Les Douze salopards 4 : Mission fatale

I just watched Heather Thomas in "The Dirty Dozen: The Fatal Mission" a 1988 made for TV movie. If you want to watch a movie where Heather shows plenty of skin, this isn't it. She's never out of uniform. But if you like action films with lots of things blowing up, you may like it. This is Heather's best acting performance, at least that I've seen.

The basic plot is that the Nazis are sending twelve men under thirty who are bright, talented and loyal to the Reich to the via the Orient Express ti the Middle East with a long term (decades maybe) mission of starting a Fourth Reich in case they lose the war. The mission of the Dirty Dozen will be to kill them.

Heather plays Lieutenant Carol Campbell, a military intelligence officer and daughter of a career foreign service officer who traveled extensively in eastern Europe. She starts out in the movie working for Ernest Borgnine, who is a General with oversight on Telly Sevales, leader of The Dirty Dozen. She drives Bornine into the military prison right after Sevales fails to recruit Joe Stern, played by Hunt Block, long-time soap opera star (he's still on "Guiding Light"). As Sevales takes a walk with Borgnine, Block sits up from the potatoes he's peeling and takes a good look at Heather. Heather goes over to talk to him. He joins the team. They fall in love.

There is a plot hole and a nitpick in the film involving Heather. She is with Sevales during a raid in the opening scene. But when she volunteers to join The Dirty Dozen, he acts like she's never worked for him before and tries to talk her out of it. Also, Heather does double duty as Borgnine's driver. An officer wouldn't have that job. The producers probably were just trying to get her into more scenes.

So, good job on the acting, Heather. But couldn't the writers have put in a shower scene somewhere?

It's difficult to rate this movie. I watched after reading the reviews and it seems that many people didn't like it.

The original movie "The Dirty Dozen" was released in 1967. This sequel was attempted 21 years later (1988) with less money and less stars. Lee Marvin died in 1987. Charles Bronson was 67 at the time and didn't participate. Telly Savalas was 66.

The original movie was produced by Robert Aldrich. The 1988 sequel by Mel Swope who is known for Fame and Miami Vice.

This movie takes the same ingredients without bringing in any element of originality. The net result is an average war movie. I found that the second part was much better than the first but eventually the whole thing is weak.

For a war movie, you need a lot of FX to create credible scenery, explosions and historical reconstitution.

Entertaining but not memorable.

Other than a short lived television series The Dirty Dozen was gathered again for a last film in this made for TV mission. Ernest Borgnine returns as General Warden and since Lee Marvin had passed on Telly Savalas takes the role as the unorthodox major who's in charge of this unit of the condemned.

Who are given a mission to cheat the hangman or hard labor. In this case the mission is to stop a train heading to Istanbul with passengers that are a lot of prominent Nazis who are to go underground in neutral Turkey and create a Fourth Reich over the long haul.

The wrinkle in this film is that there is a traitor in the group, kind of like James Cagney's OSS team in 13 Rue Madeleine. Savalas has to figure out who and eliminate them. He also has to keep changing his plans to keep the Germans off balance.

This group also has a couple of females along, Yugoslav partisan Natalija Nogulich and Army Intelligence Officer Heather Thomas. Surprisingly little attention is paid to the women by the paroled criminals on this outing.

All the subsequent 80s sequels of the original Dirty Dozen sure lacked the style the first one had. This is a routine action adventure film no more.

No style at all. Should I give it a miss and stop making sequences trying to make a quick buck, got no interest in viewing this movie. Watching paint dry comes to mind, the great escape from viewing this movie,

I highly recommend picking up the two Dirty Dozen double feature DVD sets. The first one includes the classic 1967 film The Dirty Dozen with it's 1985 made for television sequel Dirty Dozen: The Next Mission. There's also a documentary on the making of the original Dirty Dozen and a historical documentary on the real life Filthy Thirteen. The other double feature DVD contains the 1987 made for television sequel Dirty Dozen: The Deadly Mission and it's 1988 made for television sequel Dirty Dozen: The Fatal Mission. Fatal and Deadly make an affordable DVD package that is infinitely re-watchable and highly entertaining - if you don't take 'em too seriously. There's plenty of humor and action in this double feature. It's a great way to spend a few hours kicking back with a quality beverage. Give the Deadly Mission / Fatal Mission double feature DVD a spin.