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

ORCA (1977)

After an opening scene that is so laughable that it almost seems like a warning to walk away, we're introduced to a crotchety old boat captain who concocts a plan to capture a live male orca.  Of course, being a heartless idiot with a shitty boat, all he ends up doing is slaughtering a female orca and her baby.  The female's baby daddy witnesses the whole horrible ordeal (as do we) and proceeds to spend the rest of the movie tormenting the captain. The End.

Films like ORCA, help me appreciate JAWS even more than I already do.  If you think about it, the basic story for JAWS was pretty simple: one individual shark (who happens to be very large) starts feeding on humans near a quiet fishing village/tourist destination...the humans fight back.  Bam!  That's all you need.  Unfortunately, the people behind ORCA decided that it's be a good idea to add a deeper psychological aspect to the story...guess what?  Nobody cares!  Audiences want to see sharks, whales, alligators, giant hamsters, wookalars, whatever gnawing on people and people fighting back...NOT a pregnant whale being chopped up and hoisted out of the ocean as it's giving birth and then the newborn being murdered!!!  That whole scene was just terrible, I hated it.  I was definitely on the side of the whale after that!

Misguided story aside, ORCA is okay...for a lower budget 1970's ripoff flick.  The pace moves along quickly enough, but the whole thing just looked like a movie.  The majority of the shots of the whales either looked fake as fuck or like shots of whales in captivity.  Passable acting from a cast that is too good for this script, depressing beginning and ending, topless scuba diver, lame kills, questionable scenes early on of live sharks that might or might not have been animal cruelty.

I didn't hate ORCA, but I damn sure never want to see it again. If you need me, I just be in my room watching JAWS again or maybe even THE GREAT ALLIGATOR or THE LAST SHARK.