''Patton'''s effect on history

Count on Oliver Stone to start sparks on a new wide-screen special-edition laserdisc of Patton. Richard Nixon was known to have watched the war epic several times before ordering the 1970 bombing of Cambodia. In a supplemental documentary on the disc, Stone says Patton ”is one of the few movies, much more so than even JFK, that has directly…influenced American history. I believe it was Patton…that made Nixon make that final decision to…invade Cambodia to expand the Vietnam war.” The director divulges that for his 1995 film, Nixon, ”I had a scene I’d written where Nixon and his family…are watching the movie.” But, Stone says, he couldn’t get the permission of star George C. Scott (above) to use a Patton clip in Nixon. ”And I never understood the reason.”