The High Sign

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...

What amazes me in every Buster Keaton short is how good the physical action is. In 'The High Sign' he has the perfect setting to show us his tricks. In a house where there must be a secret escape in every room he has to escape from a couple of guys who do not like him very much because he betrayed them. He had to kill a certain person but faked the whole thing.

The story in a Buster Keaton short is not that important. Once he starts doing those great things on screen I don't want it to end. The camera is able to see four rooms at the same time and Keaton moves from room to room, through walls and ceilings. It is all great.

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.

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 was reportedly disappointed with the short 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 even worthy of being used as the 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, Keaton is 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 gags and material into its 21-minute runtime, chocked full of blink-and-you-miss-it moments in the story of a wannabe gangster who also becomes a bodyguard for the man he is assigned to kill. The gag involving Keaton's set-up with the dog, the meat and the string (it's hard to explain) is reminiscent of something Mr. Bean would conjure while the short also features the earliest example I've seen in a film of a recurring gag with the high sign itself, a secret signal between the members of a gang known as The Blinking Buzzards. Keaton even messes with the audience's expectation for comic effect by walking past a banana peel on the ground only to not slip on it. Furthermore, 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 four rooms on duel levels appear in the frame at once in which Keaton jumps back and forth between them, it reminds me of a 2D platform video game. I was laughing, in awe and was even shocked (when the gangster's neck is closed on the door) all at once. All of this takes place within a nostalgic, Coney Island-like setting (filmed at Venice Pier in Los Angeles) and even features the appearance of a man at the 11 minutes mark who bears quite a resemblance to that other great silent comic, Charlie Chaplin (intentional or not?). I'll say it now and I'll say it again; the genius of Buster Keaton will never cease to amaze me.

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.