The High Sign
About The High Sign
A drifter thrown off a train talks his way into a job at an amusement-park shooting gallery run by the Blinking Buzzards. The gang orders him to kill a businessman. He instead rigs the man's house with trick doors and traps and spends the last reel protecting the man and his daughter.
Cast & crew
More about The High Sign
Joseph M. Schenck produced. Buster Keaton and Edward F. Cline wrote and directed. Metro Pictures released the two-reeler. Keaton finished it about a year early and held it; he thought it was too close to Roscoe Arbuckle's comedies and that the gags were too clever for their own sake. It was issued after he broke an ankle filming the first version of The Electric House.
Themes
Look
Elgin Lessley photographed the two-reeler, including the trick house.
Preservation
The short survives. A copy is on the Internet Archive.
Notes
- The title is the gang's secret hand signal.
- One Week (1920) was released first, but The High Sign was the first short Keaton made on his own.
- Bartine Burkett plays the daughter. Al St. John and Charles Dorety are in the cast.
- Wikipedia's infobox dates the release April 12, 1921. The same article's release section says April 4.
- Keaton is credited as editor. Fred Gabourie was technical director.
- Elgin Lessley, who had shot Arbuckle's comedies, photographed it.
Scenes
- Keaton gives the gang's hand signal.
- The last reel runs through the rigged house while he hides the businessman and his daughter.
Also available
- Internet Archive (TheHighSign)
