The Deadly Companions

Sam Peckinpah's feature directing debut, made after years of television westerns. When drifting gunfighter Yellowleg (Brian Keith) accidentally kills the son of dance-hall hostess Kit Tilden (Maureen O'Hara), he insists on escorting her across Apache country to bury the boy beside his father — a journey the whole town considers madness. Steve Cochran and Chill Wills play the outlaws who tag along for a bank payroll. The film already shows Peckinpah's fixations: guilt, obsession, and violence that solves nothing. Shot in CinemaScope on Arizona locations, it flopped on release but is now watched as the first chapter of one of the great western careers. The film is in the public domain after its copyright was not renewed.