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DVD The Dirty Dozen
A model for dozens of action films to follow, this box-office hit from 1967 refined a die-hard formula that has become overly familiar, but it's rarely been handled better than it was in this action-packed World War II thriller. Lee Marvin is perfectly cast as a down-but-not-out army major who is offered a shot at personal and professional redemption. If he can successfully train and discipline a squad of army rejects, misfits, killers, prisoners, and psychopaths into a first-rate unit of specialized soldiers, they'll earn a second chance to make up for their woeful misdeeds. Of course, there's a catch: to obtain their pardons, Marvin's band of badmen must agree to a suicide mission that will parachute them into the danger zone of Nazi-occupied France. It's a hazardous path to glory, but the men have no other choice to accept and regain their lost honor. What makes The Dirty Dozen special is its phenomenal cast including Charles Bronson, Donald Sutherland, Telly Savalas, George Kennedy, Ernest Borgnine, John Cassavetes, Richard Jaeckel, Jim Brown, Clint Walker, Trini Lopez, Robert Ryan, and others. Cassavetes is the Oscar- nominated standout as one of Marvin's most rebellious yet heroic men, but it's the whole ensemble--combined with the hard-as-nails direction of Robert Aldrich--that makes this such a high-velocity crowd pleaser. The script by Nunnally Johnson and Lukas Heller (from the novel by E.M. Nathanson) is strong enough to support the all-star lineup with ample humor and military grit, so if you're in need of a mainline jolt of testosterone, The Dirty Dozen is the movie for you. The DVD extras are also a kick in the pants, including a promotional featurette showing Marvin and his stylishly macho costars enjoying some male bonding in the mod London bistros of the 1960s. (You almost expect Austin Powers to come speeding around the nearest corner, making it a dirty baker's dozen! Yeah, baby, yeah!) --Jeff Shannon
During the 1960's, movie producers tried to pack as many stars as they could into a movie as possible: The Magnificent Seven (1960), The Great Escape (1963), It's a Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963) and this 1967 Robert Aldrich film. Everywhere you turn here there's a star! Lee Marvin plays Major Reissman, a by-the-book career soldier who's assigned a Mission Impossible; knock off a German general and his entire headquarters and make your way back if you can. He's assigned the dregs of the army to help him, the hardest cases from a military prison, men awaiting execution for a variety of crimes. They include football great Jim Brown, future director John Cassavetes, a young Donald Sutherland, a crazed Telly Savalas, Charles Bronson, the gigantic Clint Walker, to name a few. Richard Jaeckel made countless war movies, and here he's the MP sergeant assigned to help Marvin whip these guys into shape. Ernest Borgnine plays the commanding general, and Robert Ryan plays Marvin's arch-rival Colonel Breen. Along with "The Great Escape" and "The Magnificent Seven," this is one of the great "guy movies" of the sixties: great lines, great stars, and plenty of action!
Deserves a remastered 16x9 edition
This is a great film, but deserves a remastered edition. Be aware that it has NOT been enhanced for widescreen TVs. If you have a regular square TV, no problem. If you have a widescreen TV, rent it and wait for a remastered edition...which sadly may be awhile since Sony now owns the MGM Library and does not put much energy into their library titles.
The Motley Crew
I read the book version of "The Dirty Dozen" when I was still in junior high. That was many many years ago. It was a good book but I marvelled at how I read such a lengthy WWII novel and all of the combat was on the last 19 pages. I realized that I had enjoyed the book so I shouldn't complain. Frankly, the closer I came to the end, the more I was grateful that the author, E.M. Nathanson, managed to fit in those 19 pages. I'm glad the movie expanded it's coverage of the mission itself.
When the movie was made I saw it at the theater and compared notes. Some things were the same, some left out and some added but it sure got the heart of the story across. This was a work of fiction although the book and movie spawned rumors that such a mission with condemned prisoners actually took place. I seem to recall that Nathanson himself claimed to have heard those rumors before writing the book. Well, if you don't know by now, the story involves 12 condemned prisoners who were given a choice of an almost certain death, behind the lines mission in exchange for commuting their sentences. It is a far-fetched concept yet the Dickensian concept of "It is a far, far better place that I go...", although taken to an extreme, seems to touch the cavalier attitudes of many of us. If you will not accept the premise, forget about the movie. If you can allow rational thought to be stretched thin, then you're in for a great movie. Kudos to the casting department who put together a lot of tough hombres starting with one of the toughest of all; Lee Marvin.
We get a chance to meet all of these dirty dozen in the beginning of the movie and they are a strange bunch. They seem so inept that the whole concept is in danger of being scrapped. However, events create the sort of cameraderie that is needed for men to be able to face danger together and the rest of the movie rises to a higher level of excitement.
The mission itself was spelled out in the book but it's execution was all new territory in the movie. Like the plot itself, it got a little strange at times but it still had plenty of action.
"The Dirty Dozen" is not on the level of such movies as "The Great Escape" but it is just a notch below. I would have rated it a 4 1/2 star movie but I rounded it up out of respect for the book.
This tongue-in-cheek 1970 variation on The Dirty Dozen looks less fresh than it did in the year of its release, but it still has some enjoyable moments. Clint Eastwood stars along with Donald Sutherland, Harry Dean Stanton, Telly Savalas, Don Rickles, Carroll O'Connor, and Gavin MacLeod in the story of American soldiers who try to steal gold behind enemy lines in World War II. Sutherland's hippie G.I. doesn't have the sardonic and timely appeal he did during the Vietnam War, but the film's irreverence and several of the performances are worth a visit. --Tom KeoghMore Info about this DVD Director(s): Brian G. Hutton DVD Release Date: Released the 01 August 2000 Usually ships in 24 hours
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The Great Escape image of Steve McQueen (as "The Cooler King") astride his motorcycle has entered silver-screen iconography, alongside Brando on his bike from The Wild One. Based on a true story about a group of POWs who mount a daring breakout from a supposedly inescapable Nazi prison camp, this rousing and suspenseful WWII epic features an all-star cast, including James Garner, Richard Attenborough, Charles Bronson, Donald Pleasence, James Coburn, and David McCallum. The DVD also includes a 24-minute documentary about the making of the film. --Jim EmersonMore Info about this DVD Director(s): John Sturges DVD Release Date: Released the 31 March 1998 Usually ships in 24 hours
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This rousing, explosive 1961 WWII adventure, based on Alistair MacLean's thrilling novel, turns the war thriller into a deadly caper film. Gregory Peck heads a star-studded cast charged with a near impossible mission: destroy a pair of German guns nestled in a protective cave on the strategic Mediterranean island of Navarone, from where they can control a vital sea passage. As world famous mountain climber turned British army Captain Mallory, Peck leads a guerrilla force composed of the humanistic explosives expert, Miller (David Niven), the ruthless Greek patriot with a grudge, Stavros (Anthony Quinn), veteran special forces soldier Brown (Stanley Baker), and the cool, quiet young marksman Pappadimos (James Darren). This disparate collection of classic types must overcome internal... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Gregory Peck - David Niven - Anthony Quinn - Anthony Quayle Director(s): J. Lee Thompson DVD Release Date: Released the 23 May 2000 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Scorned by reviewers when it came out, this concentrated dose of commando death-dealing to legions of Nazi machine-gun fodder has acquired a cult over the years. In 1968 Clint Eastwood was just getting used to the notion that he might be a world-class movie star; Richard Burton, whose image had been shaped equally by classical theater training and his headline-making romance with Elizabeth Taylor, was eager to try on the action ethos Eastwood was already nudging toward caricature. Alistair MacLean's novel The Guns of Navarone had inspired the film that started the '60s vogue for World War II military capers, so he was prevailed on to write the screenplay (his first). The central location, an impregnable Alpine stronghold locked in ice and snow, is surpassing cool, but the plot and... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Richard Burton - Clint Eastwood Director(s): Brian G. Hutton DVD Release Date: Released the 02 September 2003 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Akira Kurosawa's rousing Seven Samurai was a natural for an American remake--after all, the codes and conventions of ancient Japan and the Wild West (at least the mythical movie West) are not so very far apart. Thus The Magnificent Seven effortlessly turns samurai into cowboys (the same trick worked more than once: Kurosawa's Yojimbo became Sergio Leone's A Fistful of Dollars). The beleaguered denizens of a Mexican village, weary of attacks by banditos, hire seven gunslingers to repel the invaders once and for all. The gunmen are cool and capable, with most of the actors playing them just on the cusp of '60s stardom: Steve McQueen, James Coburn, Charles Bronson, Robert Vaughn. The man who brings these warriors together is Yul Brynner, the baddest bald man in... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Yul Brynner - Steve McQueen - Charles Bronson Director(s): John Sturges DVD Release Date: Released the 08 May 2001 Usually ships in 24 hours
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