather or Apocalypse Now. He explained in detail what he’d done to the Patton script. Not only did he pretty much rewrite everything, but he added all of the Quixotic, a man who is living in several time periods at once, aspect to Patton’s character, which is what makes him so interesting.
To reiterate my ongoing point — five hundred tanks shooting at each other in the African desert is terrific, and exciting, but it isn’t nearly as good, or satisfying, as terrific dialogue.
General Patton: Be seated. Now, I want you to remember that no bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country. Men, all this stuff you've heard about America not wanting to fight, wanting to stay out of the war, is a lot of horse dung. Americans, traditionally, love to fight. All real Americans love the sting of battle.
When you were kids, you all admired the champion marble shooter, the fastest runner, the big-league ball players, the toughest boxers. Americans love a winner and will not tolerate a loser. Americans play to win all the time. Now, I wouldn't give a hoot in hell for a man who lost and laughed. That's why Americans have never lost and will never lose a war. Because the very thought of losing is hateful to Americans.
Now, an army is a team. It lives, eats, sleeps, fights as a team. This individuality stuff is a bunch of crap. The bilious bastards who wrote that stuff about individuality for the Saturday Evening Post don't know anything more about real battle than they do about fornicating.
Now, we have the finest food and equipment, the best spirit, and the best men in the world.
You know, by God, I actually pity those poor bastards we're going up against. By God, I do. We're not just going to shoot the bastards. We're going to cut out their living guts and use them to grease the treads of our tanks. We're going to murder those lousy Hun bastards by the bushel.
Now, some of you boys, I know, are wondering whether or not you'll chicken-out under fire. Don't worry about it. I can assure you that you will all do your duty. The Nazis are the enemy. Wade into them. Spill their blood. Shoot them in the belly. When you put your hand into a bunch of goo that a moment before was your best friend's face, you'll know what to do.
Now, there's another thing I want you to remember. I don't want to get any messages saying that we are holding our position.
We're not holding anything. Let the Hun do that. We are advancing constantly, and we're not interested in holding onto anything – except the enemy. We're going to hold onto him by the nose, and we're gonna kick him in the ass. We're gonna kick the hell out of him all the time, and we're gonna go through him like crap through a goose!
Now, there's one thing that you men will be able to say when you get back home, and you may thank God for it. Thirty years from now when you're sitting around your fireside with your grandson on your knee, and he asks you, "What did you do in the great World War II?" — you won't have to say, "Well, I shoveled shit in Louisiana."
Alright now you sons-of-bitches, you know how I feel.
Oh, I will be proud to lead you wonderful guys into battle anytime, anywhere.
That's all.
Great story! By coincidence I've been watching several of Coppola's early films, including his thesis movie "You're a Big Boy Now." I thought it was a ripoff of "The Graduate" but then found it came out a year before "The Graduate!" It's not great by any means, but given that it was a student thesis I was pretty impressed. It has a truly great opening shot, a very long, slow tracking shot through the New York Public Library, when suddenly the doors burst open and a '60s go-go gal comes dancing through.
I saw his Warner Bros. musical, "Finian's Rainbow," last night. I had no knowledge of the source play, and I was pretty surprised by the story....and by what happens to Keenan Wynn!
Speaking of the early days of the Internet: In 1996 I was a college freshman, and a writer for our newspaper. I was a fan of Bruce Campbell, and he had a new thing called a "website" with his email address posted. I emailed and asked if he'd consent to an interview for the paper. He replied, and told me to send him ten "extremely original" (his quote marks) questions and he'd send his answers in a few weeks. I asked about his involvement in "Thou Shalt Not Kill...Except" and several other of his (at the time) lesser known films. Only one "Evil Dead" question. Anyway, I'm still waiting on his response!