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Play Dirty

  • 1969
  • R
  • 1h 58m
IMDb RATING
6.8/10
4K
YOUR RATING
Play Dirty (1969)
During World War II in North Africa, a group of British commandos disguised as Italian soldiers must travel behind enemy lines and destroy a vital Nazi oil depot.
Play trailer2:51
1 Video
99+ Photos
AdventureDramaWar

During World War II a group of British commandos in North Africa disguised as Italian soldiers must travel behind enemy lines and destroy a vital German oil depot.During World War II a group of British commandos in North Africa disguised as Italian soldiers must travel behind enemy lines and destroy a vital German oil depot.During World War II a group of British commandos in North Africa disguised as Italian soldiers must travel behind enemy lines and destroy a vital German oil depot.

  • Director
    • André De Toth
  • Writers
    • Melvyn Bragg
    • Lotte Colin
    • André De Toth
  • Stars
    • Michael Caine
    • Nigel Davenport
    • Nigel Green
  • See production info at IMDbPro
  • IMDb RATING
    6.8/10
    4K
    YOUR RATING
    • Director
      • André De Toth
    • Writers
      • Melvyn Bragg
      • Lotte Colin
      • André De Toth
    • Stars
      • Michael Caine
      • Nigel Davenport
      • Nigel Green
    • 48User reviews
    • 29Critic reviews
  • See production info at IMDbPro
  • Videos1

    Trailer
    Trailer 2:51
    Trailer

    Photos142

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    + 136
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    Top cast24

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    Michael Caine
    Michael Caine
    • Captain Douglas
    Nigel Davenport
    Nigel Davenport
    • Cyril Leech
    Nigel Green
    Nigel Green
    • Colonel Masters
    Harry Andrews
    Harry Andrews
    • Brigadier Blore
    Patrick Jordan
    Patrick Jordan
    • Major Watkins
    Daniel Pilon
    Daniel Pilon
    • Captain Attwood
    Martin Burland
    • Dead Officer
    George McKeenan
    • Corporal at Quayside
    Bridget Espeet
    • Ann
    Bernard Archard
    Bernard Archard
    • Colonel Homerton
    Aly Ben Ayed
    • Sadok
    Enrique Ávila
    Enrique Ávila
    • Kafkarides
    • (as Enrique Avila)
    Mohsen Ben Abdallah
    • Hassan
    Mohamed Kouka
    • Assine
    Takis Emmanuel
    Takis Emmanuel
    • Kostas Manou
    • (as Takis Emmanouel)
    Scott Miller
    • Boudesh
    Michael Stevens
    • Captain Johnson
    Anthony Stamboulieh
    • Barman
    • (as Tony Stamboulieh)
    • Director
      • André De Toth
    • Writers
      • Melvyn Bragg
      • Lotte Colin
      • André De Toth
    • All cast & crew
    • Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

    User reviews48

    6.84K
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    Featured reviews

    10Akzidenz_Grotesk

    Solid, satisfying war adventure in war-time North Africa

    Tough, macho Nigel Davenport matches wits with firm English captain Michael Caine as they team up to kick axis butt in this two-fisted war movie that will keep you glued to the screen.

    The harshness of the unforgiving desert and the danger of combat is expertly presented by director Andre de Toth. The storyline is intelligent and the characters believable whereas the battle scenes are excellent as well as a scene in a desert windstorm that is my favorite. Nigel Davenport is an underrated actor and the tension between him and Michael Caine is nicely understated, which gives it more power. One of the top war movies from its era.
    10utarg

    A virtually unknown British masterpiece from the 60's.

    A virtually unknown British masterpiece from the 60's.

    Its cynical and bleak portrayal of men in war is only matched by its lack of notoriety which is a shame considering how powerful the films message is. Admittedly Caine is a little wooden as the straight laced British Officer, but it is the much less known Nigel Davenport who steals the show as the hard bitten second in command. The films cynicism is the sum of it's ending which is suitably negative but still unsuspected. With all the flag waving war films out there its good to see the odd one which suggests the end never justifies the means.
    8Quinoa1984

    keeps getting better the more it goes along, with understated performances

    Play Dirty surprises because of how 'dirty' it actually gets, and how it doesn't give any easy beats for its characters. It follows the seemingly usual tropes of the men-on-a-mission war flick, where a group of men are selected practically on the basis that they won't succeed in their mission, and that the end goal is to blow something up. But unlike The Guns of Navarone or the Dirty Dozen, Play Dirty puts the position of the British army in this desert scene as greedy and malicious and really only caring about getting to the oil, and surely before the 'decoy' team gets there. It's entertaining but it's not what exactly one would call 'fun' like Navarone. It's a story of unheroic men doing some heroic things and always for the almighty dollar.

    In the film, Michael Caine is a Captain Douglas in the army- he doesn't look entirely like the army type and no wonder since he was formerly a Petro-exec- who is put in charge of a group to go through rocky terrain in the North African desert to bomb an oil field. Only big snag is that this isn't the first time the mission has been attempted, and Captains have died already. With this in mind, the head guy puts Cyril Leech (Nigel Davenport) in charge to make sure the Captain is kept alive - at a good cost of two thousand pounds. This doesn't mean that Cyril won't get sometimes in the way of the Captains orders, like when they need to pull up their trucks over a rocky mountain ridge and he refuses to unload the trucks. It's an uneasy partnership with their fellow soldiers also not always sure who to follow, especially when coming into some enemy territory, or when they come upon a 'fake' enemy outpost in a sandstorm.

    Andre De Toth's film is rough and tough, as any men-on-a-mission war film should be, but it has something extra to keep one interested. This is the guts to keep things rightfully violent and shocking (when a mine goes off at one point as another mine is being diffused, it's one of those moments you'll jump in your seat even at home), and at most mildly amusing. The characters aren't very colorful or even terribly memorable, although Caine and Davenport are both fantastic in their parts, often fantastic at being understated (as Davenport's Captain says, "look, listen, don't move, that's the way you survive"). The action is also intense enough but moves at that pace where suspense is genuinely built like in the climax among the oil barrels and the barbed wire. Even a scene involving an attempted rape is shown without any punches pulled, until the one oddly-effective laugh had at the outcome of the scene.

    It's a forgotten little wonder of the world war two movie, and it's more bitter than sweet with its view of the buck-stops-here mentality of wartime - or rather, as a character points out, how war is "a criminal enterprise", hence having a guy like Cyril, who was in prison for fifteen years until being put to use on the mission. Play Dirty doesn't get really going until twenty minutes in, but once it does it doesn't play safe. 8.5/10
    8sutoke

    Gripping look at the chilling underbelly of war

    Prescient, dark slice of a desert war campaign -- a band of jaded misfits is sent on a critical dangerous mission -- that you will not be able to erase from memory. The tension De Toth creates in one scene of a booby-trapped way-station, with long patient shots and close ups of sweat beads, surpasses any but the most masterful of Hitchcock. Michael Caine's role as a reluctant oil executive tagged on to the mission is a study in ambivalent survival. The characters are some you'd never expect.

    De Toth is among the most interesting directors no one has ever heard of. His distaste for the studio system has meant that many of his movies have been overlooked. His style of storytelling is terse and sparse, almost unfinished, leaving the viewers to fill in their own ideas. Probably unsatisfying to some, but fascinating in his contrast to so many over-explaining movie makers.

    Syriana owes much to the tenor of this story. It is the flip side of Band of Brothers. A story that today holds more lessons than ever.
    7secondtake

    Spare, brutal, grinding war movie in the blowing sands....

    Play Dirty (1969)

    You almost have to see this anarchic, nasty, selfish, brutal WWII movie as a comment on Vietnam, and on war. It's 1969. At first you think Michael Caine, for all his talent, is miscast, but the odd displacement of his character among a lot of very hardened, serious men is part of what works.

    This is not like any WWII you've seen. It's an odd mixture of hardship, tedium, humor, and straight up masculine grit. It's set in the Sahara, so dunes and sand and dry nasty weather rules. There is a mission at hand, and these men have to be unorthodox and ruthless to succeed. But there are long stretches of just traveling and conquering the desert, of going day after day through storms and lack of storms. There is also fighting amongst the men, a somewhat horrifying (and unnecessary) attempted rape, some bloody carnage of natives, and of Germans, a long twenty minutes of Fitzcarraldo heroics with some cables, and so on.

    But in the end, it really does capture something essential of war, including the nonsense of some of it, and the lack of rules, and the lack of personal safety that comes from chaos, and the difficulty of companionship and trust.

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    Storyline

    Edit

    Did you know

    Edit
    • Trivia
      Sole writing credit of Lotte Colin, mother-in-law of producer Harry Saltzman. When she was younger she had wanted to be a screenwriter, so director André De Toth gallantly ceded his writing credit to her. Six weeks later she died from a brain tumor, but enjoyed her brief notoriety.
    • Goofs
      Captain Douglas is described as on loan from British Petroleum. During World War II the company was known as the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC). The company was re-named British Petroleum in 1954.
    • Quotes

      Capt. Douglas: ...How did the other English officers die?

      Capt. Cyril Leech: Unexpectedly.

    • Connections
      Referenced in Once Upon a Body (1969)
    • Soundtracks
      Lili Marlene
      German Lyrics by Hans Leip

      English Lyrics by The Personnel of the Long Range Desert Group and the Special Air Services

      Music by Norbert Schultze

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    FAQ13

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    Details

    Edit
    • Release date
      • January 15, 1969 (United States)
    • Country of origin
      • United Kingdom
    • Languages
      • English
      • Arabic
      • German
    • Also known as
      • Ein dreckiger Haufen
    • Filming locations
      • Desierto de Tabernas, Almería, Andalucía, Spain
    • Production company
      • Lowndes Productions Limited
    • See more company credits at IMDbPro

    Tech specs

    Edit
    • Runtime
      1 hour 58 minutes
    • Color
      • Color
    • Aspect ratio
      • 2.35 : 1

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