Pike (William Holden), Dutch (Ernest Borgnine), Sykes, the Gorch brothers, and Angel. They’re a bunch of aging outlaws who survive a botched attempt at the old “one last job” score. In Sam Peckinpah’s 1969 Western, the wild west of myth is essentially gone (the film is set in 1913), yet these bandits are holding on to some old ideal — crime is fine, as long as you’re stealing from the man, and loyalty above all. So when one of their posse is captured, the group goes after him, like men do, and ride straight into one of American film’s most bloody scenes.
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.
As we prepare for the Game of Thrones finale, we recognize Joffrey and nine other baddies who showed us that terrible, horrible things can come in small packages
