Item description for The Dirty Dozen Dvd

The plot is so well known now that it has become a cliché: a ragtag group of misfits and losers – in this case American soldiers convicted of high crimes - including murder – are brought together by a tough leader who believes in them, whipped into shape until they can work as a team, and then attempt an impossible, or suicidal, mission. In the case of THE DIRTY DOZEN, they are GI’s imprisoned near London and waiting to be hung a few months before D-Day. Somebody in the high command (it is never made clear who) orders that a group of psychos, thieves, rapists, and back shooters be trained and then dropped into occupied France just prior to the invasion, where they will take out a large contingent of the Nazi brass who are on R & R at a country estate. They executed this plot so well, that many believe the movie, and the bestselling book it was adapted from, are based on fact, but as Dale Dye makes plain on the commentary for two disc DVD edition, no sane American officer would ever sign on to such a scheme. That didn’t matter to audiences in 1967, who responded enthusiastically to the movie’s gritty anti-authority attitude and lack of restraint when it came to violence; it was a year filled with films that spoke to the turbulent mid 1960’s in America: BONNIE AND CLYDE, THE GRADUATE, COOL HAND LUKE, IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT. And THE DIRTY DOZEN proved to be their equal, and they did it within the setting of the United States military, a very controversial institution in a country where young men were being drafted and sent to fight in an increasingly unpopular war. Moreover, THE DIRTY DOZEN would prove to be just as popular with many members of the Greatest Generation as well, no small feat.