This terribly British film has it's upper lip so firmly starched you can taste the cornflour. Although it sets out to be a light-hearted heist rather than a comedy, it comes from the same camp of British Film making as the Lady Killers and The Lavender Hill Mob. It is an enjoyable and entertaining watch, however it's just not quite as well directed as a true Ealing Comedy to which it seems to hark back. Frankly, I was surprised that the director, Basil Dearden, is the same director who only three years previously made the delightful gem "The Smallest Show On Earth" (which somehow only gets a an average 6.9 on IMDb.) But here's the thing. I was only about half-way through when it suddenly struck me that, deliberate or not, "The League of Gentlemen" must surely have been the inspiration for "The Dirty Dozen". The parallels are just to strong to be mere co-incidence. An army colonel gets together a team of hard-luck ex-army types and takes them on one last mission (a heist, in this instance.) As part of their operation they must break into an army camp to steal weapons. In order to achieve this, one of them must disguise himself as a senior officer and perform a surprise inspection - sound familiar? You probably won't want to put this on your film bucket-list, but it's worth spending "a few bob" on, as I believe they said in Britian in those days, or at least recording when it comes round on TV. The two hours spent watching it won't drag.
