The High Sign

THE “HIGH SIGN”: Buster on the verge

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THE HIGH SIGN: Buster Keaton and the Blinking Buzzards flashing the gang sign

The High Sign is 20-minutes of Buster Keaton’s rapid-fire comedy from 1921. Buster plays a young man who cons his way into a job managing an amusement park shooting gallery and inadvertently becomes entangled with a murderous gang of thugs. The plot exists to set up two exquisite comic set pieces. In the first, Keaton sets up an elaborate Rube Goldberg device to trick the boss into believing that Keaton is a master marksman. And the second is a triumph of Keaton’s ingenuity, as the gang members chase him through a cutaway two-story house, complete with trap doors and secret passageways.

Of course the gang itself, the Blinking Buzzards, is ridiculous, especially when they flash their secret gang sign. There’s also humor in the contrast between the towering gang leader (6′ 3″ Joe Roberts) and the diminutive (5′ 5″) Keaton.

The High Sign is a two-reeler, a 20-minute short film.  The conventional wisdom among early movie studio heads was that a comedy could only be sustain audience interest for 20 minutes. Keaton, Charlie Chaplin and Harold Lloyd would soon dispel that myth.

In fact, The High Sign came just before Keaton unleashed his string of comic masterpiece features:  Sherlock, Jr. (1924), The Navigator (1924), Seven Chances (1925), The General (1926), Steamboat Bill, Jr. (1928) and The Cameraman (1928).  After The Cameraman, Keaton’s new studio took away his creative control, and his career (and personal life) crashed.

I saw The High Sign at Cinequest, accompanied by world-renowned Dennis James on the Mighty Wurlitzer organ, before Steamboat Bill Jr.  I recommend Sal Pizarro’s excellent profile of Dennis James in the Mercury News.

Also known as The “High Sign”, the film plays occasionally on Turner Classic Movies and possibly bootleg versions can be streamed on YouTube and Vimeo.

Buster Keaton in THE HIGH SIGN

STEAMBOAT BILL, JR.: silent comedy, still at its best

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STEAMBOAT BILL, JR.

Every year, through the sponsorship of the Stanford Theatre Foundation, Cinequest presents a silent film. This year’s choice is Buster Keaton’s Steamboat Bill, Jr.

Keaton plays a wimpy young man returning home from college to help his father, who operates an old-fashioned and weathered paddle steamer. The father is burly and testosterone-fueled – and immediately aghast at his effete and callow son. The business is threatened by competition from a magnate’s newer, more well-equipped riverboat. Comic situations ensue from the business rivalry, a Romeo-and-Juliet subplot and the odd couple pairing of father and son.

But it’s all just the launching pad for Keaton’s comic genius, with its irresistible combination of deadpan slapstick and daring physical stunts. Steamboat Bill, Jr. contains one of the greatest movie stunts EVER – and one of the most dangerous – the entire front of a house blows over but fails to crush Buster because he emerges from a window opening.

Steamboat Bill, Jr. came in 1928 near the end of Keaton’s greatest work: Sherlock, Jr. (1924), The Navigator (1924), Seven Chances (1925), The General (1926) and The Cameraman (1928). After The Cameraman, Keaton’s new studio took away his creative control, and his career (and personal life) crashed.

I also recommend Peter Bogdanovich’s fine 2018 biodoc of Keaton, The Great Buster: A Celebration. It’s not yet streamable, but I expect it to be available soon.

Cinequest presents its silent films on the big screen of a period movie palace, the California Theatre, accompanied by world-renowned Dennis James on the Mighty Wurlitzer organ. James traveled with Lillian Gish as accompanist when she would present movies. I recommend Sal Pizarro’s excellent profile of Dennis James in the Mercury News.

Cinequest will present Steamboat Bill, Jr. along with the 20 minute Keaton short The High Sign (which I haven’t yet seen).