STACK J#165 Jul 2018

EXTRAS FEATURE

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The Dirty Dozen (1967) Directed by Robert Aldrich

Some ten years later, with America’s disastrous involvement in Vietnam intensifying almost daily, Aldrich directed yet another controversial WWII movie. This time, however, it reflected the social climate of the time and became the biggest box-office hit of the year.  The Dirty Dozen  (1967) featured Lee Marvin as maverick Major John Reisman, who is chosen to train a group of violent and condemned military prisoners for a suicide mission behind enemy lines, the night before the D-Day invasion.

T hroughout the 1960s, most male a “good war”. It had passed into history as a patriotic war that defeated the evils of Fascism and the Japanese imperial expansion in Asia and the Pacific. WWII appeared to have none of the ambiguities and controversies that had plagued the Korean conflict and the then escalating Vietnam war. Consequently, Hollywood felt safe and comfortable with the subject and for over two decades following the end of the war, released a plethora of popular money-making WWII-themed motion pictures. The films of this period in general celebrated the courage and teamwork exhibited by the officers and men of the Western Alliance against an evil enemy. But in 1956, a movie was released which had an extremely controversial storyline instead of the usual jingoism then attached to the genre. Directed by maverick filmmaker, Robert Aldrich, the film was simply titled Attack . It moviegoers would have been unlikely to question that World War II had been

After Palance’s character dies following another attack, unsupported by the cowardly captain, the remnants of his platoon, now led by Lt. Woodruff (William Smithers), confront Clooney. Captain Clooney insists that they must all surrender to the advancing Germans but Woodruff, rather than surrender to the enemy, shoots and kills Clooney.

The Brass brief Major Reisman (Lee Marvin) on his mission

[World War II] had passed into history as a patriotic war

MGM had bought the rights to the novel written by E.M. Nathanson, who had based part of his story on the famous group of WWII 101st Airborne paratroopers and demolition experts nicknamed “The Filthy Thirteen”. These men earned their nickname by not bathing or shaving during the long training period prior to the Normandy invasion. The property was purchased as a potential starring vehicle for John Wayne, but he passed on the project to concentrate on his “Vietnam debacle”  The Green Berets  (1968). Aldrich was relieved as he didn’t want  The Dirty Dozen  to be just another “Wayne movie”. The director preferred a less idealised hero and vigorously campaigned for the actor who had portrayed an unprincipled and opportunistic army colonel in Attack. WWII Marine veteran, Lee Marvin, was a perfect fit for the Reisman character, who is very short of discipline and has a record of total disdain for backroom generals. With Marvin’s star value having

depicted an incompetent US army captain named Clooney, played by Eddie Albert, whose cowardice

Each of the other men in the platoon then pump a bullet into Clooney’s corpse claiming that they killed him. An outraged US Department of Defense found the movie incendiary and downright offensive, as did most of the US film critics. The film inevitably lost money but today it is viewed as a minor

under fire during the Battle of the Bulge causes the death of a number of soldiers under his command. The surviving lieutenant, memorably portrayed by Jack Palance, vows “Clooney, if I lose another man on account of you, I’ll shove this grenade down your throat and pull the pin”.

classic and a precursor of films such as Apocalypse Now and  Platoon. 

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JULY 2018

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