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.
Western
