I’ve
decided that it’d be nice to go back and do fuller reviews of some Buster
Keaton projects that I previously covered as parts of a set, like Top Five
posts or write-ups on his TV work. At
the very least, his independent shorts provide plenty of fodder for discussion.
A
down-on-his-luck Buster cons his way into a job at a shooting gallery, where
his fancy trick shooting (literally “trick” shooting – it’s all fake) earns him
two brand-new, diametrically-opposed occupations. He’s initiated into the notorious gang the
Blinking Buzzards, where he’s tasked with assassinating a wealthy man: the same man who’s just hired him as his
bodyguard. Since Buster is 1) not really
the murdering type, and 2) smitten with the man’s daughter (because, duh,) he
sets his protect his mark like no assassin has before.
The High Sign is the first short
Buster made on his own, though it’s not the first he released; he didn’t think
it was up-to-snuff as a first impression for himself as an independent
filmmaker, so he held back its release until after he made One Week. I’d say that was
the right choice. While this short is
fun, it’s slightly messy, and not the instant classic that One Week is.
In some
ways, Buster is still finding his footing here.
The film leans more heavily on elements that don’t feature prominently
in much of his work. For instance, some
of the intertitles feel a little self-consciously overwritten, like the
alliteration-laden intro to the Blinking Buzzards. Other jokes, though, are more in line with
Buster’s sensibilities – “tight as a fourteen collar on a sixteen neck” is a
terrific description of a miser. The High Sign also uses lots of “cartoon
gags,” literally impossible bits of business thrown in just for the joke. People can be hit-or-miss on the more
cartoonish stuff, but while they can seem a bit out-of-place, they still mostly
work here. Buster painting a hook on the
wall and then hanging his hat on it is an iconic moment.
There
are also places where the gags don’t build as organically as they should. It’s fine to take comedic detours, but they
need to feel like they follow one another.
In this short, there’s an amusing enough little tangent of Buster
helping customers at the shooting gallery that, while fun, would have been much
better placed before he joins the
Blinking Buzzards. Once he’s been given
his orders, the plot really should be heading in the general direction of
August’s house – it feels like we lose momentum a bit.
This is
all pretty nitpicky, but I do like
the short. It has a ton of great gags in
it. The newspaper gag is a classic, and
several of Buster’s go-to devices all already on display and in fine form. There are a few fantastic circular gags that
come back around on themselves, the dog-powered(!) contraption Buster rigs up
to trick people into thinking he’s a crack shot is pure Buster, and you just
know he had a blast designing (and then running, jumping, and climbing through)
all the trapdoors/revolving panels/secret exits at August’s house. We get a nice early cop gag, featuring a
fantastic off-the-cuff disguise – oh, Buster.
Plus, just for fun, there’s a brief cameo from Al St. John, part of the
Fatty Arbuckle crowd.
Warnings
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