The Deadly Companions (1961)

Yawn. Poorly Filmed Snooze Fest.

Simply A Masterpiece

Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

A film who seems have no story. in strange way, that is not a problem. first, for the well made characters. second - for the performances. and for silences. for small gestures and for inspired exploration of past. not the last, for the fine equilibrium between the pieces of drama. a man. a woman. a coffen and a film who could be defined as western. not an ordinary one. but one of the most useful. as a story. about the angles of solitude.

This 1961 Western has a lot going for it: It stars Brian Keith and the beautiful Maureen O'Hara, who had such great chemistry in "The Parent Trap," released the very same year. It's Sam Peckinpah's directorial debut in motion pictures; most people reading this know that Peckinpah went on to become a highly acclaimed director with such notable efforts as 1969's "The Wild Bunch." In addition, "The Deadly Companions" was filmed on location in Arizona (including Old Tucson); you can't beat Arizona for fine, authentic Western locations. Lastly, the picture only runs 90 minutes, so it won't likely wear out its welcome.THE STORY: Keith's character vengefully searches for a scumbag who tried to scalp him alive 5 years earlier and accidentally kills a beautiful saloon girl's son. Feeling guilty, he offers to escort her to the ghost town where the boy's father was buried so she can bury the son as well. There are a couple problems: They have to go through injun territory and two lowlifes accompany them most of the way.BOTTOM LINE: On paper this sounds like it would be a worthwhile Western, unfortunately it never rises above mediocre, and dangerously verges on being deadly dull. Plus the viewer can hardly see what's going on during the numerous (brief) night sequences. Moreover, two of the main characters are incredibly unlikable (which can be defended on the grounds that they're the real villains of the story). Hence, I can only recommend "The Deadly Companions" to uber-fans of Keith and O'Hara or Peckinpah completists.With all that said, there are some worthwhile aspects, like the church service in the saloon and the depiction of O'Hara as a social outcast amongst the church folk (for legitimate reasons).NOTE: There are numerous editions of this film by different DVD companies; my DVD is from PDC Home Entertainment and the picture quality is great for such an old film; the main menu is kind of cheap, but who cares about that? A 5/10 rating is generous. GRADE: C

When an artist starts out, their initial work is deemed ineffective and amateurish, a stepping stone to better things. However, time passes and people take a second look at the work and see what the artist was trying to accomplish, despite setbacks. That's the case with the flawed but intriguing "The Deadly Companions" the debut film from the master of modern day action cinema, Sam Peckinpah, who came from working on established Western TV dramas like "Gunsmoke" and "Broken Arrow" and creating "The Rifleman" and "The Westerner".Five years after the American Civil War, world-weary Union vet Yellowleg (Brian Keith, who starred in Peckinpah's second albeit short-lived series, and the Stephen Cannell series, "Hardcastle & McCormick) rescues puffy-faced, lowlife Confederate vet Turk (Chill Wills of "The Alamo" and the voice of Francis the Talking Mule) from being lynched, due to being to a card cheat. He enlists Turk and his partner, Fancy Dan lothario gunslinger Billy Kiplinger (Steve Cochran of "White Heat"), to rob a bank in Gila City, but another gang beats them to the punch. A gunfight ensues, ending in the death of the son of saloon gal Kit Tildon (fiery Maureen O'Hara of "The Quiet Man" and "The Hunchback of Notre Dame"), who's already fed up with being unfairly given a Hester Prynne reputation, courtesy of the townspeople. She decides to bury her son beside her husband in the town of Siringo, but it's desolated, due to it being in Apache territory. Feeling guilty for accidentally killing the boy, Yellowleg offers his help with the funeral procession and stirs his two companions along, but all three men have secret, different, dishonorable reasons beneath the surface.What hurts the film slightly on the surface is the clash of Hollywood eras; Ms. O'Hara and her producing brother Charles B. Fitzsimmons representing the older one, Peckinpah representing the other. It's almost sadistic that Fitzsimmons refused the soon-to-be maverick to rewrite the simple screenplay by Albert Sidney Fleischman (adapted from his novel), locked him away from the editing room and forbade him on-set conversations with his sister (I would have told them off on day one!). It doesn't help that the production's no different from a TV show (how ironic) and the music by Marlin Skiles is best suited to an old-time carnival or a cathedral. The song Ms. O'Hara sings…well, the less said, the better. All in all, it's a ham-and-cheese vehicle for an aging Golden Age Hollywood starlet.But for Peckinpah, it was his training wheels and, due to the passage of time, his last laugh as he starts to deconstruct the romantic Hollywood western. There are the elements of individualistic honor, conflicts among lead characters, a religiously hypocritical society (Kit's son refuses to go to Heaven with townspeople who criticize her), delusion of grandeur (Turk pathetically hopes to start a new Confederacy with the bank money) and physically scarred protagonists (Yellowleg has a lousy shooting arm and was nearly scalped…and it wasn't by any Indian) that would be present in the director's later work. There's no over-the-top violence, like in the future magnum opus "The Wild Bunch", due to the present yet slowly dying Production Code, but slight hints of sexuality (Ms. O'Hara bathing nude in the night time with her back turned to the camera).The cast is competent. Keith's grimness and gruffness combats O'Hara's passionate independence (wonder if Peckinpah used him as a conduit to get his true feelings across to her). Cochran reps a phony, glossy Wild West while Wills (who would later be in the director's "Pat Garrett & Billy The Kid" ) reps a realistic, sleazy one while he's lost in unrealized dreams or glories of the past (a prophecy of PTSD among Vietnam veterans, perhaps?). Strother Martin has a straight-forward role as the town's parson; later roles in "Bunch" and "The Ballad of Cable Hogue" contradict that first one.If Peckinpah learned one thing from "Companions", it was to have script control and damn pampered actors. If any viewer can learn one thing, you can see something intriguing in the early mistreated work of a maverick artist when time goes by.

After five years of searching, Brian Keith finally catches up with the rebel soldier that scalped him in the war (!) and entices him and his partner into teaming up for a proposed bank robbery that's really just a veiled attempt to get revenge.However, the trio end up exchanging bullets with other bank robbers, accidentally killing the young son of the town pariah, a dance-hall girl dealing with gossip suggesting her boy was a bastard.With no one else willing, Keith insists on escorting the mother and the boy's body through Apache country for burial beside his father.The Deadly Companions is a downbeat first feature by Sam Peckinpah. It's passable entertainment but pretty much standard and nowhere near as good as his (highly recommended) second feature Ride The High Country, the classic The Wild Bunch, or the underrated Ballad Of Cable Hogue.Brian Keith, Maureen O'Hara, and especially Chill Wills deliver good performances.