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The Dirty Dozen (1967)
In this popular action-war film from director Robert
Aldrich, the ultimate WWII 'guy's' movie - with its exciting sequences
of the training and then the behind-the-lines suicidal mission and
assault (named "Operation Amnesty" composed of 16 separate
steps) on a Nazi-filled French chateau by a group of a dozen undisciplined,
convicted, anti-social, death-row military convicts and murderers
and other criminals, known as "The Dirty Dozen." The nihilistic
film's premise was built on the anti-Establishment premise that rapists,
murderers, and sadistic misfits could be trained to become kill-crazy, "dirty" commandos
for a suicidal mission behind enemy lines against the Nazis.
It was released during the summer of '67 - coinciding
with a series of race riots in numerous American cities, and increasing
protests against the Vietnam War. Reviewers labeled the film as irresponsible,
unrestrained, and revolting since it appeared to celebrate war and
erase the line between "good guys" and "bad guys," particularly in the finale.
In the
mid-80s, the film was revived with various made-for-TV movies, including The
Dirty Dozen: The Next Mission (1985), The Dirty Dozen: The Deadly
Mission (1987), and The Dirty Dozen: The
Fatal Mission (1988). Two other films duplicated the main plot:
Play Dirty (1969, UK), and The Inglorious Bastards (1977,
It.). It also inspired the plots of later films, such as
Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds (2009) and Suicide Squad
(2016).
The film can be regarded as historical fiction, although
it was partly based, with great Hollywood embellishment, on a real-life,
elite but disruptive group of demolition commandos known as "The
Filthy Thirteen" (from the 101st Airborne Division) who didn't conform to the Army's
grooming standards and basic hygiene, and sported Mohawk haircuts
and faces with war paint. They were not murderers, rapists, and criminals
on Death Row. Their original mission was only to destroy strategic
bridges, not to assassinate German officers on a vacation retreat
in a French chateau. They were the ones who truly inspired E. M.
Nathanson's novel The Dirty Dozen published in 1965, and subsequently
the film's adaptation by Nunnally Johnson and Lukas Heller.
It was similar to other films at the time with large
ensemble casts of mostly male stars brought together, such as The
Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), The Magnificent Seven
(1960),
How the West Was Won (1962), The
Longest Day (1962), The Great Escape (1963), It's a
Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963), and The
Professionals (1966) - in this one, the stars included Telly Savalas,
Donald Sutherland, Jim Brown, John Cassavetes, Charles Bronson, Robert
Ryan, George Kennedy and more. The war film was extremely popular -
it became MGM's highest grossing film of the year, with domestic revenue
of $45.3 million on a budget of $5.4 million.
- the premise of the three part plot structure: select
a dozen anti-social, convicted, murderers (some on death row) for
a behind-the-lines assault ("Operation
Amnesty"), train them, and send them on the suicidal mission
- in 1944 in England (prior to the Allied invasions
of D-Day), tough, pugnacious rogue commander Major John Reisman
(Lee Marvin), known for being "short on discipline" and
a 'loose cannon' was called into a meeting with top military brass
to be briefed; he was surprised when he was undeniably pressured
by Major General Sam Worden (Ernest Borgnine) to lead a top secret
mission to train military prisoners (some on Death Row) to participate
in a dangerous mission into NW France, with the goal of parachuting
into the area, assaulting and blowing up a lavish château
near Rennes, and thereby killing vacationing top Nazi Germany officers
to disrupt the enemy's military command
Top Military Officers
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![](picts/dirtydozen2.jpg)
Major John Reisman (Lee Marvin)
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![](picts/dirtydozen3.jpg)
Major Max Armbruster (George Kennedy)
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Major General Sam Worden (Ernest Borgnine)
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Brigadier General Denton (Robert Webber)
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Colonel Breed (Robert Ryan)
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![](picts/dirtydozen7.jpg)
Sergeant Clyde Bowren (Richard Jaeckel)
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- Brigadier General Denton (Robert Webber) described
the personnel for the mission designed by a
"lunatic":
"Project Amnesty: You will select 12 general prisoners convicted
and sentenced to death or long-terms of imprisonment for murder,
rape, robbery, and/or other crimes of violence and so forth. Train
and qualify these prisoners in as much of the business of behind-the-lines
operations as they can absorb in a brief but unspecified time. You
will then deliver them secretly into the European mainland and just
prior to the invasion attack and destroy the target specified"
- Major Max Armbruster (George Kennedy) then succinctly
described the target: "The Germans are using a large chateau near
Rennes in Brittany as a rest center and a conference place for
general staff officers. The target has no real military value in
itself but what with these conferences, discussion groups, and
the like going on all the time, there's hardly a day when there
aren't a considerable number of important general officers in residence,
usually with the benefit of female companionship. Eliminating a
sufficient number of senior officers couldn't help but have the
effect of disrupting their chain of command. So, the idea is simply
that our men are dropped by parachute. They enter the chateau and
they kill as many senior officers as is possible in the time available.
Naturally, the place is fortified and - heavily guarded"; in exchange
for the mens' service, Reisman negotiated for the commutation of
the sentences of those who distinguished themselves
- Reisman was "unhappy" that his rival - the pompous,
by-the-book Colonel Breed (Robert Ryan) was appointed to be his
superior officer, but wouldn't be directly involved, except for
heading up the parachute training school-camp where Reisman's
men would be trained as paratroopers
- in London, Reisman drove to the US Army's Marston-Tyne
Military Prison exercise yard where he briefly spoke to second-in-command
Sergeant Clyde Bowren (Richard Jaeckel); the twelve members of
the selected group to be interviewed by Major Reisman were lined
up - under the title credits; their
names were read outloud, specifying which ones were on Death Row
("death by hanging"), and those who had lengthy "hard labor" or
"imprisonment" prison terms; afterwards, the Major interviewed
each one of them in their cells to find out their backgrounds,
skills, and personalities
On Death Row (5)
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![](picts/dirtydozen8.jpg)
Franko
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Jefferson
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Posey
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Wladsilaw
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Maggott
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![](picts/dirtydozen9.jpg)
Vladek |
Long Prison Terms (7)
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Pinkley
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Gilpin
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Sawyer
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Lever
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Bravos
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![](picts/dirtydozen19.jpg)
Jiminez
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- Death Row (5 members)
- Robert Jefferson (Jim Brown - football star),
African-American (his opinion of war against Hitler: "That's
your war, man, not mine. You don't like the krauts, Major,
you fight them. Me, I'll pick my own enemies"); he was incarcerated
for killing some “cracker bastards” who
were trying to castrate him
- Archer Maggott
(Telly Savalas), a religious, Bible-quoting, psychopathic and
maniacal madman and sex degenerate rapist, very racist and anti-black
- Joseph T. Wladsilaw (Charles Bronson), a stoic,
German-speaking Pole, and coal-miner; his crime was shooting another
cowardly officer in the back who panicked under fire and ran
with the medical supplies
- Victor Franko (John Cassavetes), a rebellious
and outspoken but petty Chicago ex-gangster
- Samson Posey (Clint Walker), a giant of a man,
quiet, Native-American, with an aversion to being 'pushed'
- Long Prison Terms (7 members)
- Vernon Pinkley (Donald Sutherland), mentally
dim-witted, imbecilic and clownish
- Glenn Gilpin (Ben Carruthers)
- Roscoe Lever (Stuart Cooper)
- Milo Vladek (Tom Busby)
- Seth Sawyer (Colin Maitland)
- Pedro Jiminez (Trini López) - guitar-player
- Tassos Bravos (Al Mancini)
- after interviewing all the men, Reisman met with
the twelve in a room without guards; he set the ground rules when
he threatened the twelve about the consequences of any one of them
trying to escape: "You've all volunteered for a mission which
gives you just three ways to go: you can foul up in training and
be sent back here for immediate execution of sentence, or you can
foul up in combat in which case I'll personally blow your brains
out, or you can do as you're told, in which case you might just
get by. You must not attempt to escape. There will be no excuses,
there will be no appeal. Any breach of either of these conditions
by any one of you, means that you will all be shipped right back
here for immediate execution of sentence. You are therefore dependent
upon each other. Any one of you try anything smart and the 12 of
you get it right in the head"
- the entire contingent was driven to a remote, rural
woodsy encampment, where they were ordered to construct
the officers' and prisoners' living quarters and buildings within
the next month, and participate in exercises and training with
Sergeant Bowren; it was a comedy of errors -
the undisciplined and disunited group was entirely unprepared for
any kind of under-cover mission
- one night, Jefferson, Posey and Wladsilaw prevented
Franko from using stolen wire cutters to make a foolish escape
attempt (Wladsilaw: "You
trying to get us all hung?"), and forcefully stopped him by
beating him up; afterwards, Wladsilaw gave Reisman a well-worn
excuse:
"He slipped on a bar of soap"
- Capt. Stuart Kinder (Ralph Meeker) psychoanalyzed
each of the group's twelve anti-authoritarian members in Reisman's
new troop during their training and described them to Reisman as
"the most twisted, anti-social bunch of psychopathic deformities
I have ever run into! And the worst, the most dangerous of the
bunch, is Maggott. You've got one religious maniac, one malignant
dwarf, two near-idiots, and the rest I don't even wanna think about!"
Reisman retorted: "Well, I can't think of a better way to
fight a war"; Kinder surmised: "These guys think the
United States Army is their enemy, not the Germans," although
Reisman countered: "Well,
they know the United States Army. But the Krauts haven't done anything
to 'em yet"
- Reisman revealed his two biggest challenges - he
was their number one target, and he felt they weren't functioning
as a unit or group: "They've gotta function as a team. And
that's what's lacking"
- during training in the remote camp under Sgt. Bowren,
Franko (and then everyone else) were deliberately uncooperative
and insubordinate when they refused the Sergeant's order to shave
in cold water; Major Reisman ruled on their decision: "So
you wanna stink, huh? And maybe itch too? Well, that's okay with
me because I don't have to smell ya. All right, Sergeant, there will
be no further issue of shaving equipment or the use of soap. And
there will be no more hot meals. Just K rations. Courtesy of Mr.
Franko. At ease" - henceforth, Sgt. Bowren called the dirty,
unkempt and filthy group by their new nickname: The Dirty Dozen
- the Dirty Dozen were driven from their remote camp
to the US Army's parachute training school-camp,
led by Major Reisman's rival - the pompous, West
Point, by-the-book Colonel Breed (Robert Ryan); they were greeted
by a marching band and two rows of platoon soldiers; as a prank, Pinkley
was ordered by Reisman to pose as a commanding General ("Just
a plain ordinary, everyday, home-loving American general") who
was traveling incognito with them, to inspect the facility and the
attending platoons; during the inspection, Pinkley pointedly asked
Breed: "Very
pretty, Colonel, very pretty. But can they fight?”; he also asked
one soldier where he was from, and after the answer, "Madison City,
Missouri, sir!," Pinkley dismissively responded: "Never
heard of it"
- when Reisman's superior officer Breed realized that
a "stunt" had been pulled on him, he lashed out at Major
Reisman - threatening to run him out of the Army and calling him "a
disorganized, undisciplined clown"; Reisman responded
with an insult of his own: "I owe you an apology, Colonel.
I always thought that you were a cold, unimaginative, tight-lipped
officer. But you're really quite emotional, aren't you?"
- Major Reisman's miffed nemesis Col. Breed instructed
two of his officers, Staff Sergeants Alistair Clayton (Gerry Crampton)
and McIntosh Blake (Terry Richards), to assault one of Reisman's
men in a 'latrine' before they departed - Wladsilaw (without
his dog tags) was beaten up in the brawl but refused to identify
himself (except as # 9) or reveal what his top-secret mission was
all about, before Jefferson and Posey saved him
- shortly later, Col. Breed made an unauthorized visit
to Reisman's camp to discover Reisman's mission and the identities
of the men ("We're going to find out who's involved in this
insanity, what you're doing here and why"), before Reisman
arrived with a machine gun and threw them out after confiscating
their weapons and humiliating them
- Reisman's mission was threatened with cancellation
of the project and his men being returned to prison for execution of
sentences, due to Col. Breed's report on the "unit's level
of achievement and general behavior" at the camp, especially
after he broke Army regulations by rewarding the men (except for
Maggott who was given sentry duty) with a drunken party ("graduation
ball") and eight invited hookers
- after all of their intense training, Major Reisman
complained: "You offered those men a
chance to get off the hook, and they worked damn hard at it. Now
that they're just shaping up, you're gonna say, 'Sorry fellas,
the deal's off?' huh?" - he took the blame for the error in
judgment: "All right, so I broke an Army regulation. What
are you gonna do? Kill five men and send the rest to prison for
life? Because if you did that, you'd have to lock up half the United
States Army, officers included. Anyway, you just said it yourself,
it was my fault, not theirs. And it's not gonna affect their ability
as soldiers.... Look, my men have crammed six months of intensive
training into as many weeks. And as of this moment, I'd stack them
up against any men in the Army...Look, they might
not be pretty, but any one of mine is worth 10 of yours"
- to prove the worth of his men, Reisman agreed to
have his paratroopers compete against Breed's elite group
in divisional practice maneuvers and war games, to test them -
and he promised they would seize their opponents' base; during
the war game trial, the 'Dirty Dozen' cheated by switching arm
bands, infiltrating enemy lines, and hijacking an ambulance; they
were able to decisively take over Breed's HQs and capture
Breed's entire staff, who were disarmed and forced to surrender; the
incident revealed the fighting spirit and abilities of the twelve
men, and they were given the 'go-ahead' to proceed with the mission
by Major Armbruster
- the "Operation Amnesty" attack
plan was composed of 16 separate steps, memorized and spoken in a
rhyming chant by the men in the so-called Da Vinci's "Last Supper"
homage sequence (all the men sat on one side of a table), as Reisman
pointed to a mock-up model of the chateau:
- One: down to the road block, we've just begun
- Two: the guards are through
- Three: the Major's men are on a spree
- Four: Major and Wladislaw go through the door
- Five: Pinkley stays out in the drive
- Six: the Major gives the rope a fix
- Seven: Wladislaw throws the hook to heaven
- Eight: Jiménez has got a date
- Nine: the other guys go up the line
- Ten: Sawyer and Gilpin are in the pen
- Eleven: Posey guards points Five and Seven
- Twelve: Wladislaw and the Major go down to
delve
- Thirteen: Franko goes up without being seen
- Fourteen: Zero-hour, Jiménez cuts the
cable, Franko cuts the phone
- Fifteen: Franko goes in where the others have
been
- Sixteen: we all come out like it's Halloween.
- their suicide mission was to parachute behind Nazi
enemy lines to destroy a Nazi-filled French chateau near Rennes in
Brittany, filled with high-ranking German officers; the first casualty
was Jimenez who suffered a broken neck in an apple tree during
parachuting entry into France
- the mission appeared
to initially succeed when Wladislaw and Reisman were able to get
through the checkpoint and infiltrate into the chateau dressed
in German officer uniforms
Botched Mission: Maggott's Confrontation with German Mistress in Chateau
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- however, the plan was botched when the beserk Maggott (the 'Judas' of the
group) on the second floor of the chateau attempted to assault one
of the officers' mistresses/wives, who as he threatened to stab
her, was ordered to begin screaming: ("Scream,
bitch. Scream. Scream, you slut. Sprechen, you harlot. Scream");
when her cries alerted others, and she slumped into his arms, he
began firing wildly with his machine-gun; the stealthy plan quickly
disintegrated into random gunfire and exploding grenades (one of
which toppled the signal tower); the German
officers above the rank of lieutenant were ordered to retreat to
the bomb shelter; Pinkley was shot dead in front of the chateau;
in an act of justified revenge and rage, Jefferson blew Maggott away
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Jefferson's Heroic Sprint to Blow Up French Chateau
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- the next strategy of the 'dirty dozen' was to sabotage
the locked, underground bunker where the alerted Germans (and their wives and
mistresses) had fled and retreated to, adjacent to an ammunition storage
area; after throwing grenades and gasoline down air-ventilator shafts into the bunker (as those
inside struggled to plug the vents, with some Holocaust-related
imagery), Jefferson went on a courageous and heroic 20 second sprint (a final 'touchdown
run' in fact) to ignite the four vents ("All right, blow it!"),
but was gunned down before reaching the stolen half-track waiting
for him at the bridge; his bravery touched off a massive explosion
of the chateau during an intense fire-fight, and the resulting
blasts took the lives of the Germans, their wives and consorts
- in the aftermath of the mission - only three escaped
alive -- Wladislaw (shot in the right leg), Sgt. Bowren, and Reisman
(shot in the right shoulder), and the only 'Dirty Dozen' survivor
Wladislaw returned to England - to be pardoned and exonerated as
originally promised; the last sarcastic words of the film were
delivered by Wladislaw in his hospital bed: "Killing
generals could get to be a habit with me"
- during a montage, a roll call of the faces of the
11 men who lost their lives in the line of duty was reviewed during
the end credits
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![](picts/dirtydozen15.jpg)
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Introductory Line-Ups During The Title Credits
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Reisman Speaking to the Group After Prison Interviews, Setting the Ground
Rules
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Construction of Training Camp Quarters and Buildings
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Franko's Foolish Attempt to Escape
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Training Exercises
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Capt. Stuart Kinder (Ralph Meeker) - Conducting Psychoanalytical
Interviews With Each Group Member
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Franko Complaining to Sgt. Bowren About The Group Shaving with Cold Water
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Twelve Insubordinate Men in a Line-Up
Major Reisman's Reaction: "So you wanna
stink, huh?"
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The Unshaven 'Dirty Dozen' Shortly Later
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Pompous and Incompetent Colonel Breed Expecting a General to Inspect
His # 1 Platoon
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Prank: Pinkley Posing as a General, Incognito
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Col. Breed Lashing Out at Major Reisman for the "Stunt"
Major Reisman's Insult Toward
Rival Colonel Breed
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Reisman's Hooker Party ("Graduation Ball") For Group
Reisman Halting Col. Breed's Unauthorized Visit to the
Camp
Major Reisman's Defense of His Men When the Mission Was
Threatened with Cancellation
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Col. Breed Embarrassed When Captured During War Maneuvers
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Homage to Da Vinci's 'The Last Supper'
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The Chateau Mock-Up Model
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Reisman and Wladislaw Posing as German Officers Inside Chateau
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Jefferson's Vengeful Murder of Maggott in Upstairs Hallway
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German Hands Struggling to Plug Underground Bunker's Air Vents Being
Filled With Grenades
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End Scrolling Credits - With Roll-Call of Faces of the 11 Men
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