What is the film about? How is the story told? Who are the main characters and what happens to them? How is the narrative structured? The film follows Keaton as he gets off a train, steals a never ending newspaper and takes a job as at a shooting range. The man in charge tells him to have hit all the targets by the time he returns. In parallel, we see the man leave and is let into a hideout of the Blinking Buzzards as he knows the ‘high sign’ secret hand signal. While they work out a plan to assassinate a man called August on the first of September, Keaton’s character attaches the bell that rings every time a target is hit to a dog running after a piece of meat (which makes every shot look like it hit a target.) August, now aware of the threat to his life, sees Keaton’s impressive shooting and hires him as his personal bodyguard. Then when the gangster returns he’s also impressed and Keaton is initiated into the Blinking Buzzards and told to kill august.
The High Sign (Buster Keaton, 1921)
The High Sign (Buster Keaton, 1921)
The High Sign (Buster Keaton, 1921)
What is the film about? How is the story told? Who are the main characters and what happens to them? How is the narrative structured? The film follows Keaton as he gets off a train, steals a never ending newspaper and takes a job as at a shooting range. The man in charge tells him to have hit all the targets by the time he returns. In parallel, we see the man leave and is let into a hideout of the Blinking Buzzards as he knows the ‘high sign’ secret hand signal. While they work out a plan to assassinate a man called August on the first of September, Keaton’s character attaches the bell that rings every time a target is hit to a dog running after a piece of meat (which makes every shot look like it hit a target.) August, now aware of the threat to his life, sees Keaton’s impressive shooting and hires him as his personal bodyguard. Then when the gangster returns he’s also impressed and Keaton is initiated into the Blinking Buzzards and told to kill august.