Where to watch Patton (1970)

Trivia & production notes

• Lee Marvin, Burt Lancaster, John Wayne, Robert Mitchum, and Rod Steiger all turned down the lead role of Patton before George C. Scott was cast.
• Rod Steiger later called declining the Patton role his greatest career mistake.
• Producer Frank McCarthy contacted Patton's family for help the day after his widow Beatrice was buried in 1953, but they declined to provide access to Patton's diaries or input.
• The Pentagon initially refused to cooperate on the film because Patton's son was serving in the Army and his daughter was married to an officer, but McCarthy persuaded them by 1959.
• Francis Ford Coppola wrote the Patton script in 1963, basing it largely on Ladislas Farago's biography Patton: Ordeal and Triumph.
• William Wyler was originally scheduled to direct Patton but quit before shooting was set to begin in January 1969.
• The film was shot at 71 locations across six countries, with most filming occurring in Spain because the country had abundant surplus U.S. Army equipment from World War II and offered cheap labor.
• An unannounced battle scene shot at night near the Royal Palace in Rabat caused fears of a military coup in the neighborhood.
• Patton was shot in 65mm Dimension 150 format, making it only the second film ever shot in that format after The Bible: In the Beginning.
• Coppola and North softened Patton's language in the opening speech and throughout the film to avoid an R rating, replacing stronger profanities with milder alternatives.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article Patton (film), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Rewritten for StreamShack; errors are ours — tell us about them.