The Deadly Companions *** (1961, Maureen O’Hara, Brian Keith, Steve Cochran, Chill Wills, Strother Martin, Will Wright) – Classic Movie Review 6432

‘You don’t know me well enough to hate me that much.’ – Yellowleg.

Director Sam Peckinpah’s first movie after making TV Westerns features Brian Keith as US Civil War Yankee sergeant Yellowleg, a gunfighter escorting saloon cabaret dancer gal Kit ‘Kitty’ Tildon (played by Maureen O’Hara) across the desert after he has accidentally killed her son.

When the grieving mother decides to bury her son in the town of Siringo where her husband was buried in Apache country, Yellowleg tries to make up for his crime and enlists Billy (Steve Cochran) and Turkey (Chill Wills) to escort Kitty with the boy’s coffin across the dangerous Indian territory.

With A S Fleishman’s screenplay based on his own novel, this is a low-budget, small-scale Western. But it was, and probably still is, underrated. It is often very capably handled and full of typical Peckinpah touches like the violent shoot-out climax.

Admittedly, the writer-director is still learning his craft and sometimes cannot find a good way to turn the Western clichés to his advantage. But the story, characters and the persuasive, gutsy performances propel it along nicely.

Also in the cast are Strother Martin, Will Wright, Billy Vaughan, James [Jim] O’Hara, Peter O’Crotty and Robert Sheldon.

It is shot in Pathé-Color by William H Clothier, produced by Charles B FitzSimons, and scored by Martin Skiles and Raoul Kraushaar.

Yellowleg probably refers to the yellow strip down the trousers of Union cavalry troops.

Director Sam Peckinpah followed it with Ride the High Country [Guns in the Afternoon] in 1962.

© Derek Winnert 2017 Classic Movie Review 6432

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