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5.8/10
Senior Film Conservator
A definitive 5.8/10 rating for a film that redefined the boundaries of cult cinema. Guns for Hire remains a cornerstone of transgressive art.
If you have 50 minutes to spare and a soft spot for creaky, dusty 1930s Westerns, Guns for Hire is absolutely worth a lazy Sunday watch.
Sheep ranchers fighting cattlemen is a classic setup, but if you hate hiss-heavy audio and guys who look like they bought their cowboy hats five minutes before the cameras started rolling, you will probably hate this within three minutes. 🤠
It is a cheap little movie, but it has this weird, earnest energy that modern stuff just can't recreate.
The plot centers on Ken Wayne, played by Lane Chandler, who gets hired to protect a sheep ranch from some mean cattlemen.
Of course, the bad cattlemen gang has "Whispering Carlyle" in it, the very guy who raised Ken and taught him how to shoot.
You get this great, melodramatic tension where both guys are secretly hoping they do not have to shoot each other. It is incredibly corny, but it actually works.
Let us talk about "Whispering Carlyle" for a second.
For a guy with "Whispering" in his name, he talks at a perfectly normal, slightly gravelly volume. I was expecting some eerie, quiet menace, but no, he just sounds like he needs a glass of water.
Also, the credits list "Raven the Horse" as an actual cast member.
Honestly? Raven gives the most consistent performance in the entire film.
There is this one scene where a guy is trying to deliver a serious threat, and the horse in the background is just violently shaking its head like it is arguing with him.
It totally ruins the tension, and I love that nobody bothered to do another take.
That is the charm of these quickies, much like Tearin' Loose or other dusty relics from the same era where they just kept the cameras rolling no matter what happened.
The stunts are actually pretty wild, mostly because legendary stuntman Yakima Canutt is lurking in the cast list.
There is a fall off a dirt ledge that looks genuinely painful.
You can tell they did not have money for safety pads, so some poor guy just ate a face full of actual rocks.
The audio is... well, it is a 1932 talkie. Every time someone speaks, there is this background hum that sounds like a swarm of angry bees is nesting inside the microphone.
And the music just abruptly starts and stops, sometimes mid-sentence.
The romance subplot with Frances Morris feels like it was written on a napkin during a quick lunch break.
They look at each other, stand slightly too close, and suddenly they are in love.
It has none of the charm of something like Hearts and Masks, but hey, we came for the gunfights, not the kissing.
In the end, it is just a silly, fast-paced piece of history.
It is short enough that even when it gets boring, a guy gets punched or a horse jumps over a fence to wake you back up. Definitely give it a spin if you like old dirt.
IMDb 7
1915
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