A Western set in the late 1860s, Sam Peckinpah's first feature as director offers a tantalising glimpse into the future of one of American cinema's most uncompromising filmmakers.

Yellowleg (Brian Keith, The Parent Trap), a former sergeant in the Union army takes up with a couple of ne'er do wells (Chill Wills, The Alamo and Steve Cochran, The Best Years of our Lives) and attempts to pull off a daring bank robbery. In the ensuing shoot out he accidentally kills the nine-year-old son of dance-hall hostess Kit Tilden (Maureen O'Hara, The Quiet Man). Riddled with remorse, Yellowleg seeks atonement by escorting the funeral procession through dangerous Apache territory to the gravesite of Kit's husband.

Though less driven by the violent, visual pyrotechnics that defined later Peckinpah works, The Deadly Companions looks forward to The Wild Bunch in its shot of children fighting with sticks in the street and a sequence featuring a hypocritical parson holding a church service in a saloon. Ripe for re-discovery., this is a powerful and surprisingly moving parable about the powers of redemption.