"I reckon the folks'd be a sight happier if I died like a soldier. Can't say I would."
— Samson Posey
Before the Basterds, and before The Expendables, there were the Dozen.The Dirty Dozen was released in 1967, and starred, among many others, Ernest Borgnine, Lee Marvin, and Donald Sutherland. Set in 1944, it follows the tale of Major Reisman, a rebel in a uniform. He's given the task by his superiors to take twelve enlisted men convicted of capital offenses, and train them for an important mission. Their mission, whether they choose to accept it or not, is to parachute behind enemy lines and infiltrate a mountain retreat for senior Wehrmacht officers on the eve of D-Day. There, they will kill those present, even if the act of doing so costs them their lives.Three sequels were made in the eighties.Definitely cannot be confused with The Dozens, which is the game of put-downs where Your Mom jokes come from.
This work features examples of:
Actor Allusion: Jim Brown, an absurdly good, multiple record setting NFL Running back, has a scene where he outruns explosions in an extended take. Clearly, the guy's pretty good at running.
Anyone Can Die: And sadly, most of them do. Only Reisman, Wladislaw and Sgt. Bowren survive the assault.
Ax Crazy: Maggott. He tortures and kills a woman in the chateau for his own personal amusement and then fires at his own teammates, alerting the Germans to what's going on and basically ruining the entire plan. The Squad has to kill him first, and then improvise a way to salvage the operation.
Black and Grey Morality: The bad guys are clearly Those Wacky Nazis. But the Dirty Dozen are mostly made up of sociopaths like Maggott and Franko, and what they do when they assault the chateau by killing everyone, Wermacht officer and prostitute alike doesn't make them any better than the Nazis. Worse, the Allied officers who planned and signed off on the mission are so gleeful about the mission's success that Wladislaw's open desire at movie's end to kill himself some more Generals sounds justifiable.
Black Dude Dies First: Averted with Jefferson, who is the sixth man out of eleven to die.
Boxed Crook: If they don't like their new mission, there's always a nice warm noose waiting for them back at the prison. And if any one of them tries to run, they all get sent back.
The Cast Showoff: Jiminez (Trini Lopez) gets to very briefly showcase some of his singing skills to the tune of The Bramble Bush.
Cunning Linguist: One of the reasons that Joeseph Wladislaw (Charles Bronson) was picked for the squad was that he knew some German. He couldn't understand a word of what a couple soldiers he passed said, so it's clear Wladislaw isn't fluent. He did know at least enough to get by, though.
Drill Sergeant Nasty: Although this one is a major (Reisman). The drill sergeant under his command — Bowren — is more Reisman's aide de camp to be nasty enough.
Foreshadowing: Jiminez (Trini Lopez) is trying to scale a rope onto a platform suspended about a hundred feet into the air. As Reisman and some of the men are talking about how it will be Jiminez's assignment to scale the actual Nazi chateau, Reisman casually remarks, "Say Jiminez gets killed before he can reach the top of the chateau?" Jiminez gets killed BEFORE the Dozen even reach the chateau by accidentally parachuting into an apple tree and getting his neck snagged on a branch.
Gentle Giant: For a guy on death row for punching a man's jaw through his brain, Posey is surprisingly nice.
Holier Than Thou: Maggott tries to justify his murder and alleged rape of women through his special interpretation of Holy Scripture. He's still the most evil character in the entire movie. And in a movie of Nazis vs. criminals, that's really saying something.
Incessant Chorus: The brass band in the inspection scene, who happily burst into their piece whenever the impatient colonel comes out of his office, to his increasing annoyance.
Karma Houdini: Colonel Breed bullied his way onto a restricted military base he was not authorized to be in, in an effort to coerce members of a team training for a classified operation he was not cleared for to disclose their mission. This makes him a security risk at best and a spy at worst. By rights his actions at the camp would have had him sitting out the war games the following week in the brig awaiting an interrogation by intelligence and possibly a court-martial. Instead, he is still in command of his unit, which is holding an important post in the war games, without any evidence that he was punished for his actions at all.
It's implied - especially given the treatment they give Reisman - that the upper chain of command is corrupt, self-serving, or elitist. There's a good reason why Wladislaw's wish to kill more Generals seems appealing...
Killed Off Screen: Gilpin tosses a grenade into the vent below the antennae on the chateau's roof and therefore sacrifices himself because his foot is stuck in a hole in the roof. Also, Posey's death is not shown onscreen, although he is presumably shot whilst manning the machine gun. Only Bravos, who is firing alongside Posey, is shown dying in the ensuing carnage scenes. Briefly, in a wide shot, you can see Posey jerk back as if he has been hit by the Nazi gunfire, then we cut to a shot of a German motorcycle being hit as if the machine gun went off as Posey slumped over, dead, and what follows is the shot of Bravos dying.
Kill 'em All: Of the original Dozen, only Wladislaw survives to get his pardon.
Last Supper Steal: Early on the team gets a scene greatly resembling Da Vinci's 'The Last Supper', with Maggott sitting in the same position as Judas.
Locked in a Freezer: When Reisman's men start their attack, the Nazi officers and civilians retreat to a basement bomb shelter. Too bad for them that the Americans dump gasoline and dozens of grenades down the air vents, the outer gates don't unlock from the inside, and there's a whopping great stockpile of ammonium picrate down there as well.
Loophole Abuse: The dozen "cheat" at a war game by switching their armbands to the enemy side's. When another soldier points out that it's against the rules, Jefferson simply replies "We're traitors".
Parachute in a Tree: Jiminez breaks his neck this way during a drop in France. (Caused by Creative Differences between the actor and director, from all accounts.)
Playing Against Type: Major Armbruster is a bureaucratic staff officer, complete with Nerd Glasses, who is clearly more about logistics and statistics than front line action. He's played by George Kennedy!
Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil: Maggott was on Death Row for raping and killing women. Once the Dirty Dozen assault the chateau, Maggott sabotages the entire mission when he kills a prostitute and fires on his teammates when they try to stop him.
In a possible subversion, Maggott flat out denied that he had raped any of the women that he had killed, despite being convicted for it (Note that he didn't deny killing them).
Retirony: One of the guards manning the checkpoint outside the chateau mentions that he's going on leave in another week or so. He and the person he's talking to are the first people to die.
Tempting Fate: Franko. As the remaining Dozen are getting away, he starts crowing that he's gonna survive after all... just as a German soldier crawls out of the woodwork and opens fire on the truck, killing him.
Those Two Guys: Briefly, Colonel Breed's two officers that give a savage beating to Wladislaw for information about Reisman's scheme, in the latrine before getting pummeled by Jefferson and Posey. Wladislaw later gets to seek his revenge when Colonel Breed visits the Dozen's camp.
Title Drop: The prisoner-soldiers refuse to shave with cold water, so Major Reissman orders the MPs to stop issuing shaving kit and soap. One of the MPs says, "So now if you... you Dirty Dozen have no objections, we will get our equipment, and we will start in right now."
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