Television Reviews : ‘Dirty Dozen’ Returns as TV Series on KTTV

The 1967 film “The Dirty Dozen” is one of the great guilty pleasures of the American cinema. It’s a mean, nasty World War II epic about a rotten bunch of criminal soldiers put together for a disgusting, underhanded mission. And it’s so good even some pacifists can’t resist watching when it shows up on TV--which is often, thanks to the picture’s popularity.

That popularity has led to a new Fox television series that debuts tonight with a two-hour episode on Channels 11 and 6 at 8 p.m. Future installments will be an hour long and will air at 9 p.m. Saturdays.

If they’re all like the premiere, the series is going to be a pretty welcome one, and a welcome revolving door for TV actors; several of tonight’s “Dozen” get killed off in their attempt to destroy a German radar station that’s been placed too near a children’s hospital to bomb from the air.

The program spends a lot of time showing the efforts of leader Danko (Ben Murphy) to recruit and train his misfits. The pattern of the feature film is closely followed--not with nearly the same artfulness that director Robert Aldrich provided, of course, but with overall competence.

And the show does throw some of its own nice touches in with the cliches, notably a wry, self-kidding side to Danko--making him considerably less stern that the equivalent role played by Lee Marvin in the picture. (And is that an homage to another great Aldrich war film, “Attack,” at the start of the show?)

Produced with convincing sets, directed with a dynamic pace and generally well-acted (even if the actors are playing a pick-one-from-Column-A-etc. set of ethnic stereotypes, plus a woman for good measure), “The Dirty Dozen” TV-style is hearty rations for viewers who like their shows lean and mean.