Movie: Dirty Dozen

Naturally, we'd all seen this movie, but Bruce hadn't seen it since he was "a kid" (maybe 15 years ago). I had taped this off TNT many years ago so here and there were fuzzies and wobblies but overall not too bad.

You forget how much comedy is mixed in with the overall serious purpose. The film starts off dark, with a hanging at a military prison with the prisoners upset. Also the title/credits don't start until 10 minutes into the film, an innovation in 1967, but then, Robert Aldrich was known for being unconventional. The script was written by Nunnally Johnson and Lukas Heller and is outstanding for its succinct way of giving each character's development in a line or two.

It's basically a three-act play: act 1 is the military brass (Ernest Borgnine, Robert Webber) giving Maj. Reisman (Lee Marvin) a last chance to save his Army career. He'll take a dozen "dregs" from a military prison, shape them up, and lead them on a perilous mission the day before D-Day. He meets the twelve prisoners, all convicted killers or psychopaths or both, quickly asserts his dominance over them, and transports them into the countryside to set up a secret training camp. We meet Donald Sutherland (very early in his career), Clint Walker, John Cassavetes, Telly Savalas, Jim Brown, Trini Lopez, Charles Bronson, and some others to round out the dozen.

Act 2 is the welding of the prisoners into a cohesive unit. The Army psychiatrist (Ralph Meeker) warns against keeping Maggott (Savalas) because of the religion-inspired hatred of women (sluts! whores!) and the voices in his head telling him to kill them for god. But Reisman is determined to keep them all and make the mission succeed. Colonel Breed (Robert Ryan) is an enemy of Reisman's and there are several scenes of the DD turning the tables on Breed's elite paratroopers. Eventually, the brass hears about the feud and the DD is put up against the Army and Breed in some war games. Highly amusing hi-jinks ensue with George Kennedy doing excellent work as an Observer who can't interfere.

Act 3 is the mission: infiltrate a chateau in France filled with high-ranking German officers and their ladies and kill as many as possible (to keep them from D-Day). The first scene is when Reisman and the DD are sitting at a long table, with Reisman in the Jesus spot and Maggott in the Judas spot, and memorizing a crude poem detailing the steps of the op while looking at a model of the chateau. When they parachute in that night, it looks just like the model but things don't go exactly as the poem says. They improvise and Jim Brown gets to do his famous broken-field run with the grenades. All of the DD are killed except one. Reisman survives, as does Sgt. Bowren (Richard Jaeckel), who's been with the mission from the prison. END

Based on a book by E.M. Nathanson. I've read that there was a group called The Devil's Brigade that actually did something like this sort of mission.

Anyhow, we all enjoyed the movie very much and it was fun to see these actors again.