The Hollywood Reporter – by Paul Bond
“Silence Patton: First Victim of the Cold War” aims to “prove to the viewer that he was silenced because his views didn’t go along with the status quo,” says the filmmaker.
A film in the works now and aiming for a release date next year makes the case that Gen. George Patton, who died three months after the end of World War II, was assassinated, perhaps by the KGB, due to his outspoken opposition to Communism and the former USSR.
The feature-length documentary, dubbed Silence Patton: First Victim of the Cold War, is from writer-director Robert Orlando. The filmmaker’s most recent movie, A Polite Bribe, is about the Apostle Paul and set for release through VCI/Cinedigm on Tuesday.
Patton died Dec. 21, 1945, in a hospital from complications suffered a few weeks earlier when the car in which he was a passenger was struck by a two-ton truck. Three others involved in the accident were only slightly injured.
Before his death, Patton was making enemies of leaders not only in the USSR, but also the U.S. and Great Britain, because of his mistrust of then-Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, an ally during World War II.
“Tin politicians in Washington have allowed us to kick the hell out of one bastard (Adolf Hitler) and at the same time forced us to help establish a second one (Stalin) as evil or more evil than the first,” Patton reportedly said.
On the website promoting the film, Orlando argues that Gen. Dwight Eisenhower prevented Patton from advancing his Third Army to the Nazi capital, a tactic that extended the war against Hitler by several months and allowed the Russians to take Berlin.
An essay on the website asks: “Is it possible as some say that the general’s freakish collision with an Army truck, on the day before his departure for the U.S., was not really an accident? Or was Patton not only dismissed by his peers, but the victim of an assassin’s bullet at their behest?”
Orlando says he has been drawn to Patton since writing an essay about him when he was in the fifth grade.
“Gen. Patton is a towering historical figure of great consequence who shaped the history of the West,” Orlando said. “My goal with Silence Patton will be to dig deeper into the narrative and prove to the viewer that he was silenced because his views didn’t go along with the status quo.”
Patton has been the subject of several TV and movie projects over the years, most notably the 1970 film, Patton, which starred George C. Scott as the feisty and controversial World War II hero. The film won seven Oscars including best picture.
Email: Paul.Bond@THR.com
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/george-patton-film-suggests-wwii-694919
Anything’s possible, but what kind of proof do you have to support the claim?
If he died in the hospital two weeks after the accident, it doesn’t really sound to me like a murder attempt, and the fact that there were passengers in the truck that hit his car makes it sound like any other vehicle accident. (ramming someone in a car with your truck isn’t an effective means of murdering them — much too much left to chance)
It seems to me like there are a lot more effective and definite ways to murder someone, especially in a war zone.
Maybe the motive was there, but the means look a little bit shaky to me, so at first glance, it looks like someone’s grasping at straws to come up with a conspiracy movie plot.
hi JR…read the non fiction Target Patten and I think you will change your mind….It’s a fine read!!
It might be a great book, and it might be a great movie too, but once again, what evidence do we have that it was a murder? If it’s based on the car crash described above being the murder attempt, I’d still say it’s doubtful.
Like I said, I understand the motive, but that car crash just doesn’t sound like a murder attempt to me.
And if there were a plot to kill him, would they let him lie in the hospital for two weeks before finishing the job? The whole premise just sounds a bit shaky to me.
the book I referenced is not so much about the car crash…This was the third attempt upon Gen Patton. (right there in Germany after the war) The book also lists evidence and footnotes regarding the authors writing of the book….As i recall, the book is maybe 10 yrs old if that….I read it out of our public library….and was shocked to read the behind-the scenes of political, on goings, with WW2…and its end. If you’re interested in this type of American History, you might find an online book review….of “Target Patton”
I know nothing of this out coming documentary….this is the first I have heard ot it.
Gen patton was a patriot, who opposed Jews and communists,
he said “The Germans are the only decent people left in Europe”
Gen pattons opposition was Henry Kissinger, the cowards murdered him!!!!.
WRONG! He was most likely assassinated by communist Jews controlling the Russian government!
I was under the impression(for over the last ten years) that the CIA had him killed because Churchill and Patton hated each other.
the cia as such didn’t exist at that time…it’s before organization did and they are fingered also in his murder…..three attempts in a short time after the war ended were made upon his life….he is quoted as saying to his family before being murdered, I won’t make it back home….and in fact is buried in Europe….and as I recall, no atopsy SP?? was done, of course intentionally………