Stellead Don't listen to the Hype. It's awful

Suman Roberson It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

Marva It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

Fleur Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

peefyn 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.

ackstasis The entrance of Buster Keaton's unnamed character in 'The High Sign (1921)' is, in some ways, reminiscent of Chaplin's Little Tramp persona. The wandering vagrant, named only Our Hero, is booted off a moving train, and lands in an unknown town, the audience denied any back-story or unnecessary exposition. Wandering into a nearby theme park, Buster deftly snatches a newspaper from a moving carousel (done so casually that he doesn't look like he's even trying), and attempts to read the mammoth broadsheet. In search of a job, he happens upon an opening for a talented sharp-shooter, and, despite inadvertently gunning down a duck with his practice shots, Buster feels that he's qualified enough for the position. Chaplin's Tramp was never averse to breaking the rules if he wasn't hurting anybody who didn't deserve it, and Keaton's Hero is no different. By rigging an ingenious dog-powered bell-ringer to falsify the carnival stall, Buster fools his massive employer into believing that he is an ace with the rifle.But, of course, if the plan had gone smoothly, then there wouldn't have been a story to tell. It seems that the employer is also a member of the Blinking Buzzards mob, a bold bad bunch of blood-thirsty bandits with a curious affinity for the letter "b." Buster is enlisted to assassinate one of the gang's enemies, and, by a curious turn of events, is also employed as that very same man's bodyguard (our hero, ever the hopeless romantic, accepts the latter job only to impress the target's pretty daughter, played by Bartine Burkett). When he steadfastly refuses to carry out the hit, Buster's reckless bid to escape the Buzzards' fists leads him on a farcical anarchic chase through concealed doorways and hidden compartments, a madcap comedic set-piece that never takes the time to slow down. Despite this memorable virtuoso finale, Keaton apparently felt unsure of the quality of his first independent two-reeler, and 'The High Sign' was shelved until the following year, when a broken ankle slowed the performer's output.

Igenlode Wordsmith 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...

captnemo 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.