Customer Reviews

Deadly Companions

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

Brian Keith play ex-Union soldier referred to as Yellowleg and Maureen O'Hara plays a, er, performer at the Black Garter dance hall in Sam Peckinpah's feature film debut, THE DEADLY COMPANIONS. Keith plays a character with a score to settle with a nasty hombre from his past when he gives O'Hara a grudge of her own to gnaw on when he accidentally shoots and kills her son. Keith, with a brace of prairie thugs in tow (Steve Cochran and Chill Wills) attempts to make amends by escorting the headstrong O'Hara through hostile Apache country after which she'll bury her son.

THE DEADLY COMPANIONS has a lot going for it. Dramatic tension is maintained at a satisfyingly high level - the group is threatened from without by the marauding Apaches and, for a variety of reasons, from within by each other . Keith and O'Hara act and react well with each other. O'Hara always seemed to give her best performance opposite a strong male co-star, and the underrated Keith proves a good match. Chill Wills, who was seldom given much more to do then bray and act mulish plays a shaggy ex-Reb with some blood on the hands of the skeletons in his closet, and who, in the course of the movie, reminds us that he was a pretty accomplished character actor.

Although there are moments of explosive violence, Peckinpah doesn't dwell on them with the obsessively loving eye that would later become his trademark. There are other signs of an unbecoming and uncharacteristic delicacy at work. During Keith's and O'Hara's great emotional showdown scene O'Hara talks about the scars she carries from the men with dirty arms who, for money she let pinch her and kiss her. I don't know how many filters O'Hara's speech had to pass through before it reached the screen, but the final product sounds polite and phony. Okay, the bar is set higher because Peckinpah is the director, but still, the way DEADLY COMPANIONS tiptoes around O'Hara's real occupation is aggravating, especially so in light of the fact that Peckinpah devotes an early scene to a clutch of town hens gossiping maliciously about the unwed O'Hara and her five-year-old-son and how it just ain't fitting blah blah blah and land sakes I reckon even she don't know who the boy's father is blah blah blah. (Strother Martin Alert - The church service takes place in a bar that modestly quits serving drinks during the service. Strother Martin plays the town preacher, foreshadowing a similar bit role he'd play seven years later in Peckinpah's masterpiece, THE WILD BUNCH. Oddly enough, in both films Martin leads the congregation in a stirring rendition of Yes, We'll Gather at the River. Must have liked that one.)

For all of its dated delicacy, DEADLY COMPANIONS was interesting and more than a little enjoyable. Deeply undermining the enjoyment factor is the full screen, pan-and-scan presentation. Unless there was absolutely no wide-screen print fit to print, a truly shameful decision. Even so, a high recommendation for this one.

While Sam Peckinpah is best known for blood ballets such as The Wild Bunch, and Cross of Iron, it should be known that he was making movies before blood bags were used. Deadly Companions marked his feature debut and while it doesn't stand up to his best films(Wild Bunch, Bring Me The Head of Alfredo Garcia,and Ride the High Country) its a nice start to a long and brilliant career. The DVD lacks extras and is standard format, which should be noted that a lot of older films were shot with a TV standard 1:33:1 frame. But this movie has been all but extinct except for shotty old video tapes for over a decade.

This film was director Sam Peckinpah's first feature, and it is a surprisingly good western. What makes this film work is the chemistry and character study between Maureen O'Hara and Brian Keith. No, the sparks don't fly quite the same way they do between John Wayne and O'Hara, but both leads create interesting characters that seperate the film from most B westerns. The supporting cast -- Strother Martin and Chill Willis -- were veterans of numerous westerns, and they provide plenty of color. For anyone who enjoys B westerns this one is a cut above most.

This film originally was released in Panavision. So the DVD is already compromised by being formatted to fit the TV screen. Additionally the print is very dark. Subsequently some scenes are unwatchable. Sam Peckinpah fans should stay away from this copy. Doubtfully a better print will be made and in the widescreen format.

This edition of Deadly Comapnions is a very poor excuse to release his movie for a newer audience. The film itself is a decent western and it is interesting for us that love Sam's films to see his first western. My main concern is the fact that the film is shown in full screen. This shows that even after his death he is still being mistreated by producers and production companies. Most of his film suffer very much from cropping so does this one. I dont mind that it lack any extras but you should at least be able to see it in it's proper ratio. Buy only if you want to see an early Peckinpah film that is real hard to get in these days.

In the good old days, you could recognize a great movie without being smothered by any cult or comment by a "specialist".
That first Peckinpah picture was really great. The kind of simple western in the Boetticher tradition.
Along with some Gordon Douglas and Harry Keller pictures, it was he only kind that could have saved the western.
You can't recognize anything here: an 1,33 version of an early Panavision photography, sporting a transfer who would have shamed
the worst cheap VHS cassette.

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 accidently 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's two 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?

3/5 Stars is generous. Grade: C

This is Peckinpah's first feature film,a western, and a quite enjoyable 1:st. I find it odd that there do not seem to be other dvd releases available in the US than a full screen pan-and-scan version, with not so good picture quality, plus ditto from Canada, with an even more terrible quality. This said, because I recently, 28oct07, bought an official Nordic/Scandinavian release by Futurefilm here in Finland, with a marvelous fine picture quality AND in wide-screen anamorphic format! And seen this way, this is truly lovely movie. So if this state of things is not corrected over in the US, it is truly a shame and a cultural scandal.

What a shameful presentation of the first great Peckinpah. 1961 the directorial debut of Sam the Man anticipated not only the Italo Western but most of the other great Westerns to come until Tombstone and Deadwood. The relation of a man who helps a mother to bury the son he killed is one of the strongest love stories ever filmed in Apache county and beyond. Two bruised souls shine bright in the dirt. Maureen O`Hara and Brian Keith, the deadly companions fully deserve a fully restored widescreen release.

Brian Keith and Maureen O'Hara are both fine actors, but this isn't one of their better films. The acting is stiff and the direction unnatural. The transitions between scenes are disjointed, and the night scenes are too dark to tell what's going on sometimes.

If you want to see these two together in a wonderful movie, watch the original Parent Trap.