Buster Keaton bekämpft die blutige Hand

It is a simple word in this case because all is just amazing. The melancholic traits of story, the gags, the fight scenes, the portrait of the good guy front to huge challenges and the sign of recognition. Buster Keaton is so talented and his talent gives so splendid results, than each comment seems unfair for the imposibility of ordinary condescendence to an old short film about silly situations. The craft is high and the manner to use the humor almost fascinating. So, a too modern short film.

The entrance of Buster Keaton's unnamed character in 'The High Sign (1921)' is, in some ways, reminiscent of Chaplin's Little Tramp persona. The wandering vagrant, named only Our Hero, is booted off a moving train, and lands in an unknown town, the audience denied any back-story or unnecessary exposition. Wandering into a nearby theme park, Buster deftly snatches a newspaper from a moving carousel (done so casually that he doesn't look like he's even trying), and attempts to read the mammoth broadsheet. In search of a job, he happens upon an opening for a talented sharp-shooter, and, despite inadvertently gunning down a duck with his practice shots, Buster feels that he's qualified enough for the position. Chaplin's Tramp was never averse to breaking the rules if he wasn't hurting anybody who didn't deserve it, and Keaton's Hero is no different. By rigging an ingenious dog-powered bell-ringer to falsify the carnival stall, Buster fools his massive employer into believing that he is an ace with the rifle.

But, of course, if the plan had gone smoothly, then there wouldn't have been a story to tell. It seems that the employer is also a member of the Blinking Buzzards mob, a bold bad bunch of blood-thirsty bandits with a curious affinity for the letter "b." Buster is enlisted to assassinate one of the gang's enemies, and, by a curious turn of events, is also employed as that very same man's bodyguard (our hero, ever the hopeless romantic, accepts the latter job only to impress the target's pretty daughter, played by Bartine Burkett). When he steadfastly refuses to carry out the hit, Buster's reckless bid to escape the Buzzards' fists leads him on a farcical anarchic chase through concealed doorways and hidden compartments, a madcap comedic set-piece that never takes the time to slow down. Despite this memorable virtuoso finale, Keaton apparently felt unsure of the quality of his first independent two-reeler, and 'The High Sign' was shelved until the following year, when a broken ankle slowed the performer's output.

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!

This little gem of a movie is chock full of inventive gags that will keep you laughing. There are the usual physical ones, such as the house and its many entrances/exits. What had me intrigued were some of the sight gags as well. The dog and the bell was amazing to watch. Each and every corner in Keaton's world has something wondrous around it. The man was an amazing athlete, and it shows here. Watch for the weird guns throughout the film. They don't make sense but then again they don't have to.

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...