THE DIRTY DOZEN (1967)

Great Britain, 1944.  A US Major (Lee Marvin) is given orders to select twelve men from the local military prison, train them, then go on a suicide mission behind enemy lines to kill as many German officers as possible.  This will create disruption in the chain of command right before the D-Day invasion.  The men who survive the mission will be pardoned.

Watching THE DIRTY DOZEN today, it's dated as fuck, but still entertaining.  The story was definitely cool and the action scenes were reminiscent the covers the the men's adventure magazines of the 1950's, but I was mainly fascinated by the all-star cast!  I mean, this thing is pack from floor to ceiling with big names.  Charles Bronson, Donald Sutherland, Lee Marvin, Ernest Borgnine...pretty much every scene had somebody awesome in it.

I also found the film to be interesting from a historical perspective.  I'd love to know more about it.  For example: I'm curious how many films previous to TDD showed American soldiers so gleefully killing not only Nazi officers and soldiers, but also the women with them?  Did the subversive feel of the film have something to do with the Vietnam War?

Younger audiences would probably find the whole thing boring, but it's definitely worth a viewing for fans of (older) WWII movies and movie nerds.

Side note: IMDb lists Dick Miller as "MP at Hanging (uncredited)", but I couldn't find him.

Part 2 - The Dirty Dozen: Next Mission
Part 3 - The Dirty Dozen: The Deadly Mission
Part 4 - The Dirty Dozen: The Fatal Mission

TWO-MINUTE WARNING (1976)

Ehhh.  I was expecting better.  More suspense, more disaster, more Charlton Heston topless.

It's football time, so 91,000 fans pile into the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum on a bright sunny day to watch an exciting game between Los Angeles and Baltimore.  It's so exciting, in fact, that none of the 91,000 attendees notice the dude sitting on top of the scoreboard with a sniper rifle for nearly the entire game!!!  He's just sitting up there chilling, eating a Babe Ruth candy bar and staring down the scope of his rifle at various people.  Finally some genius on board the Goodyear blimp notices him and calls the cops.  They show up, brutalize a couple of innocent people and then eventually get around to confronting the sniper...94 minutes into the movie!!!  They do a horrible job at containing him and all Hell breaks loose.

As far as disaster films go, TWO-MINUTE WARNING is pretty weak.  The disaster (stampede) is all contained inside the stadium and if the police had done a better job of confronting the sniper nobody would have got hurt at all.  Top-billed Charlton Heston is alright as the police captain, but his role is very small.  The majority of the time is wasted showing the lives of various attendees: Jack Klugman as a idiot with a gambling problem, Walter Pidgeon as a pickpocket, David Janssen and Gena Rowlands as a couple who's relationship seems completely based on how much they can bitch at each other, Beau Bridges and Pamela Bellwood as a married couple with two children, etc.  All of their stories are boring and failed at persuaded me to care about any of them.

Mild pace, lackluster photography, soulless direction, unlikable characters, weak disaster, a man getting "butt-stroked", low body count.  Not a terrible film, just dated and meh.