The Deadly Companions (1961)
Country: US
Technical: col/2.35:1 93m
Director: Sam Peckinpah
Cast: Maureen O'Hara, Brian Keith, Chill Wills, Steve Cochran
Synopsis:
A scarred former Union soldier tracks down the Johnny Reb that almost scalped him, but in the process causes the accidental death of a widowed saloon girl's young boy. Will contrition redeem him before he gives way to revenge?
Review:
The director's first feature is in part compromised by the respectability surrounding its female star, although ironically she is the best thing in it. Having to graduate from resentment and contempt for her pursuers to forgiveness and love for one of them, she negotiates the emotive beats with conviction. Elsewhere we see themes that will be recurrent in Peckinpah's oeuvre: the partially emasculating injury (the hero's gun arm and near-scalping), the dignifying of the prostitute over respectable womenfolk, the time given to gutter trash characters and the cynicism towards authority (Wills and his fantasy about creating his own army). Cochran, meanwhile, is the classic 'Arthur Kennedy villain' of Mann and Boetticher westerns, too likeable to kill but too lawless to survive. With some great use made of familiar Arizona locations, this is an affecting story, whose crucified hero is re-humanised rather than socialised (something Peckinpah would have detested).
Country: US
Technical: col/2.35:1 93m
Director: Sam Peckinpah
Cast: Maureen O'Hara, Brian Keith, Chill Wills, Steve Cochran
Synopsis:
A scarred former Union soldier tracks down the Johnny Reb that almost scalped him, but in the process causes the accidental death of a widowed saloon girl's young boy. Will contrition redeem him before he gives way to revenge?
Review:
The director's first feature is in part compromised by the respectability surrounding its female star, although ironically she is the best thing in it. Having to graduate from resentment and contempt for her pursuers to forgiveness and love for one of them, she negotiates the emotive beats with conviction. Elsewhere we see themes that will be recurrent in Peckinpah's oeuvre: the partially emasculating injury (the hero's gun arm and near-scalping), the dignifying of the prostitute over respectable womenfolk, the time given to gutter trash characters and the cynicism towards authority (Wills and his fantasy about creating his own army). Cochran, meanwhile, is the classic 'Arthur Kennedy villain' of Mann and Boetticher westerns, too likeable to kill but too lawless to survive. With some great use made of familiar Arizona locations, this is an affecting story, whose crucified hero is re-humanised rather than socialised (something Peckinpah would have detested).
Country: US
Technical: col/2.35:1 93m
Director: Sam Peckinpah
Cast: Maureen O'Hara, Brian Keith, Chill Wills, Steve Cochran
Synopsis:
A scarred former Union soldier tracks down the Johnny Reb that almost scalped him, but in the process causes the accidental death of a widowed saloon girl's young boy. Will contrition redeem him before he gives way to revenge?
Review:
The director's first feature is in part compromised by the respectability surrounding its female star, although ironically she is the best thing in it. Having to graduate from resentment and contempt for her pursuers to forgiveness and love for one of them, she negotiates the emotive beats with conviction. Elsewhere we see themes that will be recurrent in Peckinpah's oeuvre: the partially emasculating injury (the hero's gun arm and near-scalping), the dignifying of the prostitute over respectable womenfolk, the time given to gutter trash characters and the cynicism towards authority (Wills and his fantasy about creating his own army). Cochran, meanwhile, is the classic 'Arthur Kennedy villain' of Mann and Boetticher westerns, too likeable to kill but too lawless to survive. With some great use made of familiar Arizona locations, this is an affecting story, whose crucified hero is re-humanised rather than socialised (something Peckinpah would have detested).