Good start, but then it gets ruined

This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

It is encouraging that the film ends so strongly.Otherwise, it wouldn't have been a particularly memorable film

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.

In The High Sign, our intelligent half-wit Buster trying his luck at shooting when he reads a newspaper ad wanting shooters at an amusement park shooting gallery. Our gypsy-like wandering hero lands up in a town, with an inter-title introducing him as a man going nowhere who's found anywhere and will land up somewhere. He steals a newspaper from the pocket of a guy and finds this ad; the guy later approaches Keaton and buys the same newspaper from him, not knowing that it was his own paper which Buster had stolen. Before entering the park, he tries his hand at shooting and evidently stinks at it. Yet, Keaton is happy that he took out the practice targets, always the one he wasn't aiming at, and he accepts the job once he enters the gallery. Before leaving to his office in the next room, the tall owner instructs him that he wants to hear the bell go off every time Buster shoots. This puts our hero in trouble as we know he has little skill at shooting.But Keaton is an intelligent half-wit, and so he devises an ingenious plan: he ties up a street dog to the bell and ties a meat bone close to the dog. Inside, when he steps on a lever kept hidden close to where he stands, the tied up meat will lower down. The tied up dog would try getting it and in its attempt cause the bell to ring each time the meat is lowered. This works very well until the dog sees a cat, a probability Buster never considered. While this is going on in the gallery, we are also taken to the owner's office in the next room where we realize that the owner is actually the leader of a murderous group of extortionists called Blinking Buzzards. The group is impressed with Buster's 'shooting skills' after hearing the bell go off every time and assign him the task of killing an old man who refuses to pay him money. Our intelligent half-wit acquiesces. Meanwhile, the target of this gang visits the shooting gallery along with his daughter and is impressed with Keaton's shooting ability. He requests Buster to protect him from the gang and our intelligent half-wit Buster, unaware that it's the same guy who's to be shot, acquiesces. The rest of the action continues at the old man's home. I found out Donald O'Conner, the funny-man from Singin' in the Rain considered Keaton as a major influence. The 'Make Em Laugh' number from the legendary musical reminds me of the Keaton sequence in The High Sign when Buster tries to evade the gang of Blinking Buzzards at the old man's house by jumping from one room to the other, tearing up walls and sliding through connecting windows. I doubt any of Buster's contemporaries could top him when it comes to nailing the excitement of physical comedy. Anything is possible in Buster's world, like the scene when he slams the door into one of the gang members and we see his head popping out through the door.Everyone including Buster himself considers him to be something he's not. He's not a shooter yet he's hired as a shooting gallery shooter as well as assassin as well as a guardian angel. And Buster plays along the situations creating comedy and craziness on the way. He likes exploring the possibilities of cinema and creativity in an age where cinema was still developing as a medium, and so he creates his world as he pleases. Take for example where he simply paints a hook on the wall and hangs his hat on it and it really does hang like there's an actual hook. That's how malleable and modifiable Keaton's world is. And High Sign is a high sign of what Keaton brings to the world of cinema.

The High Sign---Buster: Our Hero…10/10.This film along with 'One Week' can be found as extras on the Buster Keaton DVD, "The Saphead". Although defined as 'short films' by virtue of their length, each movie running at about 20 minutes, both 'The High Sign' and 'One Week' are superior comedies to the feature film, 'The Saphead' which clocks in at 77 minutes. It is on the strength of these two short films that make the purchase of this DVD entirely worthwhile.There's really no need to explain in detail the unbelievable plot line. It's a comedy that plays out as logically as a dream. It works best if you accept the many predicaments Buster finds himself in. Whether he's hired with no reference to work the shooting gallery in an amusement park run by the gang The Flying Buzzards, or hired as a bounty hunter by The Flying Buzzards to kill a wealthy businessman, or, and this is the real stretch, hired as a body guard by the same wealthy businessman he was originally hired to kill.Just go with it. What works best in all Buster Keaton films are the many sight gags and the unbelievable physical comedy. In this film some of the best moments include Buster jerry rigging the shooting gallery with a bell, a rope, a dog and a bone. Or watching Buster snag a newspaper from someone riding on the Merry Go Round, it happens so fast you can't believe he actually did it. And of course, the amazing ending that takes place inside the customized house of the wealthy businessman he is trying to protect. Because the businessman is aware that his life is in danger, he has made his house a labyrinth of hidden walls, trap doors and removable paintings. The last 5 minutes of the film show Buster knocking off each of The Flying Buzzards inside the house. This physical comedy is the closest you'll ever come to seeing human beings act in real time to what would become the clear domain of animators some years later, such as those of the 'Tom and Jerry' cartoons. You won't believe your eyes.Highly recommended. This film is a lot of fun. 10/10.Clark Richards

This is the kind of pleasantly silly and very funny film that typifies the very best of these old silent short slapstick comedies. It's fast-paced and filled with clever gags, and a couple of especially hilarious scenes. It starts when Buster tricks everyone into thinking that he is a crack shot, and thus finds himself hired by a rich miser to be his bodyguard, while also being recruited by a gang of criminals (the 'Blinking Buzzards', who go around saluting each other with the 'High Sign') to assassinate the same man. There's not much else to the plot, which is mostly a setup for a lot of zany antics. It's funny all the way through, and there is some especially good use of props and settings in this one. It's just slapstick fun, nothing to take seriously, but slapstick doesn't come much better. This is highly recommended for fans of silent short comedies.