6 Things You Never Knew About Lee Marvin’s ‘The Dirty Dozen’

THE DIRTY DOZEN, Lee Marvin, 1967
Everett Collection
Everett Collection

Many of film and TV’s leading men — and one NFL champ — convened for the war film The Dirty Dozen. Directed by Robert Aldrich, the film, which premiered on June 15, 1967, follows convicts pressed into service for a suicide mission in World War II.

Despite some naysaying reviews — The New York Times’ Bosley Crowther called it an “astonishingly wanton war film” and a “studied indulgence of sadism that is morbid and disgusting beyond words” — The Dirty Dozen was a hit for MGM and inspired several sequels (and many more imitators). But did you know these lesser-known facts about the film?

1 Many of the cast members were World War II vets

During World War II, Dirty Dozen stars Lee Marvin, Robert Webber and Robert Ryan served in the U.S. Marine Corps; Telly Savalas and George Kennedy served in the U.S. Army; Richard Jaeckel and Clint Walker served in the U.S. Merchant Marine; Charles Bronson served in the U.S. Army Air Forces; and Ernest Borgnine served in the U.S. Navy.

But four cast members told ABC Film Review their characters’ military ranks surpassed their own. “Took me two years to make Private First Class,” Kennedy said.

“I didn’t even make that in the Marines,” said Marvin.

“I was beneath notice in the Navy,” Borgnine revealed.

“For punks, we’re doing all right,” Marvin concluded. “I wonder how the generals are doing.”

2 John Wayne and Jack Palance turned down roles

TRUE GRIT, John Wayne, 1969

Everett Collection

Producer Ken Hyman and MGM originally offered Marvin’s part of Major Reisman to John Wayne . The actor loved the script, except for the detail that Reisman was having an affair with a married woman — and, worse, that the woman was married to a soldier away at war, according to the biography John Wayne: American. MGM had the offending scene removed, but Wayne turned down the role anyway, the bio adds.

Additionally, Jack Palance turned down a $141,000 offer to star in The Dirty Dozen because he didn’t want to play a racist character, according to Jet. Palance — who had been confronted by a racist mob in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, in 1964 — also said he didn’t think films were necessary to see how “nasty” white people were to Black people, the magazine reported.

3 Trini Lopez left the production early at Frank Sinatra’s urging

THE DIRTY DOZEN, from left: John Cassavetes, Tom Busby, Jim Brown, Donald Sutherland, Ben Carruthers, Clint Walker, Charles Bronson, Colin Maitland, Stuart Cooper, Al Mancini, Trini Lopez, Telly Savalas, 1967

Everett Collection

Trini Lopez’s character, Jimenez, dies in a parachuting accident early in The Dirty Dozen. Frank Sinatra, who had signed the singer to a recording contract, insisted that Lopez drop out of the much-delayed production and get back to the recording studio, as Lopez typically recorded about four albums a year for Sinatra’s Reprise Records, according to Texas Monthly.

4 Lee Marvin “always came through,” despite his drinking

Hyman once said, per Empire Magazine, that Marvin was a no-show for a pivotal scene with Bronson, who played Wladislaw. The producer said he finally found Marvin “apparently drunk as a skunk” at a bar in London.

“I get him into the car and feed him like a child from a flask of coffee,” Hyman recalled. “We arrived on the set and got out of the car. Bronson was standing at the back of the chateau where he’d been waiting for Marvin to show. We pulled in and Lee sort of fell out of the car. Charlie says, ‘I’m going to f***ing kill you, Lee!’”

Even so, Marvin “always came through,” Hyman said, adding, “There were several moments in the production when he probably couldn’t have articulated his own name. But you’d never know it from the sure way in which he moved.”

5 Jim Brown retired from football mid-shoot

Jim Brown intended to continue playing football for the Cleveland Browns, but Dirty Dozen production delays meant he had to miss the start of training camp to continue filming scenes as the character Jefferson. Browns owner Art Modell announced that he’d fine Brown $100 per day of absence, so the running back announced his retirement from the NFL.

“Art was going to fine me for every day I stayed on the movie set?” Brown told Sports Illustrated in 2015. “I said, ‘Art, what are you talking about? You can’t fine me if I don’t show up. S***, I’m gone now. You opened the door.’”

6 The film inspired three TV movies, a TV show & one planned big-screen remake

Nearly two decades after The Dirty Dozen’s release, NBC got some of the old gang back together for the 1985 TV movie The Dirty Dozen: Next Mission, which featured Marvin, Borgnine and Jaeckel in their original roles. In 1987, Borgnine and Savalas starred in NBC’s TV movie The Dirty Dozen: The Deadly Mission, with Savalas taking on the new role of Major Wright. Those two actors also starred in the 1988 NBC TV movie The Dirty Dozen: The Fatal Mission. 1988 also saw the premiere of the short-lived TV show The Dirty Dozen: The Series, starring Alias Smith and JonesBen Murphy and Mad Men’s John Slattery.

Then, in 2019, filmmaker David Ayer signed on to direct a big-screen remake of The Dirty Dozen for Warner Bros., per Variety. Ayer had previously directed Suicide Squad, which he described as “Dirty Dozen with supervillains.” In 2024, Ayer told /Film he was “still kicking the tires” on the remake and “trying to find the right angle.”

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