To coincide with Warner Brothers’ upcoming two disc special edition of The Dirty Dozen, Sony is releasing a double feature of the other two Dirty Dozen made for television sequels.
The Dirty Dozen - The Deadly Mission and The Dirty Dozen - The Fatal Mission are actually sequels to the 1985 television movie The Dirty Dozen – The Next Mission which saw Lee Marvin reprise his Major Reisman character. Unfortunately by 1987, he would be called the late, great Lee Marvin since he died from a heart attack.
The powers that be decided to produce two more TV sequels with Telly Savalas taking over in the role of returning Dirty Dozen alumni. However, Telly does not play a Dozen character, but a new leader named Major Wright. Ernest Borgnine does return in his original Dozen role in all three sequels which helps tie the television follow-ups to the original Marvin film.
Dirty Dozen: The Deadly Mission (1987): General Worden (Ernest Borgnine) charges Major Wright (Telly Savalas) to take a dozen army prisoners, scheduled for execution or long prison sentences, and train them and take them on a mission. The Nazis are using a French monastery to produce a deadly new nerve gas with some captured scientists and it’s up to Maj. Wright to stop it before they can use a new bomb to take the war to U.S. shores.
Savalas and Borgnine make plans
Since this is a 94 minute TV movie, we only have time to have about half of the dirty dozen have actual character development. The rest are typical red shirts (the red shirts on Star Trek away teams are usually bit players and are more likely to get killed). The ones we get to know (to a degree) are played by Randall “Tex” Cobb, Gary Graham, Paul Picerni, Bo Svenson (playing a character similar to Savalas in the 1967 movie), and Steve and Vincent Van Patten. Wolf Kahler (who played a Nazi in Raiders of the Lost Ark) also plays a Nazi in this movie.
Dirty Dozen: The Fatal Mission (1988): General Worden again charges Major Wright with a “suicide” mission and to recruit troops from prison. Hitler has commissioned twelve of his top Nazis to reconstitute into the Fourth Reich as a backup plan if they lose the war and has them on a train to the Middle East.
The dirty half-dozen that have character development include Hunt Block, Ernie Hudson, Erik Estrada, Richard Yniguez, Ray “Boom Boom” Mancini, John Matuszak, and Alex Cord. Jeff Conaway (of Taxi fame) is also on the mission as Wright’s assistant. This mission also features a female team member (Heather Thomas) and a traitor on the team.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but aren’t fatal and deadly sorta the same thing? Maybe that’s why both of these TV movies seem very similar to me. Both are directed by Lee H. Katzin and appear to be shot back to back if not very soon after.
Both movies are presented in fullscreen as they originally aired on television. There are no special features - not a sausage.
Telly trains the dozen
Amazon for a May 23rd release. As of yet, there is not a release date for the UK. Visit the DVD’s database for more information.
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