The Dirty Dozen – World War II movie


The Dirty Dozen

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Lee Marvin is perfectly cast as a down-but-not-out army major who is offered a shot at personal and professional redemption. If he can successfully train and discipline a squad of army rejects, misfits, killers, prisoners, and psychopaths into a first-rate unit of specialized soldiers, they’ll earn a second chance to make up for their woeful misdeeds. Of course, there’s a catch: to obtain their pardons, Marvin’s band of badmen must agree to a suicide mission that will parachute them into the danger zone of Nazi-occupied France. It’s a hazardous path to glory, but the men have no other choice than to accept and regain their lost honor.

What makes The Dirty Dozen special is its phenomenal cast including Charles Bronson, Donald Sutherland, Telly Savalas, George Kennedy, Ernest Borgnine, John Cassavetes, Richard Jaeckel, Jim Brown, Clint Walker, Trini Lopez, Robert Ryan, and others. Cassavetes is the Oscar-nominated standout as one of Marvin’s most rebellious yet heroic men, but it’s the whole ensemble–combined with the hard-as-nails direction of Robert Aldrich–that makes this such a high-velocity crowd pleaser.

A customer review: By Benjamin J Burgraff  - “The Dirty Dozen”, Robert Aldrich’s 1967 adventure classic, would redefine a whole genre of films, as public attitudes towards warfare and heroism changed, due to Vietnam. With ‘heroes’ who were certainly not noble, a mission that would require a level of cruelty film audiences had never before seen from American fighting men, and graphic language and bloodshed, the impact of the the film was both immediate (despite huge ‘box office’, many critics panned the film as ‘disturbing’ and glorifying violence), and continuing (influencing films as diverse as “Patton” and “Saving Private Ryan”). It can be viewed at many levels, as a crackling good adventure yarn, an ‘anti-establishment’ and anti-war statement, the ultimate ‘buddy’ film…few films have generated as much controversy, or stood the passage of time, better!”   View more

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