ABSTRACT
RO B E R T A L D R I C H ’ S T H E D I R T Y D O Z E N is a film many worldsremoved from Steven Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan (1998) in terms of questioning the supposed nobility of the Second World War as ‘the good war’. Both during its time of release and up to the present day, the film has suffered from critical disclaim as being little better than a cynical, nasty production, playing upon gratuitous feelings of male violence. Forced to witness the hanging of a frightened young serviceman by his military superiors, Major John Reisman (Lee Marvin) finds himself ‘volunteering’ for a mission behind enemy lines commanding soldiers either facing execution or life imprisonment. He has to whip these reluctant men into shape so that they will merge into a fighting unit who will delay the German High Command immediately before D-Day. Reisman’s anti-authoritarian attitudes eventually strike a responsive chord so that the Dozen see the American brass as their real enemies as well as the Germans. Reisman’s men include a diverse number of dangerous elements such as former gangster Victor Franko (John Cassavetes), violent religious fanatic Maggot (Telly Savalas), angry black soldier Jefferson (Jim Brown), who has defended himself against racism, as well as briefly commissioned officer Wladislaw (Charles Bronson), who has ‘fragged’ his superior when he attempted to run away from battle with medical supplies, and gentle accidental killer Samson Posey (Clint Walker). After successfully forming this group into a fighting unit, Reisman leads a night assault on a French chateau, which is temporarily disrupted by Maggot’s assault on a German female. The remnants of the Dozen finally succeed in incinerating as many of the German High Command and their ladies as possible by trapping them in a cellar. Only Reisman, military policeman Sergeant Bowren (Richard Jaeckel) and Wladislaw survive the mission. They return to a cynically manipulative military command they feel the utmost disdain towards. The film ends with Wladislaw’s remark that ‘killing generals could get to be a habit’.
