Brass Target takes the real 1945 car-accident death of General George S. Patton and asks a question the official record never settled: what if it wasn't an accident at all. Set in the final chaotic weeks of the war, the film turns Patton's last days into a hunt for whoever wanted him silenced.
What is Brass Target about?
As Allied forces close out the war in Europe, Patton has become dangerous to more people than the enemy he was sent to fight. Nazi loyalists blame him for their defeat. Soviet officers remember him pushing to keep marching east once Germany fell. And a fortune in stolen Nazi gold gives at least one more party reason to want him gone before he starts asking questions. The film follows the officers around Patton — including two colonels whose loyalty is compromised by how much they stand to lose if the truth comes out — as suspicion closes in from every direction. Brass Target never settles for one villain; it lets the political chaos of 1945 supply several plausible ones at once.
About the cast
The ensemble spans several generations of screen names: Sophia Loren, John Cassavetes, Max von Sydow, George Kennedy, Robert Vaughn, Patrick McGoohan, Bruce Davison and Edward Herrmann all take roles in the conspiracy that surrounds the general. It's the kind of late-1970s cast list built to carry a story that spends as much time in briefing rooms and back channels as it does in the field.
Context & significance
Brass Target arrived in 1978, part of a run of American films that used real historical figures and unresolved deaths as the seed for conspiracy plotting, a genre mood that had taken hold across Hollywood earlier that decade. Director John Hough, working mostly in genre and adventure filmmaking through the era, keeps the pace brisk rather than let the history swallow the thriller mechanics. At 111 minutes, the film has room to move Patton's inner circle through the plot without losing the central mystery.
Watching Brass Target on Ktime
Brass Target streams on K-Time with a free account login, no separate purchase, no waiting. Persian dubbing and Persian subtitles are both available, so it plays comfortably for viewers who want the story in Farsi or with the original English performances and Farsi text on screen.