The Dirty Dozen: 12 Things You Don't Need to Know

an unruly group of criminals and villains are brought together to fight a common enemy think I'm talking about Suicide Squad nope I am talking about 1967's the Dirty Dozen a movie that Suicide Squad director David Ayers said inspired his new movie so that's just one of the facts one of the Dirty Dozen facts I'm going to share with you today hi I'm Jeff and welcome to a million movies today we're talking about 1967 s classic the Dirty Dozen and let's get straight to her effects the Dirty Dozen is based on a novel by the same title by iam Nathanson and there's some speculation about what was the inspiration for the story one story is that he got the idea from the hundred and first Airborne Division there was a unit within that division that was nicknamed the filthy 13 this division had a history of not taking baths for long periods of time and not shaving while they were training in preparation for the d-day invasion and they earned that nickname of the filthy 13 another story comes from Russ Meyers the the future director who during World War 2 was shooting footage of different parts of the military and in one case he shot footage of a group of American prisoners these were servicemen who had been convicted of crimes and they were being trained in preparation for d-day to go behind enemy lines and conduct sabotage and assassinations and while they were training they also refused to bathe or to shave for long periods of time and they earned a nickname called the Dirty Dozen now in exchange for their service for them going behind enemy lines and doing these missions these prisoners were promised that they would have their sentences set aside and the records clean and they would then be set free when they when the war was over after the invasion on d-day and the dirty does it have been set behind enemy lines Russ Meyers followed up with the military and he was told that none of the Dirty Dozen members actually survived the invasion and later on Russ Meyers told the story to his friend Ian Nathanson who then wrote the book The Dirty Dozen the director of the Dirty Dozen is Robert Aldrich and Aldridge was a was a fan of the story he knew would be a great movie he reached out to the novelist 'i'm Nathanson when this story was still in just an outline form and offered to buy the rights to the story unfortunately he wasn't able to get them MGM bought those rights in 1963 the novel was then finished in 1965 and is published becomes a international bestseller and then two years later Aldridge and MGM released this movie Lee Marvin who stars in the Dirty Dozen was not a huge fan of the movie he called it he called it a crap movie he said it was just a dummy bunny maker and it did make money it was MGM's largest moneymaker of 1967 he didn't feel Lee Marvin didn't feel that the action depicted in the jury dozen actually reflected what happens in war and Lee Marvin was a Marine during World War two so years later Lee Marvin was able to make another movie called the big red one which he felt was much more accurate to what a wartime experience was like in fact if you look at the cast of the Dirty Dozen several of the members of the cast were World War two veterans in addition Lee Marvin another marine in the movie was Robert Ryan and from the Army you had Telly Savalas Charles Bronson and George Kennedy Ernest Borgnine is in the movie he was a navy veteran and he had Clint Walker who plays Posey in the movie who was a member of the Merchant Marines one of the funnier scenes in this movie is a scene where Donald Sutherland has to impersonate a general and do an inspection of Robert Ryan's troops now they think he's really general in disguise who's going incognito duck should do inspections the role was the scene was actually written for Clint Walker who plays Posey but Walker wasn't comfortable Dean so the director Robert Aldridge had Donald Sutherland do the scene Don Sullivan was not a a star at this point but this one scene caught the attention of Robert Altman and led directly to Donald Sutherland being cast and mash a couple of years later and mash was the movie that made Donovan an international star so without getting this part they're getting the scene from Clint Walker's character we may have never have had Donald Sutherland as a major star not a lot of people realize this but there actually was a prison in the UK for American servicemen who had committed crimes while in service it was called chef Dan mallet and it was a working prison from 1625 all the way up till 2013 during the war years nine US servicemen were executed at that prison they were all executed by a man named Albert Pierpont he was the chief executioner and Pierpont gained even more notoriety later on after the war because he was responsible for executing about 200 Nazi war criminals following the Nuremberg trials Jim Brown plays Jefferson in the Dirty Dozen and he shot his scenes between the 1965 and 1966 NFL season Jim Brown was a major star of the NFL at a time a running back for the Cleveland Browns because of production delays due to weather and other issues his scenes were taking longer and longer and it looked like he was not going to be able to make it back to training camp for the 66th season in time now Art Modell who was the owner of the the Cleveland Browns at a time threatened Jim Brown with a fine of $1,500 a week for every week of training camp that he missed Jim Brown is a one that you that you threaten lightly and he was already planning to retire at the end of the 1966 season when the production ran long on the Dirty Dozen and he started getting the threats from Art Modell that he was going to be fine for missing part of training camp he called a press conference and announced that he was retiring early he was retiring immediately it would not be in the Browns roster for the 1966 season the production delays had an impact on another actor in the cast as well Trini Lopez was a recording artist who had made it become very popular a couple of years before filming on this movie started he got advice as the production was going along and longer Frank Sinatra reached out to him and suggested said you really need to quit this movie you need to get back to recording or you're gonna lose that momentum that popularity you've built over the past couple of years and people are going to forget about you Trini Lopez took that advice and quit the movie now his character Jimenez had a key role in the final attack scene his character was supposed to light the explosives that blew up the Chateau where all the Nazis were staying without him in it they had to give that room that function to someone else and they had to also write him out of the scene so they've got him on the plane do they need him out of the scene so when they land before they start their attack Charles Bronson explains that Jimenez his character snapped his neck during the parachute jump and that's how they got Trini Lopez out of the final scene where the Helia men were six minutes later they've been looking for him and edge and we found him hung up in an apple tree his necks broken you mean he's dead that's exactly what I mean the chateaux set for the final attack of the Dirty Dozen is one of the largest sets ever built it was it was built by William Hutchinson and his crew of 85 people it's about 240 feet wide and 50 feet high the issue is they built it too well the construction was too good and the final scene they have to blow it up they estimated it would take about 70 tons of explosives to blow up the chateau as it was built so what they did was they rebuilt one section of it using cork and plastic and when you see the final explosion they just blow up that one part they rebuilt with lighter more explosive materials three of the actors in the Dirty Dozen have a reputation of being very very tough guys it's Lee Marvin Charles Bronson and Telly Savalas now it might surprise you to know that one of their friends during this time was Woody Allen not necessarily considered a tough guy but Woody Allen was in London nearby shooting his own movie at the time Casino Royale and the four that got the four guys would get together often at the end of the day when filming was completed and we meet up and play poker into the night so imagine the the poker games and the stories being told by Telly Savalas Charles Bronson Lee Marvin and Woody Allen around a poker table all night sounds like fun when you watch the Dirty Dozen for me one performance that really stands out is John Cassavetes as Victor Franco Cassavetes was so good in this role that he was nominated for Best Supporting Actor by both the Golden Globes and the Academy Awards unfortunately for him he lost in both cases to fellow cast mate George Kennedy now George Kennedy didn't win for his performance in the Dirty Dozen but George Kennedy delivered another amazing performance that same year opposite Paul Newman in Cool Hand Luke anyone for that performance sitting here next to my boy and finally Suicide Squad isn't the only movie that the Dirty Dozen has had an influence on it most directly was influential in three sequels three made-for-tv movies based on the Dirty Dozen characters that came out in the mid to late 80s but it also had an influence on two other movies play dirty with Michael Caine and the 1977 a time film being glorious bastards it also had an impact on perhaps my favorite scene from the Tom Hanks classic Sleepless in Seattle where Tom Hanks and Victor Garber are sort of making fun of Rita Wilson being very emotional about telling of an affair to remember and they get weepy while they tell their recap the Dirty Dozen although I cried at the end of the Dirty Dozen didn't if Jim Brown was throwing these hand grenades down these air air shaft alright if we go to the countdown today we talked about obviously the Dirty Dozen we talked about the big red one we talked about mash Cool Hand Luke the inglorious basterds played dirty Sleepless in Seattle and of course Suicide Squad we've talked about the Dirty Dozen before so I'm not going to count that one but our total still brings us down from nine hundred and ninety nine thousand nine hundred and seventy nine down to nine hundred nine thousand nine hundred and seventy two so we're getting there like to hearing so that's my recap of my Dirty Dozen facts from the Dirty Dozen movie I hope you enjoyed watching this if you do enjoy the videos I hope you click the subscribe link that really helps me out and if you have any suggestions or comments maybe a movie that similar to the Dirty Dozen that I did not mention earlier in this video please put in the comments below I love to read your suggestions and your feedback and if there's a movie I haven't seen that you really like please put it there I'll be glad to see if I can track it down and maybe I can include it in a future episode of a million movies so thank you again for joining me and I hope I'll see you again soon here on a million movies

Channel: A Million Movies

Views: 241,374

Rating: 4.8170733 out of 5

Keywords: Dirty Dozen, Commentary, Lee Marvin, suicide squad

Id: gIllTmZ6w6Y

Length: 11min 59sec (719 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 01 2016