[go: up one dir, main page]

    Release calendarTop 250 moviesMost popular moviesBrowse movies by genreTop box officeShowtimes & ticketsMovie newsIndia movie spotlight
    What's on TV & streamingTop 250 TV showsMost popular TV showsBrowse TV shows by genreTV news
    What to watchLatest trailersIMDb OriginalsIMDb PicksIMDb SpotlightFamily entertainment guideIMDb Podcasts
    OscarsEmmysToronto Int'l Film FestivalIMDb Stars to WatchSTARmeter AwardsAwards CentralFestival CentralAll events
    Born todayMost popular celebsCelebrity news
    Help centerContributor zonePolls
For industry professionals
  • Language
  • Fully supported
  • English (United States)
    Partially supported
  • Français (Canada)
  • Français (France)
  • Deutsch (Deutschland)
  • हिंदी (भारत)
  • Italiano (Italia)
  • Português (Brasil)
  • Español (España)
  • Español (México)
Watchlist
Sign in
  • Fully supported
  • English (United States)
    Partially supported
  • Français (Canada)
  • Français (France)
  • Deutsch (Deutschland)
  • हिंदी (भारत)
  • Italiano (Italia)
  • Português (Brasil)
  • Español (España)
  • Español (México)
Use app
  • Cast & crew
  • User reviews
  • Trivia
  • FAQ
IMDbPro

Les trois âges

Original title: Three Ages
  • 1923
  • Not Rated
  • 1h 3m
IMDb RATING
7.0/10
5.6K
YOUR RATING
Buster Keaton in Les trois âges (1923)
Comedy

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.

  • Directors
    • Edward F. Cline
    • Buster Keaton
  • Writers
    • Clyde Bruckman
    • Joseph A. Mitchell
    • Jean C. Havez
  • Stars
    • Buster Keaton
    • Margaret Leahy
    • Wallace Beery
  • See production info at IMDbPro
  • IMDb RATING
    7.0/10
    5.6K
    YOUR RATING
    • Directors
      • Edward F. Cline
      • Buster Keaton
    • Writers
      • Clyde Bruckman
      • Joseph A. Mitchell
      • Jean C. Havez
    • Stars
      • Buster Keaton
      • Margaret Leahy
      • Wallace Beery
    • 33User reviews
    • 48Critic reviews
  • See production info at IMDbPro
  • See production info at IMDbPro
    • Awards
      • 1 nomination total

    Photos41

    View Poster
    View Poster
    View Poster
    View Poster
    View Poster
    View Poster
    View Poster
    + 35
    View Poster

    Top cast14

    Edit
    Buster Keaton
    Buster Keaton
    • The Boy
    Margaret Leahy
    Margaret Leahy
    • The Girl
    Wallace Beery
    Wallace Beery
    • The Villain
    Joe Roberts
    Joe Roberts
    • The Girl's Father
    Lillian Lawrence
    • The Girl's Mother
    Kewpie Morgan
    Kewpie Morgan
    • The Emperor
    • (as Horace Morgan)
    • …
    Lionel Belmore
    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
    George Davis
    • Roman Guard Knocked Down
    • (uncredited)
    Louise Emmons
    Louise Emmons
    • Old Fortune Teller
    • (uncredited)
    F.F. Guenste
    F.F. Guenste
    • Butler
    • (uncredited)
    Blanche Payson
    Blanche Payson
    • The Amazon
    • (uncredited)
    • Directors
      • Edward F. Cline
      • Buster Keaton
    • Writers
      • Clyde Bruckman
      • Joseph A. Mitchell
      • Jean C. Havez
    • All cast & crew
    • Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

    User reviews33

    7.05.6K
    1
    2
    3
    4
    5
    6
    7
    8
    9
    10

    Featured reviews

    6JoeytheBrit

    Not one of Buster's Best

    For me, Keaton's decision to make a parody of Griffith's Intolerance so that if the feature (his first) failed he could re-edit and release it as three two-reelers is what diminishes the enjoyment for me. The film jumps back and forth between the three time periods, and so all of them seem to be over before they've really begun, and the film has something of a disjointed feel. Perhaps this is because the film does actually feel as if it is three two-reelers spliced together rather than an actual feature.

    The comedy is unevenly paced, but when it hits the mark it is near-perfect. Highlights include Keaton's drunken encounter with Wallace Beery, other diners, and a crab at a restaurant, and the jaw-dropping leap from one roof to another at what looks like hundreds of feet above the ground (apparently the buildings were short sets placed on a bridge overlooking a view of Los Angeles. Just as well, because Keaton failed to make the leap successfully and fell from the second building, a real-life mishap that remains in the film). Keaton slides through a window, across a room, down a pole (at this point we realise he is in a fire station although he doesn't) and lands on the back of a fire engine that returns him to the police station from which he has just escaped. The whole sequence is both side-splitting and astounding. The look on Keaton's face as he looks quizzically up at the pole he has just descended is priceless. Perhaps because of his status as a comic genius we tend to forget how good an actor Keaton was .

    I liked the modern sequence best, and had it been released as a short I believe it would be considered one of his classics. The caveman sequence is OK, but the Roman era story tends to drag.

    It's been well publicised that this was competition winner Margaret Leahy's only film because she was so untalented as an actress, and it's true she doesn't light any fires while on-screen. But the impact of her ineptitude in front of the camera is cleverly avoided by the likes of Keaton and Beery merely acting around her as if she were just another prop.

    Overall, this isn't one of Keaton's best - although that is probably because this is his first feature. Keaton himself thought it was just OK and, given his instinctive sense for what works, perhaps that should tell us all we need to know...
    7Cineanalyst

    Taking Risks

    D.W. Griffith could have made any movie he wanted to after the enormous financial success of "The Birth of a Nation"; he chose to make the most technically ambitious film to that date, "Intolerance". He took a risk with such innovations in film montage and form, and the well-known financial train wreck resulted. Buster Keaton doesn't take that kind of a risk with "Three Ages", a parody of "Intolerance". This is Keaton's first feature-length film of his own (he only acted in "The Saphead"). He had the fallback plan of dividing the three episodes in this feature into three separate shorts, which Griffith did do with "Intolerance". Keaton didn't have to. Chaplin had already succeeded with feature-length comedies, so if Keaton was taking a risk here, it was completely calculated.

    Chaplin had already done a parody of another film, too, with "Burlesque on Carmen" (1915). Keaton appears to allude to that parody, as well. The wrestling scene in the Ancient Rome episode references the swordfight that turns into a wrestling match in Chaplin's burlesque. The comical distance from the plot of both scenes is the same, too. Furthermore, Chaplin's film imitated the glossy style of DeMille's "Carmen", and Chaplin's film seemed a tribute to that film. Keaton doesn't attempt the radical editing, narrative structure or monumental nature in his parody, but it seems respectful of "Intolerance" nonetheless. At least, the stories aren't told completely straightforward as in other "Intolerance"-inspired works, such as Dreyer's "Leaves from Satan's Book" (Blade af Satans bog, 1921) and Fritz Lang's "Destiny" (Der Müde Tod, 1921). There is some mild jumping back and forth between episodes.

    Where Keaton did take risks, however, is in his physical, daredevil comedy. That's Keaton unintentionally failing to jump across buildings in the modern episode. Reportedly, he was convinced to alter the scene rather than attempt the jump again. And, it wasn't just Keaton who took risks; the anachronistic baseball gag, for example, was rather dangerous. Thus, although in a different way, Keaton, like Griffith, took risks with his big film. And, I think they both succeeded.
    8Spondonman

    Incomparable

    First time of seeing Buster Keaton's first feature film and I have to admit I liked it a lot and only wish I'd stumbled across it years ago. The Rohauer blurb at the start warns that the Three Ages single nitrate print was rediscovered and salvaged in 1954 just in time before combustion, and many frames that seemed hopelessly glued together were separated. So, it's rocky viewing in places, but I've seen and survived much worse.

    It would have been OK as the 3 short films but as a take on Intolerance it's inventive and funny from the start to the finish: In the Stone Age with baddie Wallace Beery riding an elephant and goodie Buster riding a pet brontosaurus; In the Roman Age Buster riding a chariot with wheel locks and adapted for sledging, No Parking signs in Latin; In this technological Age of Speed Need and Greed his car beautifully falls to bits at the first hump. Both him and Beery are after the Girl through the ages, a never ending tussle. Favourite bit: As the caveman he gets knocked backward over a cliff edge but still blows a kiss to the camera - an amazing second or two!

    Great stuff, reaffirming my love of silent film comedy.
    MichaelCarmichaelsCar

    Manicured lion

    "The Three Ages," Buster Keaton's first feature-length film after a number of comedy shorts, is his parody of Griffith's "Intolerance." Keaton tells three parallel stories about the perils of romance, one set in the Stone Age, one during the Roman Empire, and one during the 20th century.

    In the context of Keaton, I don't see "The Three Ages" given a lot of mention. This is a shame, since while it's not Keaton's finest work, it ranks with his funniest. In one scene, Buster falls into a pit with a lion. Afraid of getting eaten, he pampers the lion and gives it a manicure. What follows is one of the funniest visual gags I've ever seen.
    6ccthemovieman-1

    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

    More like this

    Le Dernier Round
    7.0
    Le Dernier Round
    Les lois de l'hospitalité
    7.7
    Les lois de l'hospitalité
    Ma vache et moi
    7.1
    Ma vache et moi
    Sportif par amour
    6.9
    Sportif par amour
    La croisière du navigator
    7.5
    La croisière du navigator
    Le figurant
    6.9
    Le figurant
    Ce crétin de Malec
    6.1
    Ce crétin de Malec
    Fiancées en folie
    7.8
    Fiancées en folie
    Frigo à l'Electric Hotel
    7.2
    Frigo à l'Electric Hotel
    Frigo et la baleine
    6.8
    Frigo et la baleine
    Malec aéronaute
    6.6
    Malec aéronaute
    Le crime de Malec
    7.7
    Le crime de Malec

    Related interests

    Will Ferrell in Présentateur vedette: La légende de Ron Burgundy (2004)
    Comedy

    Storyline

    Edit

    Did you know

    Edit
    • 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)

    Top picks

    Sign in to rate and Watchlist for personalized recommendations
    Sign in

    FAQ14

    • How long is Three Ages?Powered by Alexa

    Details

    Edit
    • Release date
      • December 6, 1925 (France)
    • Country of origin
      • United States
    • Language
      • None
    • Also known as
      • Three Ages
    • Filming locations
      • Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum - 3911 S. Figueroa Street, Exposition Park, Los Angeles, California, USA(Roman age)
    • Production company
      • Buster Keaton Productions
    • See more company credits at IMDbPro

    Box office

    Edit
    • Gross worldwide
      • $177
    See detailed box office info on IMDbPro

    Tech specs

    Edit
    • Runtime
      • 1h 3m(63 min)
    • Color
      • Black and White
    • Sound mix
      • Silent
    • Aspect ratio
      • 1.33 : 1

    Contribute to this page

    Suggest an edit or add missing content
    • Learn more about contributing
    Edit page

    More to explore

    Recently viewed

    Please enable browser cookies to use this feature. Learn more.
    Get the IMDb App
    Sign in for more accessSign in for more access
    Follow IMDb on social
    Get the IMDb App
    For Android and iOS
    Get the IMDb App
    • Help
    • Site Index
    • IMDbPro
    • Box Office Mojo
    • License IMDb Data
    • Press Room
    • Advertising
    • Jobs
    • Conditions of Use
    • Privacy Policy
    • Your Ads Privacy Choices
    IMDb, an Amazon company

    © 1990-2025 by IMDb.com, Inc.