The Dirty Dozen is a 1967 film directed by
Robert AldrichRobert Aldrich was an American film director, writer and producer, notable for such films as Kiss Me Deadly , The Big Knife , What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? , Hush… Hush, Sweet Charlotte , The Flight of the Phoenix , The Dirty Dozen , and The Longest Yard .-Biography:Robert...
and released by MGM. It was filmed in England and features an ensemble cast, including
Lee MarvinLee Marvin was an American film actor. Known for his gravelly voice, white hair and 6' 2" stature, Marvin at first did supporting roles, mostly villains, soldiers and other hardboiled characters, but after winning an Academy Award for Best Actor for his dual roles in Cat Ballou , he landed more...
,
Ernest BorgnineErnest Borgnine is an American actor of television and film. His career has spanned more than six decades. He was an unconventional lead in many films of the 1950s, including his Academy Award-winning turn in the 1955 film Marty...
,
Charles BronsonCharles Bronson , born Charles Dennis Buchinsky was an American actor, best-known for such films as Once Upon a Time in the West, The Magnificent Seven, The Dirty Dozen, The Great Escape, Rider on the Rain, The Mechanic, and the popular Death Wish series...
,
Jim BrownJames Nathaniel "Jim" Brown is an American former professional football player who has also made his mark as an actor. He is best known for his exceptional and record-setting nine-year career as a running back for the NFL Cleveland Browns from 1957 to 1965. In 2002, he was named by Sporting News...
,
John CassavetesJohn Nicholas Cassavetes was an American actor, screenwriter and filmmaker. He acted in many Hollywood films, notably Rosemary's Baby and The Dirty Dozen...
,
Telly SavalasAristotelis "Telly" Savalas was an American film and television actor and singer, whose career spanned four decades. Best known for playing the title role in the 1970s crime drama Kojak, Savalas was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in Birdman of Alcatraz...
, and
Robert WebberRobert L. Webber was an American actor who starred as Juror #12 in the 1957 film 12 Angry Men.Webber was born in Santa Ana, California, the son of Alice and Robert Webber, who was a merchant seaman. He was a U.S. Marine during World War II serving on Guam and Okinawa...
. The film is based on
E. M. NathansonE. M. Nathanson is the author of the 1965 novel The Dirty Dozen, which was adapted into the film of the same name.-Bibliography:*The Dirty Dozen *The Latecomers...
's novel of the same name that was potentially inspired by a real life group called the "
Filthy ThirteenThe Filthy Thirteen was the name given to a sub-unit of the regimental headquarters of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division, of the United States Army, which fought in the European campaign in World War II. This unit was selected and trained to demolish enemy targets...
".
Plot
In
EnglandEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, in the spring of 1944, Allied forces are preparing for the D-Day invasion. Among them are Major John Reisman (
Lee MarvinLee Marvin was an American film actor. Known for his gravelly voice, white hair and 6' 2" stature, Marvin at first did supporting roles, mostly villains, soldiers and other hardboiled characters, but after winning an Academy Award for Best Actor for his dual roles in Cat Ballou , he landed more...
), an
OSSThe Office of Strategic Services was a United States intelligence agency formed during World War II. It was the wartime intelligence agency, and it was a predecessor of the Central Intelligence Agency...
officer; his commander, Regular Army Major General Worden (
Ernest BorgnineErnest Borgnine is an American actor of television and film. His career has spanned more than six decades. He was an unconventional lead in many films of the 1950s, including his Academy Award-winning turn in the 1955 film Marty...
), and his former commander Colonel Everett Dasher Breed (
Robert RyanRobert Bushnell Ryan was an American actor who often played hardened cops and ruthless villains.-Early life and career:...
). Early in the film the personalities of the three men are shown to clash and the characters of the individualistic Reisman and the domineering Breed are established.
Major Reisman is assigned an unusual and top-secret pre-invasion mission: take twelve soldiers convicted of felony offenses, either serving prison sentences or condemned to death, and turn them into a unit capable of carrying out a specific task. They are to infiltrate a
châteauA château is a manor house or residence of the lord of the manor or a country house of nobility or gentry, with or without fortifications, originally—and still most frequently—in French-speaking regions...
near
RennesRennes is a city in the east of Brittany in northwestern France. Rennes is the capital of the region of Brittany, as well as the Ille-et-Vilaine department.-History:...
, in
BrittanyBrittany is a cultural and administrative region in the north-west of France. Previously a kingdom and then a duchy, Brittany was united to the Kingdom of France in 1532 as a province. Brittany has also been referred to as Less, Lesser or Little Britain...
, used as a retreat for senior
WehrmachtThe Wehrmacht – from , to defend and , the might/power) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the Heer , the Kriegsmarine and the Luftwaffe .-Origin and use of the term:...
officers, on the eve of the invasion. Without having complete intelligence as to the identity of the guests, it was felt that the elimination of officers in the
GermanGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
high command or senior staff could cripple or confuse the German military's ability to respond at the time of crisis. It is quickly established that both Reisman and the generals with whom he frequently clashes consider the mission to be a suicidal long shot. After a long period of convincing and training the men, they are deployed to attack a chateau in France, housing German commanders, intending to disrupt the German command structure. After the parachute drop, the dozen discover that Jiminez broke his neck on landing. The others then proceed to the chateau, whilst eliminating several German officers, stealing their car. The Dozen then launch their attack, in which they are picked off one by one. Maggott betrays the dozen and kills a German woman, only to be shot dead. The others see that the German officers and their wives have fled into an underground bunker only accessible by several air vents, through which the dozen drop grenades and gasoline, which is then ignited, killing all the officers, but also all the women. The remaining members of the dozen then escape in a German
half-trackA half-track is a civilian or military vehicle with regular wheels on the front for steering, and caterpillar tracks on the back to propel the vehicle and carry most of the load. The purpose of this combination is to produce a vehicle with the cross-country capabilities of a tank and the handling...
. the film then cuts to a scene where the survivors are shown to be Major Reisman, Sergeant Bowren and Wladislaw.
The film unfolds in three major acts;
Act one - Identification and "recruiting" the prisoners
After witnessing a hanging in a military jail in London, Major Reisman is briefed on the mission at General Worden's headquarters. As the credits to the film are rolling he walks along the line of 12 prisoners and stares at each of them as Sergeant Bowren (
Richard JaeckelRichard Hanley Jaeckel was an American actor of film and television.-Life and career:Jaeckel was born in Long Beach, New York. A short, but tough guy, he played a variety of characters during his fifty years in movies & television and became one of Hollywood's best known character actors...
) reads out their sentences.
| Name |
Portrayed by |
Sentence |
| Franko, V. R. |
John CassavetesJohn Nicholas Cassavetes was an American actor, screenwriter and filmmaker. He acted in many Hollywood films, notably Rosemary's Baby and The Dirty Dozen...
|
Death by hanging |
| Vladek, M. |
Tom Busby Tom Busby was a Canadian actor and agent. Among his film credits was The Dirty Dozen....
|
30 years hard labor |
| Jefferson, R. T. |
Jim BrownJames Nathaniel "Jim" Brown is an American former professional football player who has also made his mark as an actor. He is best known for his exceptional and record-setting nine-year career as a running back for the NFL Cleveland Browns from 1957 to 1965. In 2002, he was named by Sporting News...
|
Death by hanging |
| Pinkley, V. L. |
Donald SutherlandDonald McNichol Sutherland, OC is a Canadian actor with a film career spanning nearly 50 years. Some of Sutherland's more notable movie roles included offbeat warriors in such war movies as The Dirty Dozen, , MASH , and Kelly's Heroes , as well as in such popular films as Klute, Invasion of the...
|
30 years imprisonment |
| Gilpin, S. |
Ben Carruthers Benito "Ben" F. Carruthers was an American film actor, most notable for his role in John Cassavetes' debut feature film Shadows . He later appeared in Robert Aldrich's The Dirty Dozen as Glenn Gilpin...
|
30 years hard labor |
| Posey, S. |
Clint Walker Norman Eugene Walker, known as Clint Walker , is an American actor best known for his cowboy role as "Cheyenne Bodie" in the TV Western series, Cheyenne.-Life and career:...
|
Death by hanging |
| Wladislaw, T. |
Charles BronsonCharles Bronson , born Charles Dennis Buchinsky was an American actor, best-known for such films as Once Upon a Time in the West, The Magnificent Seven, The Dirty Dozen, The Great Escape, Rider on the Rain, The Mechanic, and the popular Death Wish series...
|
Death by hanging |
| Sawyer, S. K. |
Colin Maitland Colin Maitland is an English actor who has made several film and television appearances. He is notable for portraying Seth Sawyer, a member of The Dirty Dozen in the 1967 film of that name....
|
20 years hard labor |
| Lever, R. |
Stuart Cooper Stuart W. Cooper is an American filmmaker, actor and writer.Cooper was a resident in the United Kingdom in the 1960s and 1970s where his most notable film appearance was as one of The Dirty Dozen, Roscoe Lever....
|
20 years imprisonment |
| Bravos, T. R. |
Al ManciniAlfred Benito "Al" Mancini was an American stage, television and film actor, born in Steubenville, Ohio....
|
20 years hard labor |
| Jiminez, P. |
Trini López Trini Lopez is an American singer, guitarist and actor.-Career:Lopez was born in Dallas, Texas, on Ashland Street in the Little Mexico neighborhood. He began his entertainment career in Dallas playing at the Vegas Club, a nightclub owned by Jack Ruby...
|
20 years hard labor |
| Maggott, A. J. |
Telly SavalasAristotelis "Telly" Savalas was an American film and television actor and singer, whose career spanned four decades. Best known for playing the title role in the 1970s crime drama Kojak, Savalas was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in Birdman of Alcatraz...
|
Death by hanging |
On March 19, Reisman visits Franko, Wladislaw, Maggott, Posey, and Jefferson in their cells. Some details of their crimes are revealed and he uses a different approach with each of them in an effort to gain their cooperation.
Act two - Training
Depicts the unit building their own compound and training for the mission. It highlights the interpersonal conflict between the men, some of whom see the mission as a chance for redemption and others as a chance for escape. The second act places the mission, and the characters, in jeopardy when a breach of military regulations on Reisman's part forces General Worden, at Breed's urging, to have the men—now dubbed the Dirty Dozen by Sergeant Bowren because of their refusal to shave or bathe as a protest against their living conditions—prove their worth as soldiers at 'divisional manoeuvres', a wargame in
DevonshireDevon is a large county in southwestern England. The county is sometimes referred to as Devonshire, although the term is rarely used inside the county itself as the county has never been officially "shired", it often indicates a traditional or historical context.The county shares borders with...
.
Act three - The mission
The final act, which was a mere footnote in the novel, is an action sequence detailing the attack on the chateau. The men recite the details of the attack in a chant in order to remember their roles:
- Down to the road block, we've just begun
- The guards are through
- The Major's men are on a spree
- Major and Wladislaw go through the door
- Pinkley stays out in the drive
- The Major gives the rope a fix
- Wladislaw throws the hook to heaven
- Jiminez has got a date
- The other guys go up the line
- Sawyer and Gilpin are in the pen
- Posey guards points five and seven
- Wladislaw and the Major go down to delve
- Franko goes up without being seen
- Zero-hour - Jiminez cuts the cable, Franko cuts the phone
- Franko goes in where the others have been
- We all come out like it's Halloween
Cast
- Lee Marvin
Lee Marvin was an American film actor. Known for his gravelly voice, white hair and 6' 2" stature, Marvin at first did supporting roles, mostly villains, soldiers and other hardboiled characters, but after winning an Academy Award for Best Actor for his dual roles in Cat Ballou , he landed more...
as Maj. John Reisman
- Ernest Borgnine
Ernest Borgnine is an American actor of television and film. His career has spanned more than six decades. He was an unconventional lead in many films of the 1950s, including his Academy Award-winning turn in the 1955 film Marty...
as Maj. Gen. Worden
- Charles Bronson
Charles Bronson , born Charles Dennis Buchinsky was an American actor, best-known for such films as Once Upon a Time in the West, The Magnificent Seven, The Dirty Dozen, The Great Escape, Rider on the Rain, The Mechanic, and the popular Death Wish series...
as Joseph Wladislaw
- Jim Brown
James Nathaniel "Jim" Brown is an American former professional football player who has also made his mark as an actor. He is best known for his exceptional and record-setting nine-year career as a running back for the NFL Cleveland Browns from 1957 to 1965. In 2002, he was named by Sporting News...
as Robert T. Jefferson
- John Cassavetes
John Nicholas Cassavetes was an American actor, screenwriter and filmmaker. He acted in many Hollywood films, notably Rosemary's Baby and The Dirty Dozen...
as Victor R. Franko
- Richard Jaeckel
Richard Hanley Jaeckel was an American actor of film and television.-Life and career:Jaeckel was born in Long Beach, New York. A short, but tough guy, he played a variety of characters during his fifty years in movies & television and became one of Hollywood's best known character actors...
as Sgt. Clyde Bowren
- George Kennedy as Maj. Max Armbruster
- Trini Lopez
Trini Lopez is an American singer, guitarist and actor.-Career:Lopez was born in Dallas, Texas, on Ashland Street in the Little Mexico neighborhood. He began his entertainment career in Dallas playing at the Vegas Club, a nightclub owned by Jack Ruby...
as Pedro Jiminez
- Ralph Meeker
Ralph Meeker was an American stage and film actor best-known for starring in the 1953 Broadway production of Picnic, and in the 1955 film noir cult classic Kiss Me Deadly.-Career:...
as Capt. Stuart Kinder
- Robert Ryan
Robert Bushnell Ryan was an American actor who often played hardened cops and ruthless villains.-Early life and career:...
as Col. Everett Dasher Breed
- Telly Savalas
Aristotelis "Telly" Savalas was an American film and television actor and singer, whose career spanned four decades. Best known for playing the title role in the 1970s crime drama Kojak, Savalas was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in Birdman of Alcatraz...
as Archer J. Maggott
- Donald Sutherland
Donald McNichol Sutherland, OC is a Canadian actor with a film career spanning nearly 50 years. Some of Sutherland's more notable movie roles included offbeat warriors in such war movies as The Dirty Dozen, , MASH , and Kelly's Heroes , as well as in such popular films as Klute, Invasion of the...
as Vernon L. Pinkley
- Clint Walker
Norman Eugene Walker, known as Clint Walker , is an American actor best known for his cowboy role as "Cheyenne Bodie" in the TV Western series, Cheyenne.-Life and career:...
as Samson Posey
- Robert Webber
Robert L. Webber was an American actor who starred as Juror #12 in the 1957 film 12 Angry Men.Webber was born in Santa Ana, California, the son of Alice and Robert Webber, who was a merchant seaman. He was a U.S. Marine during World War II serving on Guam and Okinawa...
as Brig. Gen. Denton
- Tom Busby
Tom Busby was a Canadian actor and agent. Among his film credits was The Dirty Dozen....
as Milo Vladek
- Ben Carruthers
Benito "Ben" F. Carruthers was an American film actor, most notable for his role in John Cassavetes' debut feature film Shadows . He later appeared in Robert Aldrich's The Dirty Dozen as Glenn Gilpin...
as Glenn Gilpin
- Stuart Cooper
Stuart W. Cooper is an American filmmaker, actor and writer.Cooper was a resident in the United Kingdom in the 1960s and 1970s where his most notable film appearance was as one of The Dirty Dozen, Roscoe Lever....
as Roscoe Lever
- Robert Phillips as Cpl. Carl Morgan
- Al Mancini
Alfred Benito "Al" Mancini was an American stage, television and film actor, born in Steubenville, Ohio....
as Tassos R. Bravos
- Colin Maitland
Colin Maitland is an English actor who has made several film and television appearances. He is notable for portraying Seth Sawyer, a member of The Dirty Dozen in the 1967 film of that name....
as Seth K. Sawyer
Production
Although Robert Aldrich had tried to buy the rights to E.M. Nathanson's novel
The Dirty Dozen while it was just an outline, MGM succeeded in May 1963. The novel was a best-seller upon publication in 1965.
Filming took place at the
MGM British Studios"Elstree Studios" refers to any of several film studios that were based in the towns of Borehamwood and Elstree in Hertfordshire, England, since film production begun in 1927.-Name:...
, Boreham Wood and the English prison camp location scenes were filmed at
AshridgeAshridge is an estate and house in Hertfordshire, England; part of the land stretches into Buckinghamshire and it is close to the Bedfordshire border. It is situated in the Chiltern Hills, an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, about two miles north of Berkhamsted and twenty miles north west of...
in
HertfordshireHertfordshire is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East region of England. The county town is Hertford.The county is one of the Home Counties and lies inland, bordered by Greater London , Buckinghamshire , Bedfordshire , Cambridgeshire and...
. Wargame scenes were filmed at the village of
AldburyAldbury is a village and civil parish in Hertfordshire, England, near the borders of Bedfordshire and Buckinghamshire, in a valley close to Ashridge Park. The nearest town is Tring; Tring railway station, 1 mile west, is in the parish of Aldbury...
and
Bradenham ManorBradenham is a village and civil parish within Wycombe district in Buckinghamshire, England. It is near Saunderton, off the main A4010 road between Princes Risborough and High Wycombe.- Village :...
in
BuckinghamshireBuckinghamshire is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan home county in South East England. The county town is Aylesbury, the largest town in the ceremonial county is Milton Keynes and largest town in the non-metropolitan county is High Wycombe....
featured as 'Wargames Headquarters'.
Beechwood Park SchoolBeechwood Park School, also familiarly referred to as "Beechwood", is a co-educational independent day and boarding school in Hertfordshire in England, UK for reception to year 8. It is set on the site of an old Mansion house with extensions put in over the last 50 years including the junior...
in
MarkyateMarkyate is a village and civil parish in north-west Hertfordshire close to the border with Bedfordshire and Buckinghamshire.-Geography:Having a number of former names, including Markyate Street and Mergyate, it has been a part of all three counties since it was first founded as the county...
was also used as a location during the school's summer holidays, appearing in the film as a military hospital.
The château was built especially for the production, by art director
William HutchinsonWilliam Hutchinson was an art director. He was nominated for an Academy Award in the category Best Art Direction for the film Young Winston.-External links:...
, it was 240 ft wide and 50 ft high, surrounded with 5,400 sq. yds. of heather, 400 ferns, 450 shrubs, 30 spruce trees and 6 weeping willows. Construction of the faux château proved problematic. The script required its explosion, but it was so solid that 70 tons of explosives would have been required for the effect. Instead, a cork and plastic section was destroyed.
The movie is remembered for being the one during which
Cleveland BrownsThe Cleveland Browns are a professional football team based in Cleveland, Ohio. They are currently members of the North Division of the American Football Conference in the National Football League...
running backA running back is a gridiron football position, who is typically lined up in the offensive backfield. The primary roles of a running back are to receive handoffs from the quarterback for a rushing play, to catch passes from out of the backfield, and to block.There are usually one or two running...
Jim BrownJames Nathaniel "Jim" Brown is an American former professional football player who has also made his mark as an actor. He is best known for his exceptional and record-setting nine-year career as a running back for the NFL Cleveland Browns from 1957 to 1965. In 2002, he was named by Sporting News...
announced his retirement from football at age 29. The owner of the Browns,
Art ModellArthur B. Modell is an American businessman, entrepreneur and former National Football League team owner. He owned the Cleveland Browns franchise from 1961–1995 and the Baltimore Ravens franchise from 1996–2004. Modell is the grandson of the late Morris Modell who founded the northeast...
, demanded Brown choose between
footballAmerican football is a sport played between two teams of eleven with the objective of scoring points by advancing the ball into the opposing team's end zone. Known in the United States simply as football, it may also be referred to informally as gridiron football. The ball can be advanced by...
and acting. With Brown's considerable accomplishments in the sport (he was already the
NFLThe National Football League is the highest level of professional American football in the United States, and is considered the top professional American football league in the world. It was formed by eleven teams in 1920 as the American Professional Football Association, with the league changing...
's all-time leading rusher, was predominantly ahead statistically of the second-leading rusher, and his team had won the
1964 NFL ChampionshipThe 1964 National Football League championship game was the 32nd annual championship game. The NFL title game was held on December 27, 1964 at Cleveland Municipal Stadium, Cleveland, Ohio before a crowd of 79,544...
), he chose acting. Despite his early retirement from football, Brown remains the league's eighth all-time leading rusher, the
Cleveland BrownsThe Cleveland Browns are a professional football team based in Cleveland, Ohio. They are currently members of the North Division of the American Football Conference in the National Football League...
all-time leading rusher, and the only player in league history to have a career average 100 yards per game. In some form of tribute, Art Modell himself said in
Spike LeeShelton Jackson "Spike" Lee is an American film director, producer, writer, and actor. His production company, 40 Acres & A Mule Filmworks, has produced over 35 films since 1983....
's
Jim Brown: All American documentary, that he made a huge mistake in forcing Jim Brown to choose between football and Hollywood and if he had it to do over again, he would never have made such a demand. Modell fined Jim Brown the equivalent of over $100 per day, a fine which Brown said that "today wouldn't even buy the doughnuts for a team".
Casting
The cast included many World War II US veterans, including (but not limited to)
Robert WebberRobert L. Webber was an American actor who starred as Juror #12 in the 1957 film 12 Angry Men.Webber was born in Santa Ana, California, the son of Alice and Robert Webber, who was a merchant seaman. He was a U.S. Marine during World War II serving on Guam and Okinawa...
and Robert Ryan (Marines),
Telly SavalasAristotelis "Telly" Savalas was an American film and television actor and singer, whose career spanned four decades. Best known for playing the title role in the 1970s crime drama Kojak, Savalas was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in Birdman of Alcatraz...
and
Charles BronsonCharles Bronson , born Charles Dennis Buchinsky was an American actor, best-known for such films as Once Upon a Time in the West, The Magnificent Seven, The Dirty Dozen, The Great Escape, Rider on the Rain, The Mechanic, and the popular Death Wish series...
(
ArmyThe United States Army is the main branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for land-based military operations. It is the largest and oldest established branch of the U.S. military, and is one of seven U.S. uniformed services...
),
Ernest BorgnineErnest Borgnine is an American actor of television and film. His career has spanned more than six decades. He was an unconventional lead in many films of the 1950s, including his Academy Award-winning turn in the 1955 film Marty...
(
NavyThe United States Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. The U.S. Navy is the largest in the world; its battle fleet tonnage is greater than that of the next 13 largest navies combined. The U.S...
) and
Clint WalkerNorman Eugene Walker, known as Clint Walker , is an American actor best known for his cowboy role as "Cheyenne Bodie" in the TV Western series, Cheyenne.-Life and career:...
(
Merchant MarineThe United States Merchant Marine refers to the fleet of U.S. civilian-owned merchant vessels, operated by either the government or the private sector, that engage in commerce or transportation of goods and services in and out of the navigable waters of the United States. The Merchant Marine is...
). Marvin served as a
Private First ClassPrivate First Class is a military rank held by junior enlisted persons.- Singapore :The rank of Private First Class in the Singapore Armed Forces lies between the ranks of Private and Lance-Corporal . It is usually held by conscript soldiers midway through their national service term...
in the
US MarinesThe United States Marine Corps is a branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for providing power projection from the sea, using the mobility of the United States Navy to deliver combined-arms task forces rapidly. It is one of seven uniformed services of the United States...
in the
Pacific WarThe Pacific War, also sometimes called the Asia-Pacific War refers broadly to the parts of World War II that took place in the Pacific Ocean, its islands, and in East Asia, then called the Far East...
and provided technical assistance with uniforms and weapons to create realistic portrayals of combat, yet bitterly complained about the falsity of some scenes. He thought Reisman's wresting the bayonet from the enraged Posey to be particularly phony. Aldrich replied that the plot was preposterous, and that by the time the audience had left the cinema, they would have been so overwhelmed by action, explosions, and killing, that they would have forgotten the lapses.
John WayneMarion Mitchell Morrison , better known by his stage name John Wayne, was an American film actor, director and producer. He epitomized rugged masculinity and became an enduring American icon. He is famous for his distinctive calm voice, walk, and height...
was the original choice for Reisman, but he turned down the role because he objected to the adultery present in the original script, which featured the character having a relationship with an Englishwoman whose husband was fighting on the Continent.
Jack PalanceJack Palance , was an American actor. During half a century of film and television appearances, Palance was nominated for three Academy Awards, all as Best Actor in a Supporting Role, winning in 1991 for his role in City Slickers.-Early life:Palance, one of five children, was born Volodymyr...
refused the "Archer Maggott" role when they wouldn't rewrite the script to make his character lose his racism; Telly Savalas took the role instead.
Six of the Dozen were experienced American stars whilst the "Back Six" were actors resident in the UK, Englishman
Colin MaitlandColin Maitland is an English actor who has made several film and television appearances. He is notable for portraying Seth Sawyer, a member of The Dirty Dozen in the 1967 film of that name....
, Canadians Donald Sutherland and
Tom BusbyTom Busby was a Canadian actor and agent. Among his film credits was The Dirty Dozen....
, and Americans
Stuart CooperStuart W. Cooper is an American filmmaker, actor and writer.Cooper was a resident in the United Kingdom in the 1960s and 1970s where his most notable film appearance was as one of The Dirty Dozen, Roscoe Lever....
,
Al ManciniAlfred Benito "Al" Mancini was an American stage, television and film actor, born in Steubenville, Ohio....
, and
Ben CarruthersBenito "Ben" F. Carruthers was an American film actor, most notable for his role in John Cassavetes' debut feature film Shadows . He later appeared in Robert Aldrich's The Dirty Dozen as Glenn Gilpin...
. According to commentary on
The Dirty Dozen: 2-Disc Special Edition when Trini López left the film early, the death scene of Lopez's character where he blew himself up with the radio tower was given to Busby (in the film, it is Ben Carruthers' character Glenn Gilpin who is tasked with blowing up the radio tower while Busby's character Milo Vladek is shot in front of the château). The same commentary also states that the impersonation of the General scene was to have been done by Clint Walker who thought the scene demeaning to his character who was a
Native AmericanThe indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of North and South America, their descendants and other ethnic groups who are identified with those peoples. Indigenous peoples are known in Canada as Aboriginal peoples, and in the United States as Native Americans...
. Aldrich picked out Sutherland for the bit.
Reception and criticism
In response to the violence of the film,
Roger EbertRoger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...
, in his first year as a film reviewer for the
Chicago Sun-TimesThe Chicago Sun-Times is an American daily newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois. It is the flagship paper of the Sun-Times Media Group.-History:The Chicago Sun-Times is the oldest continuously published daily newspaper in the city...
, wrote sarcastically:
I'm glad the Chicago Police Censor Board forgot about that part of the local censorship law where it says films shall not depict the burning of the human body. If you have to censor, stick to censoring sex, I say...but leave in the mutilation, leave in the sadism and by all means leave in the human beings burning to death. It's not obscene as long as they burn to death with their clothes on.
In another contemporary review,
Bosley CrowtherBosley Crowther was a journalist and author who was film critic for The New York Times for 27 years. His reviews and articles helped shape the careers of actors, directors and screenwriters, though his reviews, at times, were unnecessarily mean...
called it "an astonishingly wanton
war filmWar films are a film genre concerned with warfare, usually about naval, air or land battles, sometimes focusing instead on prisoners of war, covert operations, military training or other related subjects. At times war films focus on daily military or civilian life in wartime without depicting battles...
" and a "studied indulgence of sadism that is morbid and disgusting beyond words"; he also noted:
It is not simply that this violent picture of an American military venture is based on a fictional supposition that is silly and irresponsible.... But to have this bunch of felons a totally incorrigible lot, some of them psychopathic, and to try to make us believe that they would be committed by any American general to carry out an exceedingly important raid that a regular commando group could do with equal efficiency — and certainly with greater dependability — is downright preposterous.
Crowther called some of the portrayals "bizarre and bold":
Marvin's taut, pugnacious playing of the major ... is tough and terrifying. John Cassavetes is wormy and noxious as a psychopath condemned to death, and Telly Savalas is swinish and maniacal as a religious fanatic and sex degenerate. Charles Bronson as an alienated murderer, Richard Jaeckel as a hard-boiled military policeman, and Jim Brown as a white-hating Negro stand out in the animalistic group.
VarietyVariety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...
was more positive, calling it an "exciting Second World War pre-D-Day drama" based on a "good screenplay" with a "ring of authenticity to it"; they drew particular attention to the performances by Marvin, Cassavetes, and Bronson.
The
Time Out Film Guide notes that over the years, "
The Dirty Dozen has taken its place alongside that other commercial classic,
The Magnificent SevenThe Magnificent Seven is an American Western film directed by John Sturges, and released in 1960. It is a fictional tale of a group of seven American gunmen who are hired to protect a small agricultural village in Mexico from a group of marauding Mexican bandits...
:
The violence which liberal critics found so offensive has survived intact. Aldrich sets up dispensable characters with no past and no future, as Marvin reprieves a bunch of death row prisoners, forges them into a tough fighting unit, and leads them on a suicide mission into Nazi France. Apart from the values of team spirit, cudgeled by Marvin into his dropout group, Aldrich appears to be against everything: anti-military, anti-Establishment, anti-women, anti-religion, anti-culture, anti-life. Overriding such nihilism is the super-crudity of Aldrich's energy and his humour, sufficiently cynical to suggest that the whole thing is a game anyway, a spectacle that demands an audience.
The film currently holds a 95% rating on
Rotten TomatoesRotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
based on 21 reviews.
Awards
The film was nominated for four Academy Awards, winning in the category Best Sound Effects.
- Actor in a Supporting Role (John Cassavetes)
- Film Editing (Michael Luciano)
- Sound
- Sound Effects (John Poyner) (Won)
Box office performance
This film was the #1 moneymaker of 1967, earning a net profit of
$The United States dollar , also referred to as the American dollar, is the official currency of the United States of America. It is divided into 100 smaller units called cents or pennies....
18,200,000 .
Basis in fact
The Dirty Dozen is not the story of a real unit. In the prologue to the novel, Nathanson states that, while he heard a legend that such a unit may have existed, he was unable to find any corroboration in the archives of the US Army in Europe.
However, there was a unit called the
Filthy ThirteenThe Filthy Thirteen was the name given to a sub-unit of the regimental headquarters of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division, of the United States Army, which fought in the European campaign in World War II. This unit was selected and trained to demolish enemy targets...
, an airborne demolition unit documented in the eponymous book, and this unit's exploits inspired the fictional account. Barbara Maloney, the daughter of John Agnew, a private in the Filthy Thirteen, told the
American Valor Quarterly that her father felt that 30% of the movie's content was historically correct, including a scene where officers are captured. Unlike the Dirty Dozen, the Filthy Thirteen were not convicts; however, they were men prone to drinking and fighting and often spent time in the stockade.
Sequels and adaptations
Three years after
The Dirty Dozen was released,
Too Late the HeroToo Late the Hero is a 1970 Anglo-American war film directed by Robert Aldrich, and starring Michael Caine, Henry Fonda, Cliff Robertson, Ken Takakura, Denholm Elliott, Ian Bannen, Lance Percival, Ronald Fraser, Harry Andrews and Percy Herbert.-Plot:...
—a film also directed by Aldrich—was described as a "kind of sequel to
The Dirty Dozen" The 1969 Michael Caine film
Play DirtyPlay Dirty is a 1969 British film inspired by the North African exploits of units such as the Long Range Desert Group, Popski's Private Army and the SAS during World War II. It was directed by André De Toth and written by Melvyn Bragg and Lotte Colin...
follows a similar theme of convicts-recruited-as-soldiers.
Several made-for-TV movies were produced in the mid- to late-1980s which capitalized on the popularity of the first movie.
Lee MarvinLee Marvin was an American film actor. Known for his gravelly voice, white hair and 6' 2" stature, Marvin at first did supporting roles, mostly villains, soldiers and other hardboiled characters, but after winning an Academy Award for Best Actor for his dual roles in Cat Ballou , he landed more...
and
Ernest BorgnineErnest Borgnine is an American actor of television and film. His career has spanned more than six decades. He was an unconventional lead in many films of the 1950s, including his Academy Award-winning turn in the 1955 film Marty...
reprised their roles for
The Dirty Dozen: The Next MissionThe Dirty Dozen: The Next Mission is a made-for-TV film and sequel to the original Dirty Dozen. It reunited Lee Marvin, Ernest Borgnine and Richard Jaeckel 18 years after the original hit war film. Marvin returns to lead an all-new dirty dozen on a mission to assassinate an SS General played by...
in 1985, leading a group of military convicts in a mission to kill a German general who was plotting to assassinate
Adolf HitlerAdolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
. In
The Dirty Dozen: The Deadly MissionThe Dirty Dozen: The Deadly Mission is a 1987 made-for-TV film and is the second sequel to the original The Dirty Dozen. It features an all-new 'dirty dozen,' this time under the leadership of Major Wright .-Plot:...
(1987),
Telly SavalasAristotelis "Telly" Savalas was an American film and television actor and singer, whose career spanned four decades. Best known for playing the title role in the 1970s crime drama Kojak, Savalas was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in Birdman of Alcatraz...
, who had played the role of the psychotic Maggott in the original movie, assumed the different role of Major Wright, an officer who leads a group of military convicts to extract a group of German scientists who are being forced to make a deadly nerve gas. Ernest Borgnine again reprised his role of General Worden.
The Dirty Dozen: The Fatal MissionThe Dirty Dozen: The Fatal Mission is 1988 made-for-TV film and is the third sequel to the original The Dirty Dozen. It features an all-new 'dirty dozen,' with the exception of the returning Joe Stern, under the leadership of Major Wright .-Plot:Twelve top Nazis are ordered to the Middle East,...
(1988) depicts Savalas's Wright character and a group of renegade soldiers attempting to prevent a group of extreme German generals from starting a Fourth Reich, with
Erik EstradaHenry Enrique "Erik" Estrada is an American police officer and actor, known for his co-starring lead role in the 1977–1983 United States police television series CHiPs...
co-starring and Ernest Borgnine again playing the role of General Worden. In 1988,
FOXFox Broadcasting Company, commonly referred to as Fox Network or simply Fox , is an American commercial broadcasting television network owned by Fox Entertainment Group, part of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. Launched on October 9, 1986, Fox was the highest-rated broadcast network in the...
aired a short-lived television series, with no major stars, that lasted only eleven episodes.