Cinema: Old Blood and Guts

Patton advances a highly original thesis: the villain of World War II was not Germany, but Britain. The movie's hero, General George S. Patton (George C. Scott), is distantly analyzed by little Goethes in Nazi uniforms. They pronounce him "a magnificent anachronism" and America's most fearsome belligerent. The British, on the other hand, are all whining limeys whose vindictive leader, Field Marshal Montgomery, nourishes his ego on the bones of American troops. One can imagine an equally distorted British interpretation mounting Monty as a knight-errant and Patton as a gorilla.

Patton opens with...

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