I was searching for this movie where soldiers refused to shave and ended up growing beards because they were denied hot water. At first I thought the film was called The Devil’s Brigade, but it turned out to be The Dirty Dozen. The two films are pretty similar in that they both follow a group of misfits, except this one takes it further because these guys are actual criminals. Half of them are on death row facing execution by hanging, and the rest are looking at spending nearly their entire lives in prison for real crimes they committed.

One character in particular stood out, and his name was Maggot, which tells you something right there. The guy was a genuine psychopath who ended up turning on his own unit and completely blew the cover of what was supposed to be a covert mission. Because of him, most of those soldiers lost their lives. The thing is, the major in charge had been warned about this guy. His behavior made it obvious something was seriously off, and nothing was done to remove him from the unit. I put a good portion of the blame on the major for keeping him around. In the end, only one member of the Dirty Dozen made it out, and that was Charles Bronson’s character.

Despite all that, it was a very entertaining film. If you enjoy war movies and you have an appreciation for older films, this one is worth your time. They even had Donald Sutherland in it, which was interesting to see given how young he was. The man has been active in film for something like fifty years since then, which is pretty remarkable. A lot of the other cast members I did not recognize by name, but if you watch old movies regularly you would know their faces.

I want to look into whether this was ever remade. I know they made a couple of sequels back in the eighties, but the version I watched was from 1967, ten years before I was even born. Still enjoyed it quite a bit.