Search - The Dirty Dozen [Widescreen] on DVD

Content Advisory: Violence, Adult Situations, Not For Children, War Violence Movie Release: 1967 DVD Release: 04/29/1998 Format: DVD - Enhanced Wide Screen Letterbox for 16x9 TV Edition: Dual Layered Audio Tracks: English, French Subtitles: English, French, Spanish SwapaDVD Credits: 1 Number of Discs: 1 Run Time: 2 hrs 30 mins Studio: MGM Members Wishing: 7 Genres: War, War Adventure, Ensemble Film See Also: The Dirty Dozen [Widescreen], Dirty Dozen [Special Edition Collector's Box], The Dirty Dozen, The Dirty Dozen [Special Edition], The Dirty Dozen [HD DVD], The Dirty Dozen [Blu-ray]

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, assigned to coordinate a suicide mission on a French chateau held by top Nazi officers. Since no "normal" GI can be expected to volunteer for this mission, Reisman is compelled to draw his personnel from a group of military prisoners serving life sentences. This "dirty dozen" includes a sex pervert (Telly Savalas), a psycho (John Cassavetes), a retarded killer (Donald Sutherland), and the equally malevolent Charles Bronson, Trini Lopez, Jim Brown, and Clint Walker. On the dim promise of receiving pardons if they survive, the criminals undergo a brutal training program, then are marched behind enemy lines dressed as Nazi soldiers, the better to overtake the chateau and kill everyone in it--including the innocent wives and mistresses of the German officers. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Lee Marvin - Maj. Reisman
Ernest Borgnine - Gen. Worden
Charles Bronson - Joseph Wladislaw
Jim Brown - Robert Jefferson
John Cassavetes - Victor Franko
George Kennedy - Maj. Max Armbruster
Richard Jaeckel - Sgt. Bowren

The Dirty Dozen was one of the top-grossing movies ever made by MGM, and in its initial DVD incarnation, it was treated just about accordingly. On the MGM disc, the movie comes complete with an 11-minute featurette delving into the fall 1966 shooting in England, depicting not only rehearsals and behind-the-scenes shots but also the cast relaxing in Swinging London. (Star Lee Marvin was evidently highly accessible in those days, because he also showed up, in full World War II U.S. Army major's uniform from this shoot, as part of Peter Whitehead's 1966 documentary Tonight Let's All Make Love in London). The movie looks better on DVD than it ever did on laserdisc. The laserdisc transfers were done a little too early, and that format had too many problems to fully realize the look of the film. The DVD is one deep, rich image after another, and in contrast to the norm for early digital disc titles, the audio is good and loud, even on the supplementary materials. The MGM edition came in a clamshell-type box that included a booklet with extensive details about the production of the movie. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide