The Dirty Dozen: The Deadly Mission is a 1987 made-for-TV film and is the second sequel to the original The Dirty Dozen. It features an all-new 'dirty dozen,' this time under the leadership of Major Wright (Telly Savalas, playing a different role than in the 1967 film).
Learning of a Nazi plot to attack Washington, D.C., with a deadly nerve gas, Major Wright leads twelve convicts on a suicide mission deep into occupied France to destroy the secret factory where the poison is made.
Plot
Opening
The film opens with Major Wright fighting alongside Italian partisans in a town near Torino. While the partisans battle the occupying SS soldiers in the streets, Major Wright enters a bordello in search of Benito Mussolini. However, after shooting up a closet only to find a dead SS officer, Wright is informed by one of the women that 'Il Duce' had already left town. Disappointed, Major Wright opens the window to the sound of the victorious partisans and lifts a glass of brandy to "Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Winston Spencer Churchill."
Back in England, Major Wright is summoned to the U.S. Army Headquarters by Major General Worden, and is informed that the Germans appear to have the capability to launch (fictional) A4 missiles with warheads filled with deadly nerve gas to strike targets in the British Isles and, possibly, the United States. General Worden then orders Major Wright to "find another dirty dozen" and take them deep into occupied France to the monastery at Saint-Michel, where six captured scientists are being forced by the Nazis under the direction of the SS Colonel Krieger to produce the deadly gas, and destroy the containers of nerve gas and rescue the scientists.
Training
Wright choses 13 convicts, from whom he intends to select his final Deadly Dozen: Joe Stern, Eric "Swede" Wallan, Ernesto "Pops" Ferucci, brothers Ronald and David Webber, Maurice Fontenac, Martinez, Francis Kelly, Ballews, Sturdivant, Chacon, Spencer and Hallet (who dies during training). This time around the dozen only have one week of training, and with the help of Sergeant Holt, Major Wright begins whipping his men into shape.
Meanwhile, in France, Colonel Krieger captures French Resistance leader Paul Verlaine and his British contact, who had parachuted in with news of the forthcoming mission. After Krieger has the two men executed, Pierre Claudel, a scientist at the monastery loyal to Vichy and the Nazis, identifies Verlaine as the man who has been seen at the monastery conversing with lead scientist, George Flamands. A suspicious Krieger orders increased security at the monastery.
Back in England, General Worden appears at the training site and reveals the intelligence leak and increased security to Major Wright, and informs him that the dozen will now enter France by sea instead of air, as all flights into that section of France were being heavily monitored.
As their training comes to an end, Major Wright throws a party for his men, giving them one last night of debauchery before embarking on their suicide mission.
Mission
Upon coming ashore, the dirty dozen march to their rendezvous point in the French forest, where they meet their contact, Marie Verlaine, the daughter of Paul Verlaine, and her fellow resistance fighters. Marie informs Major Wright that the scientists' families have been brought to the monastery, thus complicating the rescue portion of the mission.
To avoid Krieger's patrols and checkpoints, Major Wright decides that they should travel by river, and the dozen attacks a German patrol boat, successfully taking control of the boat with only one casualty, Sturdivant. From here, the dozen travel down the river, eventually making their way to a Resistance farmhouse, where the men are allowed to rest, while Major Wright and Fontenac go to the monastery dressed as monks to meet with Flamands and inform him of their plans.
One night Fontenac attempts to rape Marie, until he is caught by Stern and Wallan, Wallan pins him to the wall and tells him "You move and I will cut your throat out." Stern however suggests to leave it with Major Wright, but Wallan wants to finish off Fontenac himself, Marie soon finds out that the Dozen are really criminals, Marie asks Wright why they are murders and psychopathic criminals in the US army, as Wright tells the story, Marie states that after the mission she will kill Fontenac herself.