The Dirty Dozen (DVD)

.../> When asked to name the quintessential 'guy movie' in Sleepless In Seattle, Tom Hanks put forward Robert Aldrich's "The Dirty Dozen" in response and who could argue with him. Released in 1967, this testosterone fueled war movie, gathered together a number of male stars, all big names in their own right, and turned around the way war movies were presented. No longer would the Allied forces be packed full of good guys taking the moral ...
...but instead the more brutal realites would be exposed where in fact necessary ends are achieved through less than heroic actions. Released in the midst of the Vietnam war, those that followed may have concentrated on that event as opposed to the battle against the German war machine, but there is no doubt that it paved the way for movies like The Deer Hunter and Platoon or more recently the likes of Saving Private Ryan which all work off Aldrich's ... more

(Well, OK it isn't, but with a category like that it could have been!)

When asked to name the quintessential 'guy movie' in Sleepless In Seattle, Tom Hanks put forward Robert Aldrich's "The Dirty Dozen" in response and who could argue with him. Released in 1967, this testosterone fueled war movie, gathered together a number of male stars, all big names in their own right, and turned around the way war movies were presented. No longer would the Allied forces be packed full of good guys taking the moral high ground, whilst espousing the honour and glory of war, but instead the more brutal realites would be exposed where in fact necessary ends are achieved through less than heroic actions. Released in the midst of the Vietnam war, those that followed may have concentrated on that event as opposed to the battle against the German war machine, but there is no doubt that it paved the way for movies like The Deer Hunter and Platoon or more recently the likes of Saving Private Ryan which all work off Aldrich's ideas.

What The Dirty Dozen does so differently from all those which came before is to blur the boundaries between the "good guys" and the "bad guys", depicting its 'heros' as anything but model citizens. There is no glory in this war either, instead its more a slaughter and everyone is fair game, whether they be German soldiers or civillians as long as the job is done. Compare this to the movies which came before where the likes of John Wayne claiming great victories to a rousing classical score - its a marked contrast, but in the midst of a very unpopular war, it was one which US audiences were ready for. The Dirty Dozen presents war as anything but glamorous, collecting up some of America's most heinous life sentence serving prisoners, putting them in a uniform and offering them their freedom should they complete their mission alive - hardly role models for even the most rebellious watcher to look up to. It was very daring and although Aldrich himself admits he was never likely to win an award for anything he did ("I wouldn't win the Academy Award if I filmed the Second Coming!") its highly entertaining (in a 'kill-everything-which-moves' kind of way) and if nothing else, the movie which shaped the way most modern war movies are presented today.

The Dirty Dozen is based upon no known real events, but apparently criminals were often sent to the front line with the lure of having their sentences quashed should they return alive. The year is 1944 and D-Day is approaching, but America has another plan up their sleeve to make things a little easier. Their plan is to break the German chain of command by assassinating as many of their high ranking officers as possible. Allied intelligence has discovered a chateau where many high ranking generals and other officers bring their mistresses for rumpy-pumpy and they've planned a pre-D-Day suicide mission for a squad to get in there and kill as many as possible. Head of the operation is General Worden (Ernest Borgnine) who has selected troublesome Major John Reisman(Lee Marvin) to assemble a squad of 12 death row and other prisoners serving sentences of over 20 years to carry out this operation. He'll train them, accompany them and is expected to die with them - the army sees him as a liabilty anyway, it'll be good riddance.

The team he selects are less than model soldiers, instead being disobedient, anti-social and generally impossible to handle and unable to work together. The group consists of murders, rapists, a religious fanatic in the form of Archer Maggott(Telly Savalas), a Pole called Joseph Wladislaw(Charles Bronson) , the rebellious Victor Franko(John Cassavettes) and Robert Jefferson, a black man played by Jim Brown, who'll bear the brunt of racial abuse throughout. Tensions run high in the early section as Reisman tries to gel together 12 of society's outcasts and he battles to earn their respect as leader - then its on into enemy territory and the slaughter begins...

Despite the later acknowledgement of its importance in reshaping Hollywood's approach to war movies, Aldrich never had such high ideals. Whilst he admits to liking the idea of making something different, what he actually set out to give the movie world was an adrenaline fueled adventure story with a focus upon the cameraderie between the most unlikely group of people, starring some of the hottest properties of the time and that is generally how most viewers have accepted it over the years. The Dirty Dozen is a great adventure story, guaranteed to entertain despite having spawned 3 really awful sequels in the 1980's and nothing (not even the countless television showings) can take that away from it. 13 guys storm a chateau and subsequently try to escape, holding off the entire German army in the process - its real boys own adventure stuff!

There is certainly more than enough shooting, explosions and general mayhem to keep any action movie fan happy - so much so in fact that after 3 weeks of putting up with it, residents in the Borehamwood locale complained and the movie was given 14 days to finish up with the noisy stuff or find somewhere else to shoot! In a time before blockbuster special effects and big set pieces were an action movie staple, Aldrich's movie features an awful lot of thrills and spills and one highly extravagant scene, which involved the construction of a huge building with the sole purpose of blowing it up in a pyrotechnical extravaganza - no doubt the residents of Borehamwood loved that one! Much of the appeal of this movie though comes from the cameraderie between these tough guy characters especially during the opening section of the movie in Reisman's training camp, with the constant battle of wills and humorous exchanges as he tries to turn a rabble into a competent fighting unit...as well as exchanging a few smart words with Robert Ryan's pompous, by-the-numbers Colonel Breed.

The acting here is great, although most is down to the colourful characters the fantastic cast are given to portray. Ultimately its Marvin's movie though, his granite features and hard-as-nails persona are every bit the hard-bitten World War II officer he is given to play. You'd never guess he was drunk as a skunk through most of the movie, even having to be dragged paralytic from a bar on the day of a big scene shoot...where he had to drive a large weapons carrier across a bridge whist barely being able to stand unaided! Apparently much of the difficulty shooting that particular scene was trying to prevent him and Bronson killing each other after a long running on set feud...a solid gold cast it may have been, but obviously Borehamwood wasn't quite big enough for all those egos! That said, many of these actors weres still unknown at the time and this movie acted as a springboard for bigger and better things for virtually all of them - except maybe Marvin himself who was arguably already at the very peak of his career following on from his Best Actor Academy Award for "Cat Balou" the previous year. That 13 actors should all be able to offer enough sparkle to attract the attention of other directors is testament in itself to the quality of performance on show here.

The Dirty Dozen is not a masterpiece movie by any stretch of the imagination, in fact most of the time it looks deeply contrived and highly unlikely, but Aldrich made a movie with the sole purpose of entertaining and it certainly does that and still remains one of MGM's most successful movies. Some 35 years after its release, its appeal has waned little and its importance to modern movies becomes increasingly more apparent - right down to Joe Dante casting half the Dirty Dozen team to voice his soldiers in 1998's Small Soldiers animation. Couple this with the fact that so many have taken on board the ideas presented here and The Dirty Dozen feels barely dated at all despite its age. Its boys own adventure stuff, plenty of action, plenty of hard-nosed humour and plenty of tough guys playing tough guy games in the middle of total mayhem. What more could you ask for!?

 

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