The Classic War Movie That Spawned Several Mediocre Sequels

Robert Aldrich's 1967 film "The Dirty Dozen" is often cited as one of the most masculine movies ever made. Set in 1944, it follows the travails of Major John Reisman (Lee Marvin) as he is assigned to lead a 12-man platoon of ex-convicts and ultra-violent Army near-dropouts. Reisman is tasked with training up some of the worst and most horrible people in the Army, get them up to snuff, and lead them on a secret mission into a Nazi stronghold in France. The soldiers are all awful in one way or another, so their mission to kill Nazi higher-ups offers them something violently heroic to do with their tempers. The Dirty Dozen included notable actors like Charles Bronson, John Cassavetes, Telly Savalas, Jim Brown, and Donald Sutherland. Ernest Borgnine played a fellow general.

"The Dirty Dozen" was a huge success, earning over $45 million at the box office on a $5.3 million budget. Many critics praised it, although the bulk of reviews took issue with the film's extreme level of violence. Aldrich made a sweaty, aggressive movie that — in a sideways way — argues that wartime heroism and bloodlust have, as concepts, always been a little chummy. Interestingly, Aldrich made some of the oiliest, most testosterone-soaked films of all time ("Flight of the Phoenix," "Ten Seconds to Hell," "The Longest Yard"), but also some of the most feminine and melodramatic ("What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?," "Hush... Hush, Sweet Charlotte," "The Killing of Sister George"). Both of the director's gendered halves are celebrated by cineastes.

"The Dirty Dozen" is probably your dad's favorite Aldrich movie, and many boys of a certain age likely have the experience of watching the film with their fathers. It's super-violent, of course, but it celebrates its violence in a way that some audience members have seen as vital; there's a reason why the Boomer dudes in "Sleepless in Seattle" are moved to tears just by describing it.

Did you also know "The Dirty Dozen" has four sequels? Yeah, four of them.

It's only similar thematically, but the "unofficial" sequel to "The Dirty Dozen" is Aldrich's 1970 film "Too Late the Hero," starring the finally, finally retired Michael Caine. That film is set on the New Hebrides in the South Pacific in 1942 and follows a Dirty Dozen of British soldiers as they prepare to undertake a dangerous mission: destroying a Japanese radio transmitter. The British dozen isn't so much dirty as they are weak-willed, requiring a similar "training up" from a tough-as-nails commander (Denholm Elliott). Caine plays the sarcastic, cockney medic of the platoon. In an interview in the '70s, Aldrich said ABC Pictures wanted him to make another "Dirty Dozen" as soon as the first one became a hit, but that "Too Late the Hero" was the closest thing he had ready to go. He also said he turned down MGM's offer of a $9.7 million budget, feeling that it was way too high for a film like this.

Aldrich passed away in 1983, and only two years later, NBC began gunning for a proper follow-up to the original "Dirty Dozen." This ultimately led to 1985's "The Dirty Dozen: Next Mission," a TV movie that brought back Marvin and Borgnine. Although made 18 years after the fact, "Next Mission" was set only a short while after the original and saw Major Reisman having to train up a new Dirty Dozen of convicts to take on another dangerous mission. This time, the Dirty Dozen were tasked with assassinating someone who wants to assassinate Adolf Hitler. The idea is that Hitler is such an incompetent leader that it would hurt the Nazi war effort more if he remained alive. It's an odd conceit, but one the "Next Mission" crew had to shoulder. Larry Wilcox from "CHiPs" was one of the new Dirty Dozen.

No one cared much about "Next Mission," but that didn't stop studio executives from milking the IP twice more.

After "Next Mission," Marvin was out, and other actors from the original film had to be brought in to provide scant connecting material. For the 1987 TV movie "The Dirty Dozen: The Deadly Mission," Salavas returned to reprise his role as Major Wright. Oh wait. Scratch that. Savalas came back, but, very bafflingly, he played an all-new character. An actor named Wolf Kahler from "Next Mission" also returned, but he, too, portrayed a new character. Borgnine, at least, played the same role. I think audiences were meant to merely accept that Borgnine now looked 20 years older, even though World War II was still raging.

There is yet another Dirty Dozen in "The Deadly Mission," and Wright is tasked with training them up to infiltrate a Nazi poison factory in France to stymie Axis efforts to make a deadly nerve gas. Bo Svenson, Randall "Tex" Cobb, and Gary Graham are among the new Dozen. The movie aired on March 1, 1987, and no one paid much attention.

Finally, NBC tried to sequelize Aldrich's film one last time in 1989 with "The Dirty Dozen: The Fatal Mission" (and never mind that "deadly" and "fatal" mean the same thing). Savals returned to once again play Major Wright, this time with a truly bizarre mission at hand. It seems that a splinter group of super-Nazis has fled Germany and boarded a train from Munich to Türkiye. The fleeing Nazis aim to settle in the Middle East and form a Fourth Reich all their own. Major Wright has to recruit (natch) 12 Army prisoners and lead them on a mission to stop the train. This time, the cast included Erik Estrada and Ernie Hudson. 

Few cared about "Fatal Mission" as well. Even less care about the wholly obscure 1988 "Dirty Dozen" TV series, which only ran for a dozen episodes. Man, oh, man, someone didn't want this franchise to die. Perhaps they should have. Only two of the original "Dirty Dozen" cast members are still alive today.