To get a job at a shooting gallery, Buster Keaton, who can't shoot
worth shit, devices a contraption to look like a perfect sharpshooter -
and on that assumption, he is hired both by a rich man as his bodyguard -
which he accepts mainly because he has fallen for the man's daughter
(Bartine Burkett), and by a gang called the Blinking Buzzards as -
of all people - that rich man's assassin. At first it seems there is no
way for Buster to get out of this jam, but ultimately, he uses his rich
client's house with its many trap doors and sliding panels to get rid of
all the Blinking Buzzards. The first short Buster Keaton ever
made with himself in the lead - it wasn't the first Buster Keaton-starrer
to be released - doesn't show Keaton at the height of his game yet, but it
certainly is a precursor of great things to come. Sure, The High Sign
has most of the elements that would come to bloom in future Keaton films -
like Buster being thrown into impossible situations by mere fate, his
ingenuity in devicing mechanical apparati, often in novel ways, and
inventive (and imaginatively shot) chase sequences (like an extremely
agile chase through the house of Buster's client in which four rooms are
in the same frame at once) -, yet on a humour level, the roughhouse style
of his films with Fatty Arbuckle is still prevalent, not yet Buster's own,
more sophisticated and subtle style. Still, the film can be seen as a
great transition piece, and it's by no means unfunny.
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