The film has the engaging leads from "The Parent Trap" and Chill Wills playing a typically extravagant figure, but the performance that rescued this film from run-of-the-mill boredom was Steve Cochran, playing a volatile gunslinger with an interesting sense of humour and a yearning for the ladies (much as the actor was reputed to have). The plot involves revenge, tragedy, double-cross and redemption, but it played out at a slow pace that was exacerbated by the lack of illumination in many of the shots. Worth seeing but not a 'keeper' for my collection.
... View MoreSpoilers Ahead, Most definitely.A man accidentally kills a woman's son & to make up for it, he escorts her & her son's coffin through dangerous Indian territory??? I don't know about you but if somebody killed my son, accidentally or not, I'd be seething with rage.I wouldn't want them to escort me anywhere because any chance I'd get, I'd probably end up trying to kill them.The thing that truly surprises me is that she falls in love with him in the end, WOW!!! I kinda figured that was going to happen.Anywayz, The Deadly Companions was OK.Nothing great at all.It's watchable but I imagine if you watch it once, once is enough.Nothing really happens & it's almost boring at times.I think I might have even fell asleep watching it.In my opinion, the best thing about The Deadly Companions was Chill Wills & Steve Cochran as Turk & Billy.They were perfect together & at times, hilarious.It's a shame they turned on each other at the finale but that's what thieves do.I'd say watch it if you have the chance to see it for free but if you miss it, I don't think you're missing much
... View MoreI wonder if director Pekinpah didn't find himself in a liminal state when he directed this first feature -- somewhere between the strictures of the television Western series like "The Rifleman" and the wildly expressive feature films that were to come.A trio of would-be bank robbers ride into an uptight little Western town and the leader, Brian Keith, shoots and kills Maureen O'Hara's little boy. O'Hara, despised as a "dance hall girl", is determined to see her boy buried with his father in a crumbling and deserted adobe village on the other side of Apache country. Out of guilt, Keith decides to accompany her, dragging his two reluctant, low-life compañeros along. One of them, Steve Cochran, dressed in black and accessorized in red and white, is a cocky gunslinger. The other, Chill Wills, in a bulky, ratty buffalo robe, is completely daft.Brian Keith is the leader and the hero but he smacks of the small screen. He's taciturn, determined, grim, dignified, decent. Just like Chuck Connors in "The Rifleman" or Marshal Dillon in "Gunsmoke." That's the pattern that Pekinpah was leaving behind. Other hallmarks appear briefly -- cruel children, a community ritual interrupted by hooligans, residual Civil War resentments.The Pekinpah that was to come is represented by Cochran and Wills. Cochran is a little treacherous, but Wills, having gotten his hands on that bank money, is determined to establish his own kingdom in Apache country, just like those Texas fellers at the Alamo or the Fredonian Rebellion. "I got me this general's cap to wear and we'll have lots of gold braid." He's entirely serious, just like the the Hammond brothers, who believe in polyandrous marriages, in "Ride the High Country." Keith can be an appealing actor but he's not given much to do except play the stereotype. And he's not a convincing drunk. Cochran is as slimy as he usually is, and Wills looks positively flea ridden, a big, shaggy, cheerfully lunatic dog. Maureen O'Hara -- whose brothers appear as producer and undertaker -- was forty and mostly miscast. She's all gussied up at the beginning as a whore, and looks not so hot. And for the first hour or so, her character is angry and bitter, and that's not Maureen O'Hara's shtick. She's marvelous when she plays herself, chipper, unpretentious, and no nonsense. Later, on the trail, she's dusty and disheveled. The war paint is gone. Her mature but fresh beauty is more evident and she gets to deploy an enthralling smile.Overall, the story has a lot of loose ends and meanders all over the place. It's pretty dull until the climax finally brings about some resolutions. When the duo are alone, buggylugging that coffin across the desert, the movie looks like a dramatization of someone preparing a Swanson's frozen dinner.
... View MoreMaureen O'Hara gloriously beautiful movie star and fine actress produced 'The Deadly Companions'. ( Know the credits claim Maureen's Brother produced the film but reading her book, one realizes Maureen O Hara is one "take charge" woman). Maureen O Hara had rejuvenated her career with a hit in Disney's 'The Parent Trap'. Ms. O'Hara hired Sam Peckinpah to direct and no matter what one thinks of a Peckinpah film it is never boring. "Deadly Companions" has some great camera setups and action scenes and Ms. O Hara does well as always; Professional. In her book 'Tis Herself' Maureen O Hara said she had a hard time dealing with the free wheeling Sam Peckinpah and it shows in this film. Some parts of the 'Deadly Companions' seem disjointed. (Sam Peckinpah would lose final cut on another Western Charlton Heston's 'Major Dundee' at Columbia because of his clashes with Columbia Pictures management, but in that case Mr. Heston was a supporter of Peckinpah's). If memory serves me correctly this film was not distributed all that well and was quickly forgotten. Only due to cable and the interest in works of Peckinpah ( and of O'Hara) has it been re discovered.'Deadly Companions' is the last film Maureen O Hara produced, however the great Irish-born star kept busy in movies as co star to John Wayne, Henry Fonda, James Stewart, Rosanno Brazzi and Jackie Gleason. Now retired, Maureen O Hara has a great body of work: 'Hunchback of Notre Dame', 'How Green Was My Valley', 'Miracle on 34th Street', 'The Parent Trap'. Maureen OHara's films with John Wayne, i.e a John Ford masterpiece 'The Quiet Man' and Andrew McLaglen's 'McClintock' are movie magic.
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