The High Sign

I was on the phone watching the silent film "The High Sign", and happened to pause the movie at this moment, and when I went back to look at it, the expression and over-all emotion of it really struck me. So I tried to copy the screen image as closely as I could, but I think I failed to show the sadness mixed with relief that he was expressing.

Storyline: Buster is begged by a man's daughter to save her father from being killed, and then he is forced by his boss to join the Blinking Buzzard gang that is trying to kill the same man. When he is sent to the house, he finds out that the man had heard he was going to get attacked, so he installed trap doors and hidden exits all around the house. The gang hears Buster won't kill the man, and they go to the house to kill the man for him and to deal with Buster who decieved the gang. To save the man and himself, Buster pretends to shoot the man who then pretends to die, but when the illusion is ruined, they chase Buster around the house. One by one, Buster tricks the men to fall out of windows and fall into trap doors as he's being pursued. At this moment, he hugs the man's daughter and looks down into the hole giving the "Buzzard solute" after the last gang member falls through a trap door concealed in the floorboards.



(Ballpoint pen)