Three Ages (1923)

The misadventures of Buster in three separate historical periods.

Directors:

Edward F. Cline (as Eddie Cline), Buster Keaton

Writers:

Clyde Bruckman (story and titles), Joseph A. Mitchell (story and titles) (as Joseph Mitchell)

Stars:

Buster Keaton, Margaret Leahy, Wallace Beery

1 nomination.

Cast

Complete credited cast:
Buster Keaton	...	The Boy
Margaret Leahy	...	The Girl
Wallace Beery	...	The Villain
Joe Roberts	...	The Girl's Father
Lillian Lawrence	...	The Girl's Mother
Kewpie Morgan	...	The Emperor / Cave Man / Roman Thug (as Horace Morgan)

Storyline

In his first independently produced feature film Buster tells of love and romance through three historical ages: the Stone Age, the Roman Age, and the Modern Age.

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Plot Keywords:

monster | cavewoman | stone age | wedding | wanted man | 

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Taglines:

Six reels of furious fun. (Newspaper ad).

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Genres:

Comedy

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Certificate:

Not Rated

Details

Country:

USA

Release Date:

24 September 1923 (USA)

Also Known As:

Die drei Zeitalter

Filming Locations:

Hill Street, Los Angeles, California, USA

Company Credits

Production Co:

Buster Keaton Productions

Technical Specs

Runtime:

63 min

Sound Mix:

Silent

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

A widely-circulated error credits Oliver Hardy for this film. He was not in it. It was the similar-looking rotund comic Kewpie Morgan.

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Goofs

The water level in Buster's carafe fluctuates. He nearly drains it, then in the next shot, it's half full.

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Alternate Versions

In 1995, Film Preservation Associates copyrighted a version with an orchestral score; no details were specified on the print.

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Connections

Featured in The Story of Film: An Odyssey: The Hollywood Dream (2011)

User Reviews

Layers, parts

The more time I spend with old films, the more of a giant I see Keaton to be. I'm beginning to think that we all need to see a lot of him, which is why I wandered into this. It seems to have been made only because they had access to a Roman set.

The setup is that a courtship story is presented in three eras: a cave-man setup, a Roman context and a modern one. All are based on film notions of those eras of course. Unlike most movie humor of the time, the joke here isn't in embellishing the story with humorous decoration. Its in the difference among the stories.

Its a clever piece of what I call folding, and you will see at least one scene here that I swear is quoted in "Rashomon."

So there's the idea of the thing, which is worthwhile, but now I've explained it, you hardly have to see it. The jokes are trite. But there is one scene that I recall over and over. I think Keaton did it elsewhere and several others too, but here it is the best.

He's driving a car, a rickety one to his girl's house. (This is in the modern setting, obviously.) He hits a bump and the car falls to pieces. And I just don't mean the wheels fall off, the car quite literally disassembles into the parts that went into the factory and there he sits among hundreds of items. I have no idea how he did this. The car really is moving as a car, and then in an instant it is in pieces.

Wonderful.

Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.