THE DIRTY DOZEN Movie Review

1967 Robert Aldrich

Director Robert Aldrich combines a 1940s look with 1960s politics to create one of the most entertaining war movies ever made. The mix of nostalgia, anti-establishment rebellion, and graphic violence was a huge commercial hit in 1967, and it has remained popular on all forms of video—tape, cable, broadcast—ever since. Yes, its morality is dubious, but the movie sure is fun.

That was a year when Hollywood was testing the limits of established genres, trying to do new things with familiar formulas: romance (The Graduate), gangsters (Bonnie and Clyde) , prisons (Cool Hand Luke), mysteries (In the Heat of the Night) , even true crime (In Cold Blood) . The Dirty Dozen takes the same liberties with the war movie.

The premise is a Hollywood chestnut: a lovable bunch of rag-tag misfits are molded into a crack fighting unit by a officer who's tough but fair. It could describe Sands of Iwo Jima, The Fighting 69th, Flying Leathernecks, or a dozen others. In this case, though, the misfits are convicted rapists, murderers and thieves who range on the psychiatric scale between quick-tempered and full-blown psychotic. The more attractive ones (Jim Brown, John Cassavetes, Clint Walker, Donald Sutherland, Trini Lopez) are given enough extenuating circumstances to make them sympathetic, but they're still very bad guys facing grim punishment. (The opening execution is still a chillingly efficient sequence that heightens tension and pushes the rest of the film to a higher level.) The first two-thirds are devoted to the group's constructing its own prison compound and training. As Maj. Reisman, who's given the thankless task of leading them, Lee Marvin seems completely comfortable and at ease with the role. Even in the most ridiculous moments, he does not appear to be acting.

The setting is another wartime favorite—England right before D-Day—and the primary villains are high-ranking American officers; a blustering Gen. Worden (Ernest Borgnine) abetted by Col. Breed (Robert Ryan at his most snide and sarcastic). By setting them up as the heavies, writers Nunnally Johnson and Lukas Heller don't need to bother with the Germans until the last act. The filmmakers are wise not to dwell on that part of the story. The group's mission is to assassinate high-ranking Nazis at a Chateau resort, and in accomplishing it, they're none-too-picky about bystanders. That kind of casual violence—cinematic “collateral damage"—would not have been tolerated in a war film of the 1940s or ‘50s, but it is not unusual for the times. In 1967, James Bond, with his “license to kill” set the standard for murderous escapism. Aldrich and company simply took that cool macho attitude to the next level. In escapist adventure, the body count is still climbing, and the end is not in sight.

Cast: Lee Marvin (Maj. John Reisman), Ernest Borgnine (Gen. Worden), Charles Bronson (Joseph Wladislaw), Jim Brown (Robert Jefferson), George Kennedy (Maj. Max Armbruster), John Cassavetes (Victor Franko), Clint Walker (Samson Posey), Donald Sutherland (Vernon Pinkley), Telly Savalas (Archer Maggott), Robert Ryan (Col. Everett Dasher-Breed), Ralph Meeker (Capt. Stuart Kinder), Richard Jaeckel (Sgt. Clyde Bowren), Trini Lopez (Pedro Jiminez), Robert Webber (Gen. Denton), Stuart Cooper (Rosco Lever), Robert Phillips (Cpl. Carl Morgan), Al Mancini (Tassos Bravos); Written by: Nunnally Johnson, Lukas Heller; Cinematography by: Edward Scaife; Music by: Frank De Vol. Producer: MGM, Kenneth Hyman. Awards: Academy Awards ‘67: Best Sound Effects Editing; Nominations: Academy Awards ‘67: Best Film Editing, Best Sound, Best Supporting Actor (Cassavetes). MPAA Rating: PG. Running Time: 149 minutes. Format: VHS, Beta, LV, Letterbox, DVD.