peefyn This movie is chock full of visual gags. It starts of establishing a plot that seems a bit interesting (the guy getting two jobs at once), but you soon realize that this is only to facilitate a lot of different stunts and sight gags. The secret symbol of the evil gang here is also used well, and Keaton's inability to use in the correct situations. As the plot slowly progresses, the movie ends up in a situation where Keaton is in a man's house for two different reasons (that oppose each other), and the house is full of traps. When Keaton ends up getting chased around in this house, there's just minutes of fun, jumping from one room to the other, often with big sets consisting of several rooms at once. It's great how much Keaton manages to squeeze into this movie's 20 minute run time.

mmallon4 The 'High Sign' has to be my favourite Buster Keaton short and it just so happens to be the first independent film Keaton produced, giving birth to his iconic unnamed character. However Keaton himself was disappointed with the film and didn't release it until the following year instead making "One Week" his first solo short. I question why though as I feel the premise of The 'High Sign' is one of Keaton's most inspired and possibly even worthy of being used as a set up for a feature. It's true what they say, the artist is often wrong about their own work.The opening prologue of The High Sign states "Our hero came from Nowhere- he wasn't going Anywhere and got kicked off Somewhere"; and considering his superhuman stunts he's like an alien who just landed on Earth. This opening prologue reminds me of a statement Roger Ebert made in his review of The General; "(Keaton) seems like a modern visitor to the world of silent clowns" The 'High Sign' packs in so much humor and gags into its 20 minutes such as his set up with the dog, meat and string (it's hard to explain); it's like something Mr Bean would come up with. The short also features the earliest example I've seen in film of a recurring gag with the high sign itself, a secret signal between gangsters. Keaton even messes with the audience's expectation for comic effect by having himself walk past a banana peel on the ground only to not slip on it. Likewise the short's finale is a real "How did they do that?" sequence. The house with its traps and secret hatches is an astounding piece of set design and when all the rooms appear on screen at once which Keaton jumping between them, it reminds me of a 2D video game. I was laughing, in awe and even shocked (when the gangster's neck is closed on the door) all at once. There is even a customer at one point who has quite a resemblance to Charlie Chaplin.I'll say it now and I'll say it again; the genius of Buster Keaton will never cease to amaze me.

ccthemovieman-1 This begins with Buster being a crook. First, he steals a newspaper from a man riding a merry-go-round. It turns out to be the biggest newspaper you have ever seen! He sees a "help wanted" ad for a worker in a shooting gallery. You must be "crack shot." Buster isn't, of course, but he cheats again and gets the job, thanks to a little (and very clever) scheme with a little dog. (Buster is not an honest man in this movie, but he sure is resourceful!).The arcade is run by a giant of a man (Charles Dorety?) who is a member of the Blinking Buzzards, a brutal secret group of extortionists and hit men. One of the men on their hit list is the town tightwad: "August Nickelnurser." The latter, knowing his days are numbered, walks by the arcade, sees Buster, and hires him as his bodyguard. The big villain-arcade owner (no name was ever given him) comes back, takes Buster to the Buzzards hideout, makes him a member and gives him his first assignment: kill Nickelnurser.Holy cow - Buster is both the bodyguard and the hired assassin for the same man!!! What to do?This fantastic premise - to be played out in the second half of the film, doesn't really get going until the final few minutes, unfortunately. We have to sit through a few meaningless scenes back at the arcade. However, when Buster, the target and his cute daughter, and all the Buzzards all wind up in the same house - a great house filled with trap doors....the finish is fantastic!

Igenlode Wordsmith Some people -- to paraphrase Mel Brooks -- call Buster Keaton a genius. But that's both too little and too much to give him credit; Einstein was a genius, Keaton... is incredible.In the Fatty Arbuckle films he's amusing in what we tend to put down as a 'silent-comedy' way, a {by and large} straight-faced clown in a world of food fights, cross-dressing, clumsy cops and general anarchy. After exposure to a few hours of these I was, frankly, ready to write Keaton off as simply another sub-Laurel-and-Hardy slapstick act -- in the Arbuckle shorts he's reasonably funny but nothing to rave over. And then, suddenly, in the middle of the programme, came "The High Sign"... and it knocked me for six here, there, and into the middle of next week.As a solo debut it's nothing short of astounding. It's the spectacle of a great talent emerging fully-formed and all at once into unique existence, like Athena from the head of Zeus. From the opening scene, the style, the humour, the devices, the sheer *intelligence* are instantly, blazingly original: this isn't just 'silent comedy' to be laughed at and over by the modern public with an air of faint condescension, it's surreal and hilarious and utterly gifted to side-splitting effect by anyone's standard. It was like nothing I'd ever seen before. And the audience reaction -- from the former good-natured 'look-he's-dipped-the-bouquet-in-the-dirty-oil' laughter to the sudden roar of genuine surprise and delight -- was instant and electric. Suddenly, it was we who were eighty years behind the times, belated recipients of a moment of magic. Director, acrobat, actor, gag-writer, cinematographer, stuntman... for the first time Buster Keaton was set free into the universe of his own imagination, with confidence, grace and meticulous inventive brilliance, and before our eyes -- how could we not know it? -- a star was born.Even more incredible to learn, and yet true, is the fact that Keaton himself rejected and suppressed this first film as insufficiently original, holding up release for a year: no-one ever saw it at the time. He knew he could do better and, unbelievably, he was right. But that's another story...