Disjointed and Uneven Western, Sam Peckinpah's First Feature Film is a Glum and Gloomy Movie that has some Offbeat Inclusions and Shoddy Camera Work. It is Certainly not a Typical Western and has some of that Odd Peckinpah Grit. The Shooting Death of a Child, a Mentally Deranged Major Character, the Leading Man is both Crippled and Scalped, some Sadistic Torture, Drunken Indians Playing Dressup with Stagecoach Remnants, Dragging a Coffin across the Desert, an Attempted Rape, a Sunday Sermon in a Saloon, and More.But it isn't put together very well and the Music Background is Awful. The Pacing is Slow and the Ending Lacks some Punch. But although most Prints are Dark and Fuzzy at times there is Enough On Screen that is Worth a View for Fans of Westerns and the Director. Just Expect a Downbeat Tone and a Mild Disappointment.

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.

This, director San Peckinpah's first film, initially follows three men as the head into the Arizonan town of Gila where they intend to rob the bank. We soon learn that the group's de facto leader, a former Union Army officer known as Yellowleg, has another agenda; he wants to find the former Confederate soldier who had tried to scalp him five years before. All their plans are put on hold though when some other men try to rob the bank and Yellowleg accidentally kills a child in the shootout. Kit Tilden, the boy's mother is determined to take the boy back to the town of Siringo to be buried alongside his father; the problem is the town has been deserted for some time and is deep in hostile Apache territory. Nobody from the town is willing to escort her so Yellowleg decides that he will go with her along with his colleagues; gunslinger Billy and former rebel Turk. Turk isn't that keen to go as he wants to rob the bank but Billy is keen to go; not because he wants to help but because he has taken a shining to the redheaded Kit and means to have her whether she likes it or not. Inevitably tensions raise on the journey and ultimately Yellowleg and Kit find themselves travelling alone with a vengeful Apache taunting them.People watching this hoping to see a typical Peckinpah bloodbath will be disappointed; this was his first feature and he didn't have full control of the picture as he would in later years. It is a fairly low budget B Western but that doesn't mean it isn't interesting; I don't think I've seen another western where the 'good guy' kills a child and has to deal with the consequences. There isn't a huge amount of action but there are some nicely tense scenes. The film isn't totally without humour either; I like how Turk kept going on about how he was going to use the proceeds of the robbery to set up his own country inside Arizona. Brian Keith and Maureen O'Hara put in decent performances as Yellowleg and Kit; the chemistry between then growing as their characters get closer. While this is very much a minor Peckinpah film it is definitely worth seeing if you are a fan of his work.