Humbersi The first must-see film of the year.

FirstWitch A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

Tayyab Torres Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

Payno I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

blrnani 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.

madbandit20002000 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.

Tweekums 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.

Bill Slocum For fans of Sam Peckinpah, there's little to recognize of the legendary director in his first movie. Yes, it's a western featuring a morally compromised protagonist (Brian Keith), and Chill Wills plays the first of many bat-guano crazies in the Peckinpah canon. But there's a lot that's different.Maureen O'Hara stars as a woman who loses her son in a bank robbery gone awry. Keith plays a guy named "Yellowleg", the Union Civil War vet who shot the boy and tries to help her bury him while working in some revenge on the side. There's some shooting and horseback riding, too, but Peckinpah's hard-edged humanism and iconic visual sensibility have yet to arrive.Keith is the guy more in command of this film. "I hear they got a new bank and an old marshall over at Gila City," is the way Yellowleg frames his outlaw pitch to Turkey (Wills) and Billy (Steve Cochran) at the start of the film. Tough but sly, Yellowleg asserts his authority without the slightest sign of strain."You givin' the orders now?" Billy asks him."Looks that way, don't it?" is the reply.O'Hara is more of a problem. Her character, Kit, wants to bury her boy in a ghost town deep in Apache country, and could care less about the danger to herself or others. O'Hara frequently played stubborn characters, but few as unrelievedly serious as Kit. Her manner grates as the film goes on and she seems more put out by the idea Yellowleg might not think she was married to the boy's father than the fact her boy is dead.It's possible O'Hara's performance suffered from a lack of communication with her director. It's said that the producer, O'Hara's brother Charles B. Fitzsimons, forbade Peckinpah to talk to her on set, then fired the director before editing began. This could account for the fact her scenes never gel with the rest of the film.I'm reluctant to judge the film too much by its look and feel. The version I saw, part of the "Maureen O'Hara Collection" put out by St. Clair, seems to be a pan-and-scan lifted from a TV print and was possibly edited for commercials. Certainly the film jumps around a lot.Some blame must fall on either Peckinpah or Fitzsimons. The score is both mediocre and idiotic, soft mariachi music playing while Billy assaults Kit or a lame rendition of "When Johnny Comes Marching Home" playing whenever Turkey goes off on one of his rants about creating his own republic complete with "slave Indians". At one point we are asked to believe Yellowleg walking into a camp of sleeping Apaches to steal a horse without getting caught.Keith reveals himself here as a worthy lead. He worked with Peckinpah on TV shows and would have been an excellent talent for the director on screen. His loss was Warren Oates' gain. You do get the great Strother Martin as one of Peckinpah's few-ever positive religious figures, turning a bar room into a "preach house" and telling Yellowleg and company to take their hats off to the Lord. Moments like that lift the film from being the muddy genre exercise it otherwise is.