Les trois âges

Original title: Three Ages

IMDb RATING

YOUR RATING

The misadventures of Buster in three separate historical periods.The misadventures of Buster in three separate historical periods.The misadventures of Buster in three separate historical periods.

See production info at IMDbPro

IMDb RATING

7.0/10

5.5K

YOUR RATING

See production info at IMDbPro

Awards
- 1 nomination total

Top cast14

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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
(as Horace Morgan)
…

Lionel Belmore

Undetermined Role
(unconfirmed)
(uncredited)

Bernard Berger

Roman-age child
(uncredited)

Basil Bookasta

Stone-age Child
(uncredited)

George Bookasta

Stone-age Child
(uncredited)

George Davis

Roman Guard Knocked Down
(uncredited)

Louise Emmons

Old Fortune Teller
(uncredited)

F.F. Guenste

Butler
(uncredited)

Blanche Payson

The Amazon
(uncredited)

Storyline

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Did you know

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Trivia
The most famous stunt in the movie was actually built around what went wrong with the original stunt. Buster Keaton intended to leap from a board projecting from one building onto the roof of another building, but he fell short, smashing into the brick wall and falling into a net off-screen. He was injured badly enough to be laid up for three days. However, when he saw the film (the camera operators were instructed to always keep filming, no matter what happened), he not only kept the mishap, he built on it, adding the fall through three awnings, the loose downspout that propels him into the firehouse and the slide down the fire pole.

Goofs
In the medium shot of the Stone Age soothsayer scene, Buster's hands are resting together near the side of the turtle. But in the cut to a close-up, we see only a hand double's right hand, and it's directly in front of the turtle's mouth. (It's clearly a hand double, since Keaton was missing his right index finger tip.)

Quotes
The Boy: [in the Stone Age] I want to ask the Wee-gee if she loves only me.

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

Connections
Edited into The Golden Age of Buster Keaton (1979)

Buster Battles Wallace Through The Ages

I'd have to rate this as slightly above-average Keaton fare. It shows Buster trying to romance the girl away from Wallace Beery, and what would have transpired if the story had taken place in (1) the Stone Age; (2) The Roman Age, and (3) The Modern Age.

I liked them in that order, too, with more laughs with the older periods of time, although I laughed at the hardest at a couple of segments in the Roman Age. My favorite was the chariot race held in the sand. That had a number of clever things in the segment. The brief bit with the lion was funny, too, sort of a parody of the Biblical story of Daniel in the lion's den.

They were smart only going five minutes or so with each age and then going back with the story each time. Each "age" had four or five segments in total.

Nothing hilarious but definitely worth your time if you are checking out silent film comedies