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George C. Scott Dead at 71 128

Posted by Hemos from the given-the-poll dept.
ozzie writes "George C. Scott, the actor we all know and love from such unbelievably great movies as Dr. Strangelove and Patton died yesterday at the age of 71. Check out ABCNews for more. " Given the current poll, this seems strangely connected - in any case, I remember his role in Dr. Strangelove with fondness. If you haven't seen that classic, rent it tonight.
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George C. Scott Dead at 71 More

George C. Scott Dead at 71

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  • local news said that the l.a. county coroner's office is holding onto the results of the autopsy...can anyone tell me why ?? anyone know anything further???
  • Aint-It-Cool-News has some comments on G.C. Scott [aint-it-cool-news.com].
    -- Moondog
  • {preface: IMHO, this question should be sent to "ask Slashdot."}

    {antbed}
    ...then you missed the f****** boat, have a nice swim, and check out some of his movies. :)

    "stereotypical nerds/geeks" tend to be classified as such, because of our tendency to appreciate, (among other things which don't score touchdowns or chicks) quality, intellect, artistic talent, and other things . Add to that, the small fact that George C. Scott kicks ass, and there's no wonder why.

    GC Scott was definitely quality. If no one has yet mentioned Excorcist III, I have done so now. He and Jack Lemmon almost turned the movie into a comedy.
    {/antbed}
  • I always thought Sam the Eagle was based on Sam Donaldson (check out the eyebrows!)

    =wl

  • My condolences to the family of Mr. Scott.

    I may be a bit offtopic or out of line when I say that I hope this doesn't skew the results of the current /. poll. Sympathy votes and poor rationale has pushed several unqualified people to the top of the polls, especially in Minnesota, where I live. Write in Dr. Nick Riviera!
    --

  • On a similar note, what's the name of the actor who played the air force pilot in Dr. Stranglove? The one that ends up sitting on top of his plane's H-bomb.

    That's Slim Pickens.

    "Nookler combat toe-to-toe with the Rooskies!"

  • I just commented on the fact that most people who are involved in computers are generally not the people who get involved with philosophy or running for political office as a whole.
    I strongly disagree with this statement. In fact, I have found many engineering types to be quite philosophical and politically active. Look at RMS. :)

    All joking aside, engineers tend to be a very well-educated group, interested in a lot more than technical stuff. Find a group of CSE majors and count how many are involved with creating music. I'll bet it's over half.

    Then ask them about novels, movies, opera, art, Plato and Aristotle. You'll find out they know a lot more than what happened in the latest SciFi media.

    --

  • Yeah. Sterling Hayden played the wacko General Jack T. Ripper.. And Slim Pickens played the Pilot, (something) 'King' Kong. Though the film's most notable performance comes from Peter Sellers (and his identical siblings Peter Sellers and Peter Sellers ;), George C. Scott is fabulous as the rambunctious and irrepressible Turgidson.

    "We cannot allow a Mineshaft gap!"

    Dr. Strangelove is one of my favorite films, as well as one of the few tolerable-quality Kubrick DVDs.

    Mr Scott, I'll miss you, you magnificent bastard..
  • If you're a youngster, check out Angus. He plays the grandfather and is really good in it. The movie itself is pretty cool.

    Matt

  • Rent it tonight... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    "...Rent it tonight..." Geez... the /. effect unleashed on movie rental stores. That's almost cruel.
  • ... not since the invention of the VCR.

    Scott played the leading role in They Might Be Giants, the film that named the band [tmbg.com]. He was also great as the effete critic in Mankievicz's All About Eve. Look for them and rent them!
    -----------
  • Does anyone remember that one? GCS played a mental patinet who thought he was Sherlock Holmes? A great little film!
  • Kinda of ironic filmorgraphy if you ask me, one glorifies the makers of war, while the other mocks them.
  • Could someone tell me how in any way the sterotypical "nerd" or "geek" would like these movies? This is not ment as a flame just curiously. Basically they are rather political in nature and not related to technology or even sci-fi.

  • George C. Scott (Score:4)

    by ajakk ( 29927 ) on Thursday September 23, 1999 @07:50AM (#1663966) Homepage
    Personally, George C. Scott holds a special place in my heart because he is in two of my favorite movies of all time: Dr. Stangelove and Patton. While he was definately a character actor, I think that George C. Scott plays the powerful person who has a fatal weakness like no other. He had the ability to present a character that could otherwise be dissmissed as a typical arrogant bastard with a skill that I think is still unmatched.

    I have been reading past interviews with him this morning and it is very refreshing to see how humble he was. Check out here [imagesjournal.com] for a very good bit on his life. It was done before he died.

  • When this movie first came out, the Air Force was able to put enough pressure on the production company to include the warning message at the beginning. Even so, the movie disturbed enough people to force a change in the chain of command, so that only the President could authorize a launch of a nuclear weapon.

    A movie changed a very major part of the military and federal beauracracies. Never understimate the power of movies.
    --
    Matt Singerman
  • If nobody has ever seen it, A&E's biography of him is superb. I'll bet a dollar it will be on either tonight or as their Biography of the week this weekend. If you can, check it out. It really delves (my new word for the day, probably mispelled it) into his personality and private life.

    Matt
  • George C. Scott refused the Acadamy Award twice: once when he was nominated around 1960(?) and the other time when he actually won for his role in Patton. He would rather watch a hockey game than be a part of an ego inflating "popularity contest."
    My kind of actor! He knew he was good, but did not need to play to the Hollywood media blitz. I will miss him.
  • Scott played Gen Buck Turgidson, pentagon advisor in the War Room scenes. The general at the Air Force base was Gen Jack D Ripper (heh), played by Sterling Hayden. Slim Pickens (heh -- real name?) played Maj T. J. "King" Kong, the B-52 pilot. (It's also worth noting that James Earl Jones was the plane's radio operator. This must have been one of his first roles, he looked quite young here.) See IMDB's Dr Strangelove page [imdb.com] for more information.



  • Hmmm. So I guess George was an actor because of his love for the craft. Not for any secondary remunerations. Sounds like a lot of people in the Technology industry who have helped us get where we are now today. Especially the folks whose collective works and ideologies would fall broadly under the Open Source movement.

  • Because he viewed the Academy Awards as a meaningless popularity contest.
  • Patton (the movie) does not actually glorify war or even Patton (the man) himself. I have always felt that the movie exposes that while Patton was a brilliant military tactician that he was a flawed individual: he had a bad temper, he had more care for history and his image than his men, and that he was a prima dona.

    But at least he admitted it. :-)

    -Markvs
  • Just FYI for those who haven't seen Dr Strangelove enuf times (its never enuf right?)

    Peter Sellers played 3 roles:
    Dr. Strangelove
    Mr. Merkin Muffley (The President)
    and Group Captain Lionel Mandrake (the brit who was with "the bodily fluids guy" ;)

    BUT he was also cast for the part of the rodeo pilot (the bomb rider)... well Kubrick filmed a few days worth with him in that role and decided he din't like him there and decided to use Slim Pickens instead.... a wise decision me thinks.

    The movie is incredibly deep (and funny on the surface).... come up with your own theories as to what the "nazi mechanical hand" means... the one that keeps attacking dr strangelove and his wheel chair.

    -Ecc
  • He also played the 3rd juror in the remake of 12 angry men. The 3rd juror is the one that holds out the longest, wanting to convict the accused of murder.

    He did an excellent job in that as well. He went up toe-to-toe against Jack Lemmon who played the 8th juror (who convinces the others to change their votes).

    If you go to the video store tonight to get Dr. S or Patton, and they've been /.ed, then try getting the remake of 12 Angry Men (I think it was made in 1997 or 1998).
  • I believe his political position was, "pissed off".

    He refused the oscar because he felt that all the awards ceremonies were bullshit, that it was just Hollywood patting itself on the back.

    I agree with him.
  • He also gave the best rendition of Ebenezer Scrooge I've ever seen, in the television adaptation of Dickens' _A Christmas Carol_ (well worth seeing around the holidays). Scott was extremely talented and his tremendous stage presence will be missed. :-(
  • His completely kick-@$$ role in 'Exorcist III'

    Wasn't he currently in the middle of some stage show on broadway or something?

  • I once heard this quote attributed to George prior to doing a bedroom scene:

    "[Madam], please forgive me if I get an erection, and please forgive me if I do not."

    Anyone know anything more about this?

    -=-=-=-=-

  • Sorry, it had to be said :-)

    RIP, Mr. Scott. Thanks for some wonderful acting. Dr. Strangelove has brought many a smile to my face over the years, and will continue to do so for many years to come.

  • Re:Rent it tonight... (Score:3)

    by Sethb ( 9355 ) <bokelman@outlook.com> on Thursday September 23, 1999 @09:21AM (#1663988)
    I saw the headline and thought "That's weird" I just rented Dr. Strangelove from Netflix.com [netflix.com] yesterday on DVD. It'll be here probably tomorrow so that I can watch it for the first time. Of course, I'm only posting this now that I've confimed mine has shipped, as I don't want the whole of Slashdot attempting to rent the DVD I want *grin* For those who haven't checked it out before, Netflix is pretty cool, they rent DVDs through the mail. No I don't own any part of them, or get any money from them, it's just a handy service, since my local video store has a rather small (but still growing) collection of DVDs.
    --

  • George C. Scott has started some kind of a cross-story thread here on /., or maybe I've just been reading too many comments ;).

    Hmmm, first there's the mention of Dr. Strangelove, then the Transmeta story, where someone proposed they were building a "doomsday machine", and then out of the blue, this guy dies!

    What's next? Are we going to find out that GSC has been seeding Transmeta with VC money, too?
    --

  • Odd subject? yes, but relevant for me.

    This past year as I enjoyed my last year of HS, I had the honor of being in a physics class with a teacher who was genuinely insane (Mr. Clark, you out there?) Anyways, he showed us movies whenever he was bored of our idiocity (by his own words I believe).

    So, it is because of him that I got to witness Dr. Strangelove, and I must say, Kubrick made a great movie, and G. C. Scott did a great job.

    It's sad to hear he's gone, even though I never knew him...
  • Actually Sellar's not playing Kong has many explinations

    The 'offical' explination is that Sellar's broke his leg.

    Another explination is that he couldn't get the right accent

    Which is the right explination? Who can tell. I will note that if an actor is injured, then the insurance company will pay for refilming of any scenes with the actor, while if the actor quits or is fired, they won't. Read anything you like into that.

  • Who would you most like to see George C. slap in the face?
  • His precise quote on the Academy Awards was that they were "offensive, barbarous and innately corrupt."

    OT: does anyone besides me think that the Muppet character Sam the Eagle was based on him?
  • If you're looking for further info on what this great actor did, visit his entry [imdb.com] on the Internet Movie DataBase [imdb.com].

    My personal favorite is only slightly obscure. It was his portrayal of a bitter old man in 12 Angry Men [imdb.com], a film (based on a play) which follows the deliberation of a jury in a murder trial. Very emotional, and given the content, suprisingly non-preachy.
  • What Blockbuster really needs is a twenny-tun nookler duvice fused for airburst at ten thousand feet.
  • The whole rant about "usurping our precious bodily fluids!".
  • Not to mention that the subject line "G.C. Scott: The Voice of Drugs" would make a great name for a band.

    ----
    We all take pink lemonade for granted.
  • General "Buck" Turgidson (Scott): Mr. President, we are rapidly approaching a moment of truth both for ourselves as human beings and for the life of our nation. Now, truth is not always a pleasant thing. But it is necessary now to make a choice, to choose between two admittedly regrettable, but nevertheless *distinguishable*, postwar environments: one where you got twenty million people killed, and the other where you got a hundred and fifty million people killed.

    President Merkin Muffley (Sellers): You're talking about mass murder, General, not war!

    General "Buck" Turgidson (Scott): Mr. President, I'm not saying we wouldn't get our hair mussed. But I do say no more than ten to twenty million killed, tops. Uh, depending on the breaks.
  • George C. Scott also did the best portrayal of Ebenezer Scrooge since Alister Sinn. It was made for TV several years ago, but it is also available on video.

    I am shocked by the departure of this great craftsman. We were just talking about him in my community theater group, relishing memories of his superb performances. :::sigh::: I feel as though my own grandfather has died.
  • IIRC, it was Slim Pickens who rode the bomb at the end.
  • You're thinking of the wrong character. That was Sterling Hayden (General Jack D. Ripper), not George C. Scott (General "Buck" Turgidson). Scott was the general who is sleeping with his secretary at the begining of the movie.
  • about another recently departed motion pictrure maker...

    "Stanley (Kubrick) was a genius," he said, chuckling, "but he was as crazy as a shithouse mouse."

    hmm..

    I used to watch Patton (the first scene, in front of the flag) with my football team before games, quite inspirational, that.
  • Another good bit that he was in recently was an HBO remake of the 12 Angry Men. He played the angry man who wasn't on speaking terms with his son. As always, he did a damn fine job in that. Jack Lemmon was playing the man with the knife... seeing them together was absolutely awesome. Proof that his talent did not diminish with age. If any of you fans missed that one, get it... you won't be disappointed.

    I have to agree with the fella above who liked him in A Christmas Carol - he was brilliant.

    And I have never seen Dr. Strangelove... something that I plan to fix very soon after seeing it spoken so well of.

    Cheers

  • Even better than his quotes... (Score:4)

    by grappler ( 14976 ) on Thursday September 23, 1999 @11:00AM (#1664011) Homepage
    His facial expressions and gestures are even better than his quotes in Strangelove. Watch the movie and just pay close attention to those. It'll leave you in tears. It's even funnier than any of the three Sellers characters or Slim Pickins' plane ride.

    Strangelove's brief apperance was pretty good tho :-)

    Fun fact about the movie: The plane captain was going to be a fourth Sellers role, but he was unsure about the Texan accent, so they used Slim Pickins instead. And, when the movie was being filmed, Kubrick didn't tell Pickins that the movie was a comedy. He thought he was the hero.


    Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeehaaaaaaaaaaaawwwwwwwww.....

    --
    grappler
  • will have additional poignancy this year. Of all the ACC versions that I've seen it was the best. Possibly because it stuck pretty closely to the book.

    My other favorite was They Might Be Giants. Neither film got the attention they deserved.
  • As an aside to this:
    Nerd: an unstylish, unattractive, or socially inept person; especially : one slavishly devoted to intellectual or academic pursuits

    Geek (2): a person often of an intellectual bent who is disapproved of

    --Webster Dictionary

    For some reason I think that this fits into the intellectual category considering the quality of his films.

  • Another great quote I forgot to mention is from the movie "The Exorcist III" (A surprisingly great horror flick, specially considering how bad "The Exorcist II" was). George C. Scott plays the detective going after a serial killer.

    In one scene, he is meeting his childhood friend (now a priest) for a movie, and while in the lobby, the priest asks the detective why he just doesn't go home, and the detective says in typical George C. Scott quiet yet authoritively(sp?) angry fashion:

    "My wife's mother is visiting, Father, and Tuesday she's cooking us a carp. It's a tasty fish, I'm not against it. But because it's supposedly filled with impurities, Mary's mother buys it alive, and for three days now it's been swimming in my bathtub. Up and down. Cleaning out the impurities. And I hate it. I can't stand the sight of it moving it's gills. Now, you're standing very close to me, Father. Have you noticed? Yes. I haven't had a bath in days. So I never go home until the carp is asleep. I'm afraid that if I see it while it's swimming, I'll kill it."

  • A Christmas Carol (Score:3)

    by teleny ( 4948 ) on Thursday September 23, 1999 @11:11AM (#1664015)
    He didn't want to be Scrooge, but aced it anyway. "I played him as the lonliest man in the world." he said, and managed to go through an entire spectrum of emotion in two hours. From his solitary Christmas eve meal (of Scotch oatmeal, very much in period) to cowering in fear at the thought of his own demise, to hoisting Tiny Tim aloft in wild manic glee, he made you BELIEVE the story, so much so that I kept saying "This is modern. This is not Dickens at all. The scriptwriters must have tossed this or that in for TV." Nope. I wanted to break my own nose. And I'm a girl.
  • Yep! This is one of my favorite films! Joanne Woodward plays the psychiatrist (named Dr. Watson of course) who is trying to cure him. Very witty film.


    I can tell you the meaning of life,

  • Be Seated (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Now, I want you to remember that no bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by makingthe 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 player, the toughest boxer.

    Americans love a winner and will not tolerate a loser. Americans play to win all the time. 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.

    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 going to kick him in the ass. We're going to kick the hell out of him all the time and we're gonna go through him like crap through a goose.

    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, and I will be proud to lead you wonderful guys into battle - anytime, anywhere.

    That's all.
  • It only sounds stupid if you are ignorant of history.

    Careful who you are calling stupid. The United States has had its hands in plenty of atrocites over the past 200+ years. Which is one of the points of Dr. Strangelove, and which George C. Scott potrayed so well.

    To drag this back to the subject, GCS had this power as an actor that was incredible. And not just when he was chewing the scenery. There was a great moment in Taps where he is talking about how he is becoming obsolete. He was very calm, but oh so dramatic.

  • Here [imdb.com] is a link to the IMDB info page on Mr. Scott. I think it is safe to say that he will be greatly missed. It's just too bad that in recent years he has mostly been in TV guest appearances.

    To quote his character from Dr. Strangelove... "Gee, I wish we had one of them doomsday machines." Well, now you don't need one. :-(

  • Time to dig out the Dr. Strangelove DVD and watch it tonight. What a great character!

    Between that and his role in "Patton", we should all remember him with fondness.

    That, and he was the first person to refuse a major award, calling the Oscar a "Self serving meat parade", according to NPR this morning.
  • He won best actor for "Patton", didn't even
    come to the ceremony. That's cool.

    Just wonder how realistic that movie is?

    He played a cool con man in "The Flim Flam Man".

    But yeah, Dr. Strangelove is a fine movie.

    "Where is Major Kong?"
    "you are going to have to answer to the Coca
    Cola company"

  • Why is that bad? If I own a store I shure would like to rent as many copies of a particular movie as I could so as to get the most money.
  • Interesting, coming from someone whose .sig quotes a decidedly political, and non-technical, book...
  • Quite true--does anyone know what his political position was?

    It strikes me as most flexible to be in Dr. Strangelove and Patton with any strong political convictions.

    And why did he refuse the oscar for patton?

    -awc

  • If you want a true glimpse into the mind of a madman, go rent Exorcist III [imdb.com] instead. It has some of the most bizarre acting on his part.

    He has a lot of good scenes involving screaming things at people that have no business being screamed. It's a whole lot of fun.

  • I didn't say that I did not care for politics. In fact I never has written any serious code since I have had little training and little incentive to do so. I just commented on the fact that most people who are involved in computers are generally not the people who get involved with philosophy or running for political office as a whole.
  • Dr. Strangelove shows how technology can be
    misused. Gen. Rippert changed the recall codes
    and sent his planes to bomb Russia. If he had
    kept the code secret, the world would have ended.

    Kind of scary to think that could have happened.

    Plus, it's a funny movie.

  • Or Better... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    If you happent to be in New York, wait until December and watch the amazing new 35mm print at Film Forum, running from late December through early January (in a typically Film Forum-ish nod to Y2K). Strangelove is worth seeing projected.
  • "Your average commie has no regard for human life, not even his own". It sounds STUPID, but a generation grew up being told that. HECK, go back and watch Regan campaign commercials.

    It only sounds stupid if you are ignorant of history. Try reading the history of the Soviet Union during the Stalin era, the liquidation of the kulaks, the purges, the famine in the Ukraine, the Great Patriotic War, the gulag system.

    The Chinese and North Koreans were not noted for their respect for human life, let alone human rights, esp. during the Korean War.

  • And all of these are by the leaders, who are by definition not your 'average commie'.

  • I'd like to point out that George C. Scott also supplied the "Voice of Drugs" in _Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue_, a Bush-era special in which every Sat morning cartoon character in the world vies against Mr. Scott's character for the soul of a 12 year old boy whose friends want him to try crack.

    It's great, especially since you can tell that the cartoonists resented their assigment. They compensate with a few background gags.
  • The stareotypical thing about geeks is that they rarely fit into a stereotype.

    Yes, we're all quite technophilitical (new word!) but our interests span the full spectrum of all other groups.

    Besides, politics and philosophy are a means of programming people, as well as programs that run on people - who are actually just massively parallel, distributed computers. So there! ;)
  • Probably it's not complete yet. Lab tests or something which takes time to get.
  • Cnn website is saying the coroner's report says he died of natural causes. Man that sentence has some bad grammar.

    Quote from article:
    He died of a ruptured abdominal aortic aneurysm

    Rest well Patton, you deserve it.

    Matt
  • Um, it also says "Stuff that matters." George C. Scott influenced the lives of many Slashdotters including myself. I consider his death stuff that matters Anonymous Coward.

    Matt
  • ok... flames aside, you are obviously misled in your interpretation of "geek". hmm... lessee... i'm the usual, codefreak, unix commands tatoo'ed all over my body, 5 computers at my desk kinda garden variety geek (i have a personal serve-switch at my desk). i breathe sed and awk. but i am also a member of a salsa band, and member of a kick-ass modern afro-cuban group. i play three different instruments and i sing, as well as compose and arrange. i own more music cd's than cd-roms, and one of my biggest kicks is driving down the freeway with the windows open and the music going full-blast out to the people around. and dr. strangelove is one of my favourite movies. i think the type of person that i am represents more "geeks" than your obviously narrow vision of sci-fi nerds with pocket protectors and high obnoxious voices. incidently... i have a friend who is a unix sysadmin who is one of the most sought-after amateur sax players (no jokes please) in the midwest. so there! *grin*

    always trying to break down ignorance and stereotypes,

    --bc
    --------------------------
  • Great rob, now you're killing people with your polls. Any idea when we'll see a poll with Bill Gates?

    It is definately sad to see the Doc go.

  • Thanks for the quote. I needed to read it again.

    Matt
  • wow, unix tattos and sed breath, i think i love you. but here!here! i saw strangelove before i fermented into a geek. now that i think about it, i t may have started the geek thing.i'm going to rent it tonight, and of course illigally copy it. don't forget about "the changling"
  • I didn't say that anyone was stupid, just ignorant. There is a difference between the two.

    Dr. Strangelove is a satire. The characters are based on real-life people and events, just exaggerated. A number of people have been nominated as the models for Dr. Strangelove. Much of the effectiveness of the movie is that it isn't far removed from the reality of the time.

    The USA and Western Europe were in the middle of a cold war with the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact. Stalin was dead, but his memory was fresh in many people's minds. The USA was trying to come up with a strategy for fighting a war in the nuclear era. The Strategic Air Command was on nuclear alert 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. In American politics, perceived "bomber gaps" and "missile gaps" were major political issues. The USA was concerned that Communism would spread to South-East Asia and Latin America, just as it had in Eastern Europe.

    If you don't have some of the historical context, it is easy to write off the characters in Dr. Strangelove as right-wing lunatics detached from reality.

    It is too easy to say that the people in some earlier era were stupid, primitive and irrational, as opposed to the more intelligent, evolved and sophisticated people of today (us, of course).

  • ... now this is sad. Patton was one of my favorite movies, I don't know how many times I saw it. Well, I'd always thought Patten was the best US WWII general.. but still. Dr. Stranglove was good too, and I can't imagine anyone else pulling of that part as well.

    This is quite depressing...
  • _Finding The Way Home_, also known as _Mittleman's Hardware_, filmed in Denton, Texas. Almost as good as _Necessary Roughness_. Took forever to come out and was a TV movie. Whee!
  • Because Dr. Strangelove is (IMHO) one of the best cold war movies. It seems so far fetched that it's funny, but you can see all of the values that shaped the world around us.

    As somebody who didn't really become aware of the world until well after all this past, it helps me to understand why things are the way they are. Why on earth do we need thousands of multi-megaton nuclear weapons? People felt like this.

    "Your average commie has no regard for human life, not even his own". It sounds STUPID, but a generation grew up being told that. HECK, go back and watch Regan campaign commercials.

    We must remember what got us so close to the brink of war, so we can avoid it. I'm a geek who would like to live well into the next century and I want my primary worry to be that I get enough exercise after sitting in front of this monitor all day.

    Of course, it is also a funny movie. :-)

  • Fav Quotes from the master.... G.C.S. (Score:3)

    by _ECC_ ( 43365 ) on Thursday September 23, 1999 @07:58AM (#1664051)
    Priest: "I saw a bible by your bedside, do you find time to read it?"
    Patton: "Every god damn day" =]


    Patton: "Rommell! you magnificent bastard... I READ YOUR BOOK!"


    GSC as the general in Dr Strangelove: "You can't let him in here... he'll.... he'll see the big board!"

    when he and the ambasador from russia are fighting,
    President: "Gentlemen.. you can't fight in the war room!" hehe oh the irony

    And the whole scene about the bombers flyin' in low, "if the pilot is real good" =] heh oh my

    argh I know I'm forgetting some REAL good ones... lets make this a quote thread =]

    Patton: "My soul thirsth for thee",
    Ecc
  • How ironic that I ordered the Dr. Strangelove DVD just a few days ago. I hope it comes here soon.

    Besides Strangelove, if you haven't seen him in Patton you're missing out. He becomes the character of Patton so completely and so believably that it is hard to imagine that there was a General Patton who WASN'T George C. Scott.

    Doug

    "But Mr. President, the war room? He'll see the big board!" -- George C. Scott in Dr. Strangelove



  • Even though I really liked Patton and Dr. SL, I've come to think that my personal fav is his reprise of Scrooge in a remake of A Christmas Carol. *Shug* dunno why, but I find his Scrooge the most convincing.

    NPR replayed an interview they had with him from a couple of years ago. It's was pretty good. It seems he was somewhat of a recluse, and George responded:

    "I don't like to go anywhere. I don't like to see anyone. Hell, the only fella more reclusive than me is Charley Bronson. We're neighbors and we never see each other."

    The above roughly paraphrased. GCS will be missed.

  • Accolades (Score:3)

    by babbage ( 61057 ) <cdevers.cis@usouthal@edu> on Thursday September 23, 1999 @08:08AM (#1664054) Homepage Journal
    The Yahoo / Reuters news piece [yahoo.com] notes that he twice turned down awards -- first a best actor Oscar for Patton, then an Emmy the next year for an Arthur Miller play. Turned them down on grounds that "he did not feel it was right to compete with other actors."

    I can't speak for anyone else, but I admire that. Would any of today's actors do that? I doubt it.



  • Nearly every geek I know loves Strangelove. In fact, I can't think of an exception off hand, except among people who haven't seen the film. But then again, most people I know who have seen the film like it, so maybe that's just a common theme among the people I know. :)
    And Strangelove is a little science fiction, too, IMHO.

  • Comment removed (Score:3)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Thursday September 23, 1999 @08:13AM (#1664056)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • It is a fun film. My wife and her colleague went with me to the local independent theater that was showing Dr. Strangelove just last week. Most there had never seen the film, and the crowd of 400 was enjoying itself.

    It's also an important film as it's one of those dubious "firsts" out there. First to parody the Cold War. Dr. S was done at a moment in time where everyone was building bomb shelters, children were practicing "duck and cover" under their school desks, and everyone suddenly realized that being white and American didn't mean you would be alive tomorrow. Americans don't really mind bloodshed -- so long as it isn't in their own country. The Cold War was the first time the average American realized that not just the soldiers and people in some far-away-land could die in time of conflict.

    George C. Scott plays General Buck Turgidson in Dr. S. He echoes the right-wing sentiments of 30 million Americans killed as an "acceptable loss." In this moment in time, it's hard for people to remember that their government was willing to kill millions of their own.

    Anyway, rent the film. It's quite funny, though you may want to take along a dictionary to look up a few names. Buck TURGIDson? Col. Bat Guano? President Merkin MUFFley? (go look up merkin)
  • Was he the lunatic American camp commander with the thing about flouridisation? That was a great role, and played hilariously.

    On a similar note, what's the name of the actor who played the air force pilot in Dr. Stranglove? The one that ends up sitting on top of his plane's H-bomb. I've seen him in loads of films playing tobacco chewing Louisianans (at least I guess that's what his accent was).


    Chris Wareham
  • From the opening scene in 'Patton'

    "No-one ever won a war by dying for their country. The way you win wars is by making the other dumb bastard die for his country"
  • Not to forget Keenan Wynn as Major 'Bat' Guano (if that really is your name)

    "You're going to have to answer to the Coca Cola Company!'
  • CNN reports:
    Veteran actor George C. Scott died of a ruptured abdominal aortic aneurysm, the Ventura County Coroner's office said Thursday.

    The rest was just a rehash of the Associated Press article... I'm damn sad to see him go.
  • For those who are realaudio-enabled, NPR had a really cool obit this afternoon, available here [npr.org]. They got some of my favorite bits, but they left out one of my personal favorites, Day of the Dolphin (okay, the movie's not that great, but Scott sure as hell is...)

    Anyway, the best part of the piece is when Rex Reed is quoted as calling George C. Scott "the meanest Richard III ever seen by human eyes".

    I don't doubt it a bit...
  • give it up for our home GSC, till I join 'ya
    "Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
  • "They Might Be Giants" is great. By all means see it!

    As for "All About Eve" - another classic - it's a testament to Scott's dedication that he had extensive plastic surgery and changed his name to George Sanders for just that one film, and never mentioned it to anyone ever again :)

  • There was a mid-eighties British band that lifted their name from the film All ABout Eve. Unfortunately they went from being an exciting live band to a dismal studio band - something to do with signing to a major label with big ideas on what they should sound like ...


    Chris Wareham
  • > "Your average commie has no regard for human > life, not even his own". It sounds STUPID, but > a generation grew up being told that. It's typical propaganda, man. s/commie/nazi/ or s/commie/jap/ and you've got the kids of the '40s pegged. Repeats all through history. > HECK, go back and watch Regan campaign > commercials. Or the Dukakis commercials of the same vintage. Ever wonder why he allowed himself to be photographed in a tank with a rocket launcher? See also Dr. Seuss' classic butter battles.

  • video /.-ing (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Oh great. now Blockbuster is going to get /.-ed.

  • He (Score:1)

    by magnetx ( 33177 )
    He was great, and definalty will be missed.
  • He played the Other UASF General, General Turdgeson (sp), who went to the "War Room" and met with the president. Quotes include the one about how skilled pilots could bring the planes in really low and how they should go ahead and bomb the russians full force.

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