Preposterous plot-but an incredibly entertaining movie

Rating: 10/10 (11 June 2015)

Understand this: in WW2 (and today) there was no shortage of elite, well-trained and disciplined commandos willing to risk life and limb to go on suicidal missions. So under no circumstance would it be necessary to send a dozen men from a military prison, who were either condemned to execution or sentenced to lengthy prison term at hard labor, on a mission to go behind enemy lines on the eve of DDay to try and kill as many officers as possible of the German high command, enjoying R&R in a French château.
However, this contrived premise becomes the hook that elevates TDD above another WW2 action movie. I actually find the first 2/3 of the movie dealing with the assembly of the unit and how Lee Marvin as Maj. Reisman trains them to be a crack and cohesive combat unit more interesting than the actual mission. It's an excellent cast. Marvin was at his peak, having recently had a couple brilliant roles, 1 dramatic as an alcoholic in "Ship of Fools" and the other as a drunken gunfighter in the comedy, "Cat Ballou." In TDD Marvin gets to do his tough guy personification again, but he shows a wonderful touch of wryly delivering comedic lines. TDD has a superb cast playing the Army brass and the prisoners. Ernest Borgnine gives a good low key performance as the general who concocted this plan, as does George Kennedy as his aide. Robert Ryan is the arrogant and pompous Col. Breed who despises Maj. Reisman. Richard Jaeckel gives another top notch performance as the MP Sgt who has to assist Reisman in keeping order, while the vastly underrated Ralph Meeker has a great bit as an Army shrink who analyzes the misfits.
At the heart of this are the "Dozen" the convicts who will be expected to pull of this mission or die trying to even have a shot at clemency. Actually for the audience we only really get to know 6 of them. Bronson and Clint Walker were good soldiers who ended up on death row, Bronson after he fragged a cowardly officer and Walker after he lost his temper and killed a man with a punch. Football great Jim Brown made his initial movie appearance, waiting to die after killing a racist who wanted to castrate him. His adversary among the prisoners becomes Telly Savalas as Pvt. Maggot, truly a psychotic and racist killer. Donald Sutherland gives a good comedic bit as a rather dim-witted soldier, while the great John Cassavetes delivers perhaps the stand out performance of the 12 as Franco, a low level ex-Chicago mobster, sentenced to death after a penny ante holdup went astray. Franco ends up becoming sort of the ex post facto leader of the 12 as they eventually become an efficient killing machine.
One of those flicks that is fun to continually watch, if nothing else for one of the truly great movie casts of all time.