AllMovie

Filmed on-location at Lone Pine, CA, with interiors made at Hollywood's Talisman Studio, this low-budget Western was the fourth of eight Willis Kent productions to star former Paramount cowboy Lane Chandler. The handsome Chandler, on his beautiful steed Raven, played Ken Wayne (alias "Flip" LaRue), a notorious gunfighter coming to the aid of a beleaguered rancher (John Ince) whose son (John McGuire) is falsely accused of killing a card shark. In the ensuing melee, Flip is confronted with his own foster-father, Whispering Carlyle, the leader of a gang of cutthroats scheming with the local sheriff (Yakima Canutt) and a powerful cattle rancher (Charles "Slim" Whitaker) to take over the Thornton sheep ranch. The film's centerpiece was the final confrontation between the young gunman and the foster-father who had taught him how to shoot in the first place. In the end, old Whispering Carlyle saves the life of his protégé despite the threat of a jail sentence. The veteran gunfighter was played by Neal Hart, a once popular silent screen cowboy and a distant cousin of William S. Hart. Guns for Hire was later reissued for television under the generic title Blazing Trail.