The Dirty Dozen
The Dirty Dozen is a 1967 American war film directed by Robert Aldrich and starring Lee Marvin, with an ensemble supporting cast including Ernest Borgnine, Charles Bronson, Jim Brown, John Cassavetes, Richard Jaeckel, George Kennedy, Ralph Meeker, Robert Ryan, Trini Lopez, Telly Savalas, Donald Sutherland, Clint Walker and Robert Webber. Set in 1944 during World War II, the film follows the titular penal military unit of twelve convicts as they are trained as commandos by the Allies for a suicide mission ahead of the Normandy landings.
This article is about the film. For other uses, see Dirty Dozen (disambiguation).The Dirty Dozen
The Dirty Dozen
1965 novel
by E. M. Nathanson
Kenneth Hyman
- June 15, 1967
150 minutes
United States
United Kingdom
- English
- German
- French
$5.4 million[1]
$45.3 million[2]
The Dirty Dozen was filmed in England at MGM-British Studios and released by MGM. The screenplay is based on the 1965 bestseller of the same name by E. M. Nathanson, which itself was inspired by a real-life WWII unit of behind-the-lines demolition specialists from the 101st Airborne Division named the "Filthy Thirteen". Another possible inspiration was the public offer to President Franklin D. Roosevelt by 44 prisoners serving life sentences at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary to serve in the Pacific War on suicide missions against the Japanese.[3]
The film was a box office success and won the Academy Award for Best Sound Editing at the 40th Academy Awards in 1968. In 2001, the American Film Institute placed it at number 65 on their 100 Years... 100 Thrills list. The film spawned a few television film sequels in the 1980s: The Dirty Dozen: Next Mission in 1985, The Dirty Dozen: The Deadly Mission in 1987, and The Dirty Dozen: The Fatal Mission in 1988. A remake was announced in 2019 by Warner Bros.
Plot[edit]
In March 1944, OSS officer Major John Reisman is ordered by the commander of ADSEC in Britain, Major General Sam Worden, to undertake "Project Amnesty", a top secret mission to turn some of the U.S. Army's worst convicts into highly-skilled commandos to eliminate Wehrmacht officers at a château near Rennes, disrupting the German chain of command in northern France ahead of D-Day. Any convicts who survive the mission will receive a pardon.
Reisman meets the twelve convicts at a military prison operated by the Military Police Corps. Five are condemned to death while the others face lengthy sentences including hard labor. Reisman quickly establishes his authority, but the group remains disgruntled. Overseen by MPs led by Sergeant Bowren, the convicts gradually learn to operate together when they are forced to build their own training camp. However, an act of insubordination by convict Franko results in the men's shaving and wash kits being withheld as punishment, leading the group to be nicknamed the "Dirty Dozen." During their training, the convicts are psychoanalyzed by Captain Kinder, who warns Reisman that any of them will likely kill him if given the chance, and that Maggott, a psychopathic rapist and murderer, is by far the most dangerous.
With their commando training almost complete, the Dirty Dozen are sent for parachute training at a facility commanded by Reisman's nemesis, Colonel Everett Dasher Breed of the 101st Airborne Division. However, Breed is curiously not briefed about Project Amnesty. Rather than making inquiries to higher command, Breed makes several attempts to discover Reisman's mission, including infiltration of the Dirty Dozen's camp. Reisman, with the eager assistance of the convicts, angrily kicks Breed and his men out of the camp. Later, Breed's testimony combined with Reisman rewarding the Dirty Dozen with prostitutes at the end of their training, prompts the ADSEC staff to consider terminating the project and sending the men back to serve their original sentences. Reisman defends the convicts' training and agrees to have them compete against Breed's men in war games to test their mettle. Breed finds this ridiculously humorous, but to his surprise, the Dirty Dozen successfully capture his headquarters and Worden allows Reisman to resume his mission.
Upon parachuting into northern France, one of the prisoners, Jiminez, breaks his neck during the jump. With a man down, the mission proceeds with German-speaking convict Wladislaw and Reisman infiltrating the chateau disguised as German officers. However, all surprise is lost when Maggott breaks cover before he is killed by fellow convict, Jefferson. The sound of Jefferson's gunfire makes the Wehrmacht officers and their companions retreat to a locked underground bomb shelter, but the unit pours gasoline through ventilation shafts and Jefferson throws grenades into the shelter through the shafts, killing the officers and their civilian guests.
After a firefight, only Reisman, Bowren, and Wladislaw escape alive. Worden pardons Wladislaw, the sole surviving member of the Dirty Dozen, and communicates to the other convicts' next of kin that "they lost their lives in the line of duty".
Production[edit]
Writing[edit]
Although Robert Aldrich had failed to buy the rights to E. M. Nathanson's novel The Dirty Dozen while it was just an outline, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer succeeded in May 1963. On publication, the novel became a best-seller in 1965. It was adapted to the screen by veteran scriptwriter and producer Nunnally Johnson, and Lukas Heller. A repeated rhyme was written into the script where the twelve actors verbally recite the details of the attack in a rhyming chant to help them remember their roles while approaching the mission target:
Historical authenticity[edit]
Nathanson states in the prologue to his novel The Dirty Dozen that, while he heard a legend that such a unit may have existed, he incorrectly heard that they were convicts. He was unable to find any corroboration in the archives of the US Army in Europe. He instead turned his research of convicted felons into the subsequent novel. He does not state where he acquired the name, but Arch Whitehouse coined the name "Dirty Dozen" as the 12 enlisted men of the airborne section that became the "Filthy Thirteen" after the lieutenant joined their ranks. In Arch Whitehouse's article in True Magazine, he claimed that all the enlisted men were full-blood Indians, but in reality only their leader Jake McNeice was one-quarter Choctaw. The parts of the Filthy Thirteen story that carried over into Nathanson's book were not bathing until the jump into Normandy, their disrespect for military authority, and the pre-invasion party. The Filthy Thirteen was actually a demolitions section with a mission to secure bridges over the Douve on D-Day.[19][20]
A unit called the "Filthy Thirteen" was an airborne demolition unit documented in the eponymous book,[21] 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 percent of the film'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.[22][23]
Release[edit]
Theatrical[edit]
The Dirty Dozen premiered at the Capitol Theatre in New York City on June 15, 1967[14] and opened at the 34th Street East theatre the following day.[24][25] Despite being shot in an aspect ratio of 1.85:1, the film was initially shown in 70 mm which cut off 15% of the film and resulted in a grainy look.[26]
Reception[edit]
Box office[edit]
The Dirty Dozen was a massive commercial success. In its first five days in New York, the film grossed $103,849 from 2 theatres.[25] Produced on a budget of $5.4 million, it earned theatrical rentals of $7.5 million in its first five weeks from 1,152 bookings and 625 prints, one of the fastest-grossing films at the time;[27] however, on Variety's weekly box office survey, based on a sample of key city theatres, it only reached number two at the U.S. box office behind You Only Live Twice until it finally reached number one in its sixth week.[28] It eventually earned rentals of $24.2 million in the United States and Canada from a gross of $45.3 million.[29] It was the fourth-highest-grossing film of 1967 and MGM's highest-grossing film of the year. It was also a hit in France, with admissions of 4,672,628.[30]
Critical response[edit]
Upon release, the film has granted positive reviews from critics. It holds an 81% rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 52 reviews, with an average rating of 8.00/10. The critical consensus reads, "Amoral on the surface and exuding testosterone, The Dirty Dozen utilizes combat and its staggering cast of likable scoundrels to deliver raucous entertainment."[31] On release, the film was criticized for its level of violence. Roger Ebert, who was in his first year as a film reviewer for the Chicago Sun-Times, wrote sarcastically:
Other media[edit]
Parody, unofficial sequels and remake[edit]
In 1967, the same year that The Dirty Dozen was released, a parody film titled The Pogi Dozen (lit. 'The Handsome Dozen') was released in the Philippines, starring the comedian Chiquito.
Three years after The Dirty Dozen was released, Too Late the Hero, a film also directed by Aldrich, was described as a "kind of sequel to The Dirty Dozen".[36] The 1969 Michael Caine film Play Dirty follows a similar theme of convicts recruited as soldiers. The 1977 Italian war film directed by Enzo G. Castellari, The Inglorious Bastards, is a loose remake of The Dirty Dozen.[37] Quentin Tarantino's 2009 Inglourious Basterds was derived from the English-language title of the Castellari film.[38][39]
Comic books[edit]
Dell Comics published a comic The Dirty Dozen in October 1967.[40][41]
In 1972 Marvel Comics launched Combat Kelly and the Deadly Dozen inspired by the movie. While the series began as a spinoff from Marvel's more popular Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos and several characters from that series crossed over, Combat Kelly (as it was known in the indicia) only lasted nine issues.
DC Comics in the 1980s revived their Silver Age comic team known as the Suicide Squad with a similar premise, only using supervillains instead of military convicts. The success of this incarnation over the following years saw incarnations of the team appear in various media including television and movies (both live-action and animation) as well as video games.