ma-cortes ¨Dirty Dozen: The Fatal Mission¨ is an average follow-up with Telly Savalas as tough officer replacing Lee Marvin and the ordinary team of renegade soldiers of World War II . Telly Savalas training a group of rebel and misfit soldiers for a dangerous assault on a railway locomotive , the Orient Express . This is a rugged WWII actioner concerning about an experienced officer , Major Wright , he's assigned by Military staff (Ernest Borgnine who acted in the original and all the sequels)) to train a dropout group of murderers , criminals and rapists who get a chance to redeem themselves . They are a bunch of dispensable characters with no past and no future . Savalas reprieves a bunch of ¨Death Row¨ inmates , forges them into a two-fisted fighting unit and leads them on a deadly assignment into Nazi territory , but there is a traitor in the team .The prisoners are oddballs , rag-tag and undisciplined gang (a large cast formed by Erik Strada , Mancini, Ernie Hudson , Ricardo Yniguez ), under command a sergeant (Jeff Conaway) and a lieutenant (Heather Thomas). The team is hardly trained by the Major Whright . In this film Savalas and his motley band , the Dirty Dozen, are suppose to destroy and avoid the constitution of the IV Reich against the Allies . When they arrive in Yugoslavia are helped by the resistance fighters . At the end they must participate in the suicidal mission behind the enemy lines , to wipe a German train , number 420, going to Istambul by means of an assault over a strongly protected vehicle.Savalas as Maj. Wright assumes the character of the leader of the Dirty Dozen from Lee Marvin in the classic directed by Robert Aldrich and based on the characters created by T.M. Nathanson , being scripted by Nunnally Johnson and Lukas Heller. This moving film packs frantic thrills, perilous adventures , relentless feats , and buck-loads of explosive action and violence. The noisy action is uniformly regularly-made, especially deserving of mention the rip-roaring final scenes on the train , including a spectacular crashing . Apart from the values of team spirit , cudgeled by Savalas into his rebel group , the film is full of feats , suspense , and thrills . Rough Telly Savallas is good as leader of the motley pack together thwart the Nazi schemes, as well as the largely secondary cast with special mention to Ernie Hudson. Atmospheric and martial musical score by John Cavacas and appropriate cinematography filmed in Zagreb, Croatia . This is is a wartime typical vehicle and into the ¨warlike commando genre¨ , which also belong : Where eagles dare(Brian G. Hutton) and Kelly's heroes(Hutton ), Tobruk (Arthur Hiller), Devil's Brigade (Andrew V McLagen) and many others .The exciting , original and Box-Office hit ,¨Dirty dozen¨ with star-studded as Marvin , Robert Ryan , Clint Walker , Jim Brown was followed by various sequels , a trio of inferior Telefilms (1985 , 87 , 88) as ¨Dirty Dozen II: The next mission ¨ by Andrew V McLagen with Lee Marvin and Richard Jaeckel, Borgnine , Larry Wilcox and Wolf Kahler , ¨Dirty Dozen III : Deadly mission¨ by Lee H Katzin and ¨Dirty Dozen : Fatal mission¨ also by Lee H Katzin ; both of them shot at the same time with similar actors , director , musician , John Cavacas, and cameraman , Tomislav Pinter , being filmed in Croacia.

scottehlersmac the Germans all stand out in the open and get mowed down with a machine gun. the Good guys never die, unless its for dramatic purposes. the "plot" has so many holes its laughable. (Where did the German soldiers go once they rolled the fuel tank towards the train? Erik Estrada? Please!) And the whole idea, hijacking a train? How moronic is that! The Germans KNOW where you are going to go, its not like you can leave the track and drive away! What a waste. I would rather bonk myself on the head with a ball peen hammer 10 times then have to sit through that again. I mean, seriously, it FELT like it was made in the 60s, but it was produced in 88!! 1988!! the A-Team is more believable than this horrid excuse for a movie. Only watch it if you need a good laugh. This movie is to Tele Sevalas what Green Beret was to John Wayne.

alcohom Another made for TV piece of junk! This is an insult of a war movie (I use the word movie in it's loosest possible form!) I thought Telly Savalas's career had hit rock bottom when he did the voice over on that visit Birmingham video that's shown on Tarrant on TV on a semi regular basis, but then I'd forgot he was involved in this! I'd tried to push it into my subconscious memory, but cable TV brought the memory kicking and screaming out of me!! I like the bit (laughs sarcastically!) in the film which claims to be a scene from Liverpool in the forties, but it's blatantly a shot of Zagreb Cathedral in the late eighties. Also the steam train the Commando's are training on shows the JZ (Jugoslavia Zeleznice, or Yugoslav state railways) logo's on the side of the locomotive quite clearly, even though the makers have tried to black them out. Why not just film in the UK, if that's where most of the film is set? Cheap rubbish, and a waste of celluloid!

Thom Rafferty 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?