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Director Robert Aldrich took what he considered a hopelessly old-fashioned script by Lukas Heller and Nunnally Johnson and fashioned The Dirty Dozen into one of MGM's biggest moneymakers of the 1960s—and the sixth highest-grossing film in the studio's history. Lee Marvin plays Major Reisman, assigned to coordinate a suicide mission on a French chateau held by top Nazi officers. Since no "normal" GI can be expected to volunteer for this mission, Reisman is compelled to draw his personnel from a group of military prisoners serving life sentences. This "dirty dozen" includes a sex pervert ( Telly Savalas ), a psycho ( John Cassavetes ), a retarded killer ( Donald Sutherland ), and the equally malevolent Charles Bronson , Trini Lopez , Jim Brown , and Clint Walker . On the dim promise of receiving pardons if they survive, the criminals undergo a brutal training program, then are marched behind enemy lines dressed as Nazi soldiers, the better to overtake the chateau and kill everyone in it—including the innocent wives and mistresses of the German officers. It says something about Aldrich's skill as a director that he has us cheering on this motley crew as it accomplishes its coldblooded mission. Three of the "dirty dozen" survive, but you'll have to see the film for further details. Though it might be hard to believe, the novel by E. M. Nathanson from which this film was adapted was even more bloodthirsty than the film itself. — Hal Erickson
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