The Dirty Dozen

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, ...more

Robert Aldrich's The Dirty Dozen is remembered today as a fine action-adventure film, along the lines and proportions of The Great Escape and Kelly's Heroes. In its time, it was also a groundbreaking piece of popular cinema. Until its release, Hollywood had struggled with how to portray men in war, especially World War II. Movies such as The Naked and the Dead, Attack, and Between Heaven and Hell had tried to present the reality that not every American soldier, or even most, were bright-eyed, ...more