sean l
Buster Keaton, in his first work as a solo headliner, drifts into a new town and winds up hired as both assassin and bodyguard to a rich old gentleman with unpaid debts. Right away, it's clear that Keaton wants to get more narrative-driven than in his preceding pictures. Not that there's anything wrong with selecting a topic and free-form riffing on it for twenty minutes, but he seems to yearn for something more complicated, something to make those goofs and pratfalls carry a bit of purpose. This one's spotty, but it's an early effort; a growing pain, of sorts.
The establishing shots are tame and somewhat dull, probably why Keaton elected to hold back on widespread release until he'd made a good first impression, but it all comes together for the climax, which is absolute mayhem. The indebted old miser at the heart of it all must've seen trouble coming, because he's rigged his abode with all sorts of well-hidden switches and escapes. Keaton's barely learned the ropes when local gangsters show up to force his hand. So, with the criminal element in hot pursuit, Buster trips and stumbles through a maze of trap doors and secret chambers, disarming or disabling the bad guys mid-tumble and unwittingly saving the day. It's a dazzling single-shot scene, filmed in an incredible four-room, two-story cross-section, with enough simultaneous action to chew up two or three repeat viewings. The whole minute-long shot is simply remarkable, given its age and budgetary constraints.
Big set pieces had already been a target of fascination for Buster, even during his later pairings with Fatty Arbuckle, but he'd never approached anything of this scale. Hell, most modern films don't show half as much ingenuity or gumption. It's an omen of greater things still to come.
Rated 3/5 Stars •
Rated 3 out of 5 stars
03/30/23
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Audience Member
first keaton film but shelved 4 a couple of months & released second
Rated 4/5 Stars •
Rated 4 out of 5 stars
01/21/23
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Audience Member
Keaton shelved this movie for quite a while because he wasn't satisfied with it as his first solo project. It's a hoot, though. Keaton's prop comedy is front and center here, climaxing with an extended chase through a house loaded with trap doors and secret passages.
Rated 3.5/5 Stars •
Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars
01/12/23
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Audience Member
Nearly a century later and the physicality to this man's humor still holds up. Looking for a job, our man (Buster Keaton) gets hired to be bodyguard, but also gets pressured to kill the same man by the local gang. I know all of my reviews haven't migrated over here, but if you've been following me for any length of time on previous media, you know how hard I geek out for Buster Keaton. In my opinion, this type of slapstick didn't really translate well into the talkies, but for the silent era, it has an endless amount of charm when executed correctly, and with Buster, it is almost always just that. The gags go places that you don't expect; it will present to you a setup, not take it, and then blindside you with something that you don't see coming. Another thing I love is how he is not afraid to sacrifice his body for a laugh, and while there isn't as much imminent danger here as there is in The General or Seven Chances, the finale with the customized house is vintage Buster and put a huge smile on my face. I've been getting a mixed bag as far as quality goes with these shorts, as Youtube is a bit of a crapshoot for what you're going to get, but the print I watched had a fantastic score, and that made me realize how much the music can make or break your experience. I would say that of the 9 Keaton shorts I've seen so far, this is in the upper echelon, and while it doesn't match the exuberance of the sidesplitting One Week, I would place it somewhere in the top five.
Rated 4/5 Stars •
Rated 4 out of 5 stars
02/26/23
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Audience Member
My first introduction to Keaton and I loved him running around the house at the end. It was brilliantly done. I wish I had a house to play in like that.
Rated 4/5 Stars •
Rated 4 out of 5 stars
01/23/23
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Audience Member
'The High Sign' was the first short that Keaton shot as a solo artist, and he wasn't fond of it; or maybe he didn't have confidence in it for some reason, or was shaky about how it would be received by Joseph M. Schenck, his producer; maybe he thought the public wouldn't like it. In any case, Keaton shelved it after making it, and his next film- 'One Week'- would be the first movie that audiences saw out of his new deal with Metro Pictures. It was later released when Buster suffered a minor crippling accident and needed a film to fulfill contractual duties, and to this day it is still looked at as "minor" Keaton. To me, it is major entertainment, and while it may not contain the same pathos that would become such a strong part of Buster's very best masterpieces (see the intensely compelling romantic comic edge in 'The General'), it does contain some of the funniest straight gags I have seen in a Keaton short. Critics point out that Keaton hadn't quite mastered the use of his "toys" here (Buster was famous for turning set-pieces into moving, transforming, dramatic and usually quite dangerous elements of his films), and on that point they are correct; yet the daredevil is most certainly there, and the final sequence, which involves Keaton dashing and darting through a house that functions as a veritable Rubik's Cube, has all the mad genius and manic stunt layering he would come to be known for.
Rated 4.5/5 Stars •
Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars
02/11/23
Full Review
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