"ALONE... IN AN UNTAMED LAND -- WITH THREE MEN WHO FORCED THEIR WAY INTO HER LIFE!"
Ex-army officer accidentally kills a woman's son, tries to make up for it by escorting the funeral procession through dangerous Indian territory.
Maureen O'Hara
Kit Tilden
Brian Keith
Yellowleg
Steve Cochran
Billy Keplinger
Chill Wills
Turk
Strother Martin
Parson
Will Wright
Doctor Acton
James O'Hara
Cal, General Store
Peter O'Crotty
Mayor of Hila City
Billy Vaughan
Mead Tildon Jr.
Ex-army officer accidentally kills a woman's son, tries to make up for it by escorting the funeral procession through dangerous Indian territory.
***Melancholic, harsh Peckinpah Western with Keith and O’Hara*** A former Union soldier, Yellowleg (Brian Keith), vengefully searches for a Confederate who tried to scalp him alive 5 years earlier. After something bad happens in an Arizona town he offers to escort a dance hall woman (Maureen O’Hara) to a ghost town where her former beau was buried. There are a couple problems though: They have to go through Apache territory and two lowlifes accompany them most of the way. Released in 1961, “The Deadly Companions” has a lot going for it: It stars Keith and the beautiful O'Hara, who had such great chemistry in "The Parent Trap,” released the very same month. This is Sam Peckinpah's directorial debut in cinema. Most people reading this know that Peckinpah went on to become a highly acclaimed director with notable efforts like "Ride the High Country" (1962). 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 first act is promising, highlighted by a church service in a saloon with O'Hara playing a social outcast amongst the church folk (for legitimate reasons). After a tragedy happens, the tone turns melancholic as the characters take a hard journey through the desert where they fight with each other and the Injuns. The movie’s realistic and harsh, reminiscent of unmemorable Westerns like “The Appaloosa” (1966) and “The Stalking Moon” (1968). “Molly and Lawless John” (1972) was the only one that took this basic approach and made a compelling Western. But at least Peckinpah & team tried to do something different, like Brando did with the contemporaneous “One-Eyed Jacks.” The odd classical-meets-Country-and-Western score by Marlin Skiles is notable. At the end of the day “The Deadly Companions” shoots for dark art with a message of maybe redemption but, after the quality first act, never rises above mediocre. And verges on “The Deadly Dull.” I kind of liked it, though, but you have to be in a meditative, brooding mood. GRADE: C
Two black bounty hunters ride into a small town out West in pursuit of an outlaw. They discover that the town has no sheriff, and soon take over that position, much against the will of the mostly white townsfolk.
John Russell, disdained by his "respectable" fellow stagecoach passengers because he was raised by Indians, becomes their only hope for survival when they are set upon by outlaws.
After a bank robbery, runaway Scottish outlaw Arch Deans and his young half-breed Kiowa partner Billy Two Hats develop a father-son relationship, but Sheriff Henry Gifford is determined to capture or kill them.
A man in search of revenge infiltrates a ranch, hidden in an inhospitable region, where its owner, Altar Keane, gives shelter to outlaws fleeing from the law in exchange for a price.
Two tough Kentucky mountaineers join a trading expedition from St. Louis up the Missouri River to trade whisky for furs with the Blackfoot Indians. They soon discover that there is much more than the elements to contend with.
A group of unlikely travelling companions find themselves on the same stagecoach to Cheyenne. They include a drunken doctor, a bar girl who's been thrown out of town, a professional gambler, a travelling liquor salesman, a banker who has decided to embezzle money, a gun-slinger out for revenge and a young woman going to join her army captain husband. All have secrets but when they are set upon by an Indian war party and then a family of outlaws, they find they must all work together if they are to stay alive.
Legends (and myths) from the life of famed American frontiersman Davy Crockett are depicted in this feature film edited from television episodes. Crockett and his friend George Russel fight in the Creek Indian War. Then Crockett is elected to Congress and brings his rough-hewn ways to the House of Representatives. Finally, Crockett and Russell journey to Texas and the last stand at the Alamo.
Jim Douglass arrives in the small town of Rio Arriba in order to witness the hanging of the four men he believes murdered his wife. When the convicts escape, Jim tracks them into Mexico, determined to see that justice is done. But the farther Jim goes in his quest for vengeance, the more merciless he becomes, losing himself in an unrelenting spiral of hatred and violence.
Three brothers stop off for a night in the town of Tombstone. The next morning they find one of their brothers dead and their cattle stolen. They decide to take revenge on the culprits.
Karl Westover, an inexperienced farm boy, runs away after unintentionally killing a neighbor, whose family pursues him for vengeance. He meets Barbarosa, a gunman of near-mythical proportions, who is himself in danger from his father-in-law Don Braulio, a wealthy Mexican rancher. Don Braulio wants Barbarosa dead for marrying his daughter against the father's will. Barbarosa reluctantly takes the clumsy Karl on as a partner, as both of them look to survive the forces lining up against them.