The Dirty Dozen
In England, in the spring of 1944, Allied forces are preparing for the D-Day invasion. Among them are Major John Reisman (Lee Marvin), an OSS officer; his commander, Regular Army Major General Worden (Ernest Borgnine), and his former commander Colonel Everett Dasher Breed (Robert Ryan). Early in the film the personalities of the three men are shown to clash and the character of the individualistic Reisman and the domineering Breed is established.
Major Reisman is assigned an unusual and top-secret pre-invasion mission: take twelve American soldiers convicted of capital offenses, either serving sentences of hard labor or awaiting execution, and whip them into a unit capable of carrying out the task. The plan, as described, is to infiltrate a château near Rennes, in Brittany, used as a retreat for senior Wehrmacht officers, on the eve of the invasion. Without having complete intelligence as to the identity of the guests, it was felt that the elimination of officers in the German high command or senior staff could cripple or confuse the German military's ability to respond at the time of crisis. It is quickly established that both Reisman and the generals with whom he frequently clashes consider the mission to be a suicidal long shot.
The film unfolds in three major acts; the first act identifies and "recruits" the prisoners, depicts the unit in training and highlights the interpersonal conflict between the men, some of whom see the mission as a chance for redemption and others as a chance for escape.
The second act places the mission, and the characters, in jeopardy when a breach of military regulations on Reisman's part forces General Worden, at Breed's urging, to have the men - now dubbed the Dirty Dozen by Sergeant Bowren (Richard Jaeckel) because of their refusal to shave or bathe as a protest against their living conditions - prove their worth as soldiers.
The final act, which was a mere footnote in the novel, is a set piece action sequence depicting in detail the attack on the chateau.
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