Actors - The Dirty Dozen

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	Actors - The Dirty Dozen

The Dirty Dozen is a 1967 war film directed by Robert Aldrich from the novel by E.M. Nathanson. Starring Lee Marvin, Ernest Borgnine,Telly Savalas,Charles Bronson, and NFL Hall of Famer turned actor Jim Brown, it was a huge box office success for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, and the year's high-grossing film. It was nominated for four Oscars, including a supporting actor nomination for John Cassavetes, and won one Oscar for its sound effects. In 2001, the American Film Institute included it on its list of 100 Years...100 Thrills.

The movie takes place during World War II, not long before D-Day. Twelve Allied soldiers, all imprisoned and several facing sentences of death, are given the chance to go on a very risky mission. If they survive, their sentences will be set aside.

Major John Reisman (Marvin) an outspoken US Army officer, already viewed unfavourably by his superiors, is "volunteered" to take command of the mission, in which his team is to assault and destroy a chateau in Brittany, frequented by German officers, and kill all officers. The mission is set to take place just prior to the D-Day invasion, as the chateau is frequented by German officers on leave from their units.

The soldiers don't take kindly to Reisman's tough training regime, and some try to sabotage it, but eventually they start to work as a team and prove that they're ready for anything. The mission goes ahead, and the chateau is assaulted. Most of the occupants are killed when the building is blown up. Only Reisman, Sergeant Bowren, and one of the Dirty Dozen, Wladislaw (Bronson), survive the mission.

Other information

Jim Brown announced his retirement from professional football during the filming of this movie.

For its time, the film was an unconventional and extremely violent depiction of war. Roger Ebert, in his first year as a movie critic for the Chicago Sun-Times, was shocked by its violence. He 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.

It may be noted however that, in the same way as graphic sex is ommited but largely implied in the film, the burning of trapped human beings is treated in the same way. While this event is hardly defendable on a moral or ethical basis, it is disputable wether such a sequence was meant to have been read in a laudating first degree. Rather, while the central theme of the film is clearly the overall glorification of the dirty dozen, the hesitation of the soldiers to execute the captives by fire and the directorial and editing choice to include the captive's panic and terror at the thought of their imminent and horrifying fate in the final cut could point to a desire to depict war's attrocities and challenge the good vs. evil cliché popular in such blockbusters.

Cast

Ernest Borgnine
.... Major-General Worden
Charles Bronson
.... Joseph T. Wladislaw
Jim Brown
.... Robert T. Jefferson
Tom Busby .... Milo Vladek
Ben Carruthers .... Glenn Gilpin
John Cassavetes
.... Victor P. Franko
Stuart Cooper .... Roscoe Lever
Richard Jaeckel
.... Sergeant. Clyde Bowren
George Kennedy
.... Major Max Armbruster
Trini Lopez .... Pedro Jiminez
Colin Maitland .... Seth K. Sawyer
Al Mancini .... Tassos R. Bravos
Lee Marvin
.... Major John Reisman
Ralph Meeker
.... Captain Stuart Kinder
Robert Phillips .... Corporal Carl Morgan
Robert Ryan
.... Col. Everett Dasher Breed
Telly Savalas
.... Archer J. Maggott
Donald Sutherland
.... Vernon L. Pinkley
Clint Walker
.... Samson Posey
Robert Webber
.... Brigader-General Denton

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for The Dirty Dozen ]

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