Movie Club for June 30th - The Dirty Dozen

Well folks, this weeks Movie Club selection is The Dirty Dozen, chosen by Beale the Rippe.



Debate safely.

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Kong's Reviews:
Stuck On You
Bad Santa

I've seen this movie more than any other movie out there. It sux donkey b@lls!

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"Today, war is too important to be left to politicians. They have neither the time, the training, nor the inclination for strategic thought. I can no longer sit back and allow Communist infiltration, Communist indoctrination, Communist subversion and the international Communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids."

I can't comment on this film until I post the results of my "Mofo Taste Test" since this film was on the list.

I do have some comments and questions regarding the film, so I hope there are people willing to discuss it.

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NEW (as of 1/24/05): Quick Reviews #10

Oh yeah. This is one of my all time favorites, but it became that when I was young. I'll be pretty windy writing my thoughts on it. Tomorrow, tomorrow, I'll post it tomorrow. Only an agonizing day aawwwaaayyyyyyyy!!!!!

From Maestro action director Robert Aldrich, with a top notch cast of anti- heroes, a tough guy script littered wih memorable dialogue and perfectly framed action set pieces this film is an indisputable classic.

The Wild Bunch at war, this film has influenced generations of action filmmakers and inspired legions of fans. Where else can you see Lee Marvin, John Cassevettes, Charles Bronson, Jim Brown, Donald Sutherland and Clint Walker kick ass, eat lead and take on the Nazi's singlehandedly.

Thats worth the price of admission alone, on top of that we get Telly Savalas delivering a career high performance and Ernest Borgnine is the iccing on the cake.

The cast however is not the only drawing card, the much immitated but never equalled story and script provide all these charismatic men with great lines and genuine emotion to display.

The opening 10 minutes are fantastic, making cold and clinical comments on the nature of violence and justice. Introducing all the key players with power and presence, outlining there motivations and giving us the charecter traits that remain from start to finish..

This is a war film that revels in the insanity and violent nature of battle, the fact that real killers are not soicial animals and more importantly far removed from what is now defined as political correctness. War isnt about the diplomats who discuss and double talk, its about the soldiers that draw blood and destroy lives.

Cant talk about The dozen without mentioning the fabulous score and action cinematography that has its finger on the pulse and lets the viewer take in all the information while also feeling like they are in the middle of it all.

A true gem of a film that all action films should see and take notes on.

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******"The Majority Is Always Wrong" Steve Mcqueen in Enemy Of The People******

From Maestro action director Robert Aldrich, with a top notch cast of anti- heroes, a tough guy script littered wih memorable dialogue and perfectly framed action set pieces this film is an indisputable classic.

The Wild Bunch at war, this film has influenced generations of action filmmakers and inspired legions of fans. Where else can you see Lee Marvin, John Cassevettes, Charles Bronson, Jim Brown, Donald Sutherland and Clint Walker kick ass, eat lead and take on the Nazi's singlehandedly.

Thats worth the price of admisi9on alone, on top of that we get Telly Savalas delivering a career high performance and Ernest Borgnine is the iccing on the cake.

The cast however is not the only drawing card, the much immitated but never equalled story and script provide all these charismatic men with great lines and genuine emotion to display.

The opening 10 minutes are fantastic, making cold and clinical comments on the nature of violence and justice. Introducing all the key players with power and presence, outlining there motivations and giving us the charecter traits that remain from start to finish..

This is a war film that revels in the insanity and violent nature of battle, the fact that real killers are not soicial animals and more importantly far removed from what is now defined as political correctness. War isnt about the diplomats who discuss and double talk, its about the soldiers that draw blood and destroy lives.

Cant talk about The dozen without mentioning the fabulous score and action cinematography that has its finger on the pulse and lets the viewer take in all the information while also feeling like they are in the middle of it all.

A true gem of a film that all action films should see and take notes on

Kong didn't like it.

Kong was expecting an action drama, but shortly into the movie it turned into some kind of action-ensemble-buddy-comedy. Nothing wrong with that, and Kong thought it was entertaining for the most part. And then the end happened. Kong found the end to be stomach turning. It was practically sadistic. The whole tone of the movie prior to the raid was so hunkydory that the finale feels not only out of place, but disgusting. Are we supposed to cheer on as these criminals commit war crimes by killing civilians in a conflagration?

URRRHHHHHHHHHHFHHGHHGHGHGH!! I made this whole long post and I accidentally re-started my computer! Ok. I'll try to re-cap.

The movie is one of my all time favorites (**** stars)

I enjoyed all of it, and loved the buddy element.

Loved Telly Savalas as the villian and Lee Marvin was, as always, a bad mutha.

I could go on and on, but it pretty much all comes down to how you accept the ending. I loved it. It was enjoyable as the rest of the film.

"Oh, they tortured and killed those poor Nazis and their women !"

Screw the Nazis. I'm very happy with the way they met their end. (The Marquis in me loves that stuff). You can't do anything bad enough to a Nazi. If anything, they got off easy. (Forgive me for anyone whom my languahe has offended).

In the end, most of The 12 redeemed themselves, the bad guys (Telly and the Nazis) got what they deserved, and Lee Marvin lives to tell about it. What more do you want from a movie?

No matter how bad a criminal you are, you're still much better than a Nazi.

A few comments:

My first post was longer and better.

Thanks Kong for covering for me. I'd forgotten what day it was.

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"I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it anymore!" - Howard Beale

They are in war and the Nazis are there enemies, so Kong has no problem that Nazis are killed. But it's the indiscriminate killing of non-combatants that bothers Kong. And even that wouldn't have put the nail in the coffin if the film would have had serious and critical themes about the issues at hand, but, like you said, it's obvious that we are supposed to root for them and feel that all of their raping, robbing, and murdering has been redeemed through their war crimes. Kong and The Dirty Dozen have philosophical differences.

Please tell Kong that you don't really believe this. Most of the Nazis were just blindly following the leader. That kind of behavior has been, and still is, common throughout the world.

Is that supposed to excuse them? It doesn't. Sorry Kong, but that is my stance. Those Nazis deserved what they got.

And on the civilians: Prior to this event we had been led to believe that this attack was much needed to help win WWII. Now, if it were to have any major effect on WWII, I would've done the same to the women if it was needed to prevent the Nazi's from winning. This isn't because I don't value life. Quite the contrary. I would be doing it to save the millions of live that would've been lost had Hitler won.

Sidenote: If you want to debate more on this subject, I'm game, as it is a great topic, but I'm going out of town tomorrow, so I may not be able to get back to you right away. (I'll do it as soon as I can though !)

Also, Kongs point about mindlessly following Hitler may be arguable, given the germans killed were mere soldiers.

See, Kong forgets one thing. These weren't just foot soldiers who knew followed blindley, these were high ranking Nazi officials. These are the guys who led the attacks, the massacres, and who know whats going on and why it's happening. They deserved everything they got.

Okay, I've finally gotten the chance to get to this thread, and I see that Kong has practically expressed my entire feelings.

I didn't like it either. I, too, thought it was going to be an action packed war movie, but like Kong said, it turned out to be an action-ensemble-buddy-comedy. I didn't care too much for The Great Escape for the same reasons.

Yes, Lee Marvin is a bad mutha, and I like him a lot. I didn't dislike any of the characters or actors, but I have a belief that ensemble casts don't always make a great movie. I love Robert Aldrich, but not this one.

I also had a big problem with "the mission." When they started dropping the grenades and gasoline down the air vents, I thought, "Surely, they're not going to blow it up while they're trapped down there. Not with all the women down there." Yes, Nazi's are horrible, and we all know what they did that was horrible, but the movie didn't portray them as horrible, and I think that is part of the problem.

Also, this is a fictional story. It didn't help the U.S. win WWII because it never happened. The results of the mission was a war crime. Two wrongs don't make a right. The dirty dozen sank to the Nazi's level, blah, blah, blah.

All I can say is, I wasn't enjoying the ensemble comedy aspect, and when the film reached the climax, I couldn't believe it. If they wanted to kill everyone in the building, fly over and bomb it. They flew close enough for the parachute drop. Why not fly a little further and drop some bombs?

Sorry, Beale the Rippe. I'm glad I watched it, but can't side with you regarding liking it.

[quote=Beale the Rippe]And on the civilians: Prior to this event we had been led to believe that this attack was much needed to help win WWII. Now, if it were to have any major effect on WWII, I would've done the same to the women if it was needed to prevent the Nazi's from winning. This isn't because I don't value life. Quite the contrary. I would be doing it to save the millions of live that would've been lost had Hitler won.
QUOTE]

Ahh, the old, "In order to save the world from murderous madmen we'll become murderous madmen ourselves!" argument. It's that type of rationalizing that helped lead to Nazism and the holocaust. You can't just turn a blind eye to an evil action just because you think it will lead to some greater good. That's the exact same thing that most of the people you have condemned did.

hey gang, I saw the ending as an anti war statement highlighting the hypocrisy and futility of war and the men who run them.

The director Robert Aldirich is clever in the fact that he introduces these men as iredeemable, dispicable bad men, men who deserve to hang. Then convinces us there fun to hang out with and have appealing sides. Then finally slam us with what we knew all along, they are blood thirsty, vicisous men. And Telly savalas inparticular should never have left death row.


We the audience are introduced to all these "bad" men in the opening scenes after seeing one such man hang. We know where they are going, we know they are the scum of the earth, we know that they are all capable of haneous acts. During teh duration of the story an unspoken understanding of where they all fit in the scheme of things allows friendships to form between all these nasty men who just might be heroes.

As the charecters accept each other we the audience accept them as soldiers doing a job and making the best of a very ****ed up situation. Each individual develops a likeable side to there violent personalitys. The director does this so at the end we see there true natures...but also see there is more to them than just being murderers and rapists.

We see Lee Marvin has more in common with these scum balls than he does the military brass. Who nearly all are beurocratic idiots who work on statistic rather than real human costs.

The Dozen is expendable and are treated as such by the runners of this bloody war. We know that this bunch of convicts would happily kill there own mothers as fast as a Nazi, the enemy is irrelevant.

We the audience have built up a mythical image of the Nazi's as all evil, mindless dilitates who loved Adolf so much they would make any sacrifice for the cause. That's why in the films bloody finale some people feel its oK that all these violent acts are taking place on supposed "innocents", but the Nazi's are now given faces. The film spares us no grisly detail in the act of taking another persons life away or raping them so we learn that they were real people.

People who think about what they are watching notice it is downright mean and nasty, that the Dozen are no better than the nazi's..............also that Lee Marvin's superiors are no better than the nazi's....that all involved are no better or worse than each other.

These 12 men who were sentenced to death deserve whats coming to them, but are the best men to have if you want to win a down and dirty war. The only thing worse than the tools is the user in this case the upper ranking army men who ordered this crazy mission to begin with.

For me the end serves to show that history can skew facts that supposed great men are morally empty, that heroes are not always good men and the enemy always has a face, mind and personality.

Maybe Im wrong and have just seen this film to many times but I like the way it manipulates its charecters.

With that kind of thinking we shouldn't have tried to take on the Nazis in war, because thats what brought them to power. You are going to say that these aren't the same things, and while you may be right, you can't make such comments as the way of thinking when you are comparing the Nazis killing whoever, no, anyone they wanted to the incidental killing of a few Nazi women. (More on this later....maybe)

Ok fine. So they shouldn't have killed the women.

Sorry. Wrong place wrong time. War is hell.

I also liked the way Deckard interpreted it , although it isn't my immediate feeling on the movie, it was at the very least a great thought. I believe that the 12 is much better than the Nazi scum, and almost , and in some cases do redeem themselves by taking out the Nazis. Telly Savalas' character is the only one in my mind that is as bad, if not worse than a Nazi. But it is interesting to think about, and it gives new depth to what Mark said earlier about how the Nazis weren't portrayed as horrible.

[Beales magic quote....copy/paste button (Mark):
I also had a big problem with "the mission." When they started dropping the grenades and gasoline down the air vents, I thought, "Surely, they're not going to blow it up while they're trapped down there. Not with all the women down there." Yes, Nazi's are horrible, and we all know what they did that was horrible, but the movie didn't portray them as horrible, and I think that is part of the problem.

Also, this is a fictional story. It didn't help the U.S. win WWII because it never happened. The results of the mission was a war crime. Two wrongs don't make a right. The dirty dozen sank to the Nazi's level, blah, blah, blah.

All I can say is, I wasn't enjoying the ensemble comedy aspect, and when the film reached the climax, I couldn't believe it. If they wanted to kill everyone in the building, fly over and bomb it. They flew close enough for the parachute drop. Why not fly a little further and drop some bombs?

Sorry, Beale the Rippe. I'm glad I watched it, but can't side with you regarding liking it. Beales unquote]

The 12, (1 exception) are anti-heroes.

The Nazis, (and Maggot) are villians.

Thats my way of thinkning.

I believe (inreference to Mark's post) that the reason the Nazis weren't portrayed as monsters is because we already know and assume that they are. You can't do anything too bad to a Nazi.

On the fictional aspect: EXACTLY! This is a movie! Finally someone mentioned that. So because this didn't have any bearing on WWII, it is a war crime? Wait.....I think I missinterpreted that.....oh well.

Thats a good point. This way we can see the demise of each character. Maybe it had something to do with this being a top secret mission...but that wouldn't explian.....don't worry about it. It was more fun this way (for me. I enjoyed it. More sickening to others)

Dirty Dozen I salute you for killing the Nazi scum! I still enjoyed every single Nazi death, (and this is just at thought, so don't blast me about this, but I'm sure there were more Nazi....Oh nevermind. I love the ending, you hate it. Thats what all of this boils down to).

Don't worry Mark. We can't always agree upon liking a movie. Everybody has different tastes. Thanks everybody for watching the film, love it or hate it. It (tear) meant a lot to me.

I'm leaving in 5 mins. See you cats later.

-Beale out.

Kong actually did consider an interpretation that the film was a highly cynical look at the "dozen", and an attack on conniving military brass, but that view simply doesn't work for Kong. If Aldrich Was trying to send that message, then he was trying to walk a thin line and failed doing so, IKO.

The problem Kong has with this view is the tone throughout the movie. It's completely unserious up until the end. Giving us two hours of carefree ensemble goof comedy that's completely devoid of any socio-political commentary, and then drastically switching gears for the last half-hour to create a message seems unlikely to be attempted and even less likely to actually work. Furthermore, it felt obvious too Kong that we were supposed to be rooting for them at the end. For example, the deaths of the members of the dirty dozen are handled with gravity, and we can tell that we are supposed to feel bad for their sacrifice.




You view the Nazis as inhumanely as the Nazis viewed the Jews. If society wants to prevent the rise of anything resembling the Nazi party from occuring again, we must realize that almost all of the Nazis were nothing more than average people who were misled, and xenophobic. We're all capable of that same level of hate, and that same lack of empathy, and it's that realization that can allow us to keep it from happening.

I did enjoy this movie, it may not come up the action movies of today but quite good.

To the people who were worried about civilians dying, this is war! war is stupid and civilians get killed.

The copy that I borrowed was a special edition: It had a trailer for the movie, which I found quite funny and corny. It introduced the stars and portrayed them as real action men in real life, macho men, this I found very funny. It had them arriving in London and taking the town by storm, in the restaurants and the street of London.

Ernest Borgnine introduced the movie, He said that John Wayne was offered the Lee Marvin role, he turned it down for other work, Not sure if I would have liked John in this role, Lee seemed made for it.

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It's not like this was accidental collateral damage; this was murder, and it was committed by people fully aware of what they were doing. And, like Kong said before, it's not so much the fact that the movie portrayed this crime, but the fact that it was glorified.

i know what you mean, I don't think that murder should be glorified at all, Thank God that things have changed, terrible things are done under the umbrella of War.

Both my Parents were in the English Airforce and they fought in world war two, they never had a good thing to say about it, pretty scary.