General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20265 min read

The Dirty Dozen: The Deadly Mission

The Dirty Dozen: The Deadly Mission is a 1987 American made-for-television war film directed by Lee H. Katzin, in which Major Wright (Telly Savalas) leads twelve convicted soldiers into occupied France to destroy a Nazi nerve gas facility and rescue the six scientists forced to develop the poison¹^•². It is the second made-for-television sequel to the 1967 theatrical film The Dirty Dozen, following The Dirty Dozen: Next Mission (1985) and preceding The Dirty Dozen: The Fatal Mission (1988)³^•⁴.

Key fact	Detail
Type	Made-for-television war film, 1987, rated TV-PG¹
US release	March 1, 1987⁵
Director / writer	Lee H. Katzin; screenplay by Mark Rodgers, from characters by Nunnally Johnson and Lukas Heller and E.M. Nathanson's novel¹^•⁶
Stars	Telly Savalas (Maj. Wright), Ernest Borgnine (Gen. Sam Worden), Vince Edwards (Sgt. Holt)¹
Premise	Twelve convicts parachute into occupied France to destroy a Nazi nerve gas factory and extract six coerced scientists⁵^•²
Production	Jadran Film and MGM/UA Television; produced in the United States and Yugoslavia⁷^•⁸
Reception	IMDb rating 5.2/10 from about 1,400 votes¹

Spoilers

Plot

The film is set during World War II. General Sam Worden directs Major Wright to select a dozen prisoners awaiting execution from the brig, drop by parachute into Nazi-occupied France, demolish the enemy's nerve gas plant there, and carry out the foreign scientists employed at the site¹. Apple TV's synopsis frames the assignment as coerced: Wright is threatened with court-martial unless he accepts the mission to rescue six scientists who have been forced to develop a nerve gas so lethal that it could change the course of the war².

According to the Movie Database synopsis, the American side raises the stakes further: the Allies discover a Nazi scheme to strike Washington, D.C. using the nerve gas, and Wright takes the dozen prisoners behind enemy lines in occupied France on a one-way operation to wipe out the hidden plant producing the toxin⁵.

The mission takes the squad to a French monastery where the gas is produced. Colonel Krieger (Wolf Kahler) has tightened security at the monastery, so the squad comes ashore by sea and meets Marie Verlaine, a French Resistance fighter who tells Wright that the scientists' families are being held at the monastery as well; to avoid Krieger's patrols, Wright chooses to travel by river⁷. A contemporary TV-guide summary describes the target as six scientists held by the Nazis in a French monastery⁹.

Cast and production

Telly Savalas plays Major Wright, taking the lead role; Ernest Borgnine reprises his original role as General Sam Worden from the 1967 film, and Vince Edwards plays Sergeant Holt¹^•¹⁰. The supporting cast includes Bo Svenson as Maurice Fontenac, Vincent Van Patten as Ronnie Webber, James Van Patten as David Webber, Randall "Tex" Cobb as Eric "Swede" Wallan, Gary Graham as Joe Stern, Wolf Kahler as Colonel Krieger, Thom Mathews as Francis Kelly, Paul Picerni as Ernesto Ferruci, and David Horovitch as Pierre Claudel⁷.

Mark Rodgers wrote the screenplay. The credits also acknowledge Nunnally Johnson and Lukas Heller for the characters and E.M. Nathanson for the original novel The Dirty Dozen⁶. Mel Swope produced, with David Gerber as executive producer and Boris Gregoric and Clive Reed as associate producers; John Cacavas composed the score and Tomislav Pinter was the director of photography⁶. The film was made by Jadran Film with MGM/UA Television, with production in the United States and Yugoslavia⁷^•⁸. A Croatian film-industry publication lists it as "Dirty Dozen III," directed by Lee H. Katzin and starring Savalas, Borgnine, and Edwards¹¹.

Place in the series and reception

The film belongs to a run of 1980s television movies that revived the success of the 1967 theatrical original with returning cast members: The Dirty Dozen: Next Mission (1985), The Dirty Dozen: The Deadly Mission (1987), and The Dirty Dozen: The Fatal Mission (1988)⁴. In this third film, Savalas does not play his character from the original movie, who was killed, but a new Army major leading the misfit band against the nerve gas plant¹⁰. Borgnine and Savalas then reprised their roles one last time in The Fatal Mission (1988)¹⁰.

Reception was modest. IMDb records a 5.2/10 rating from about 1,400 users¹, and Rotten Tomatoes shows no critic reviews on its Tomatometer with a 29% audience score from more than 100 ratings³. A retrospective review describes the film as a serviceable continuation that plays the convicts-on-a-mission formula straight, following the familiar assemble, train, deploy, and execute structure without the anti-heroic edge of the 1967 original¹².

Reported runtimes differ across sources: 1 hour 30 minutes on IMDb and TMDB¹^•⁵, 1 hour 36 minutes on Apple TV and Rotten Tomatoes²^•³, and 110 minutes on JustWatch⁸.

References

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026