Episode 44: The Dirty Dozen (aka Punchin' Nazis With The Dirty Dozen)

Lee MarvinErnest BorgnineMost of you are already in at this point. Lee Marvin and Ernest Borgnine are definitely a performance dream team, and that bill alone would be worth the price of admission. But, let's keep going...Charles Bronson (American actor, not British Criminal)Telly SavalasDonald Sutherland.You're fully on board now. Put something between you and this movie, that's a good way to get that something trampled. Right?But wait, there's more.Jim BrownJohn CassavetesClint WalkerWhaaaaaat?! No way! Greatest cast ever?! NO!!! THERE'S MORE!!!George KennedyRichard JaeckelRobert RyanTrini LopezWe could keep doing this because there is not a single bad performance in the whole thing. In our ode to Richard Spenser, we decide to let one of the most testosterone laden grand-daddy ensemble film, where a rag tag group of misfits are whipped into shape for a suicidal mission. All of them criminals. Their only motivation, the foggy promise of a pardon upon their survival and safe return.It's a trope that permeates the Hollywood landscape even today, but this is the O.G. example of the notorious group of suicidal irregulars.Strangely lighthearted, impossibly dark, barely nuanced. This is THE DIRTY DOZEN, a movie that watches just as good now, as it did back in 1967.