The Dirty Dozen
War films are tailor-made for posses, but you’d be hard pressed to find a group who achieved more, while destroying everything, than “The Dirty Dozen.” In the first act, Lee Marvin’s OSS Major John Reisman receives a secret mission: build a team out of 20 thug soldiers, sneak behind enemy lines, and then on the eve of the Normandy invasion, attack a French chateau and kill vacationing German officers. In the opening credits, Major Reisman toes the line while we meet his team, along with their sentences. Among them: Franko, V.R. (John Cassavetes), death by hanging; Jefferson, R.T. (football legend Jim Brown), death by hanging; Wladislaw, T. (Charles Bronson), death by hanging; Pinkley, V.L. (Donald Sutherland), 30 years imprisonment; Maggott, A.J. (Telly Savalas), death by hanging. With nothing to lose, the Dirty Dozen storm the chateau. While they all don’t ‘come out like it’s Halloween,’ there are enough survivors to make us wish there had been a sequel.
