Three Ages (1923)
…………………………………………………
Three Ages Movie Review
Three Ages is a 1923 silent comedy film directed by and starring Buster Keaton. It is a very amusing, but highly uneven flick.
Men in three different ages each face off against a burly villain for love of a woman. This was the first feature-length movie that Keaton both directed and starred in. It was obviously meant to parody Griffith’s ‘Intolerance’ released seven years before this movie. The premise is original and interesting, but the execution left a lot to be desired.
………………………………………………….
…………………………………………………..
The movie is only around an hour long. It is divided into three segments of roughly the same length. One is set in the Stone Age, the other in Ancient Rome and the third one is set in modern times, and having in mind these are the Roaring Twenties, that makes the entirety of this movie a period piece when watched today.
The highlight is the Stone Age storyline. That one featured the most humor and it was the lightest and breeziest of the bunch with the funniest slapstick. The Rome segment is forgettable with the exception of the lion sequence, which was so ridiculous that it was hilarious as a result. The modern segment is probably the weakest, though it did end off with a bang as that finale was very climactic and a lot of fun.
Three Ages needed better pacing and much stronger execution of this initially intriguing, but flawed structure. The connective thread of love making fools out of people throughout eras was not strong enough to connect these segments properly. The cinematography is fine and the production design is stupendous in the Roman timeline, but the costumes were expectedly too campy in the Stone Age segment.
………………………………………………….
…………………………………………………..
Buster Keaton himself was solid here, but this is far from his best roles and movies overall. He just wasn’t as memorable here as he was in his best-known works. Margaret Leahy is his co-star and she was okay. This is known to be her only role in what constitutes one of the shortest of Hollywood movie careers. The romantic elements really should have been a lot stronger in order to properly sell this concept centered on love. The script is overstuffed for a comedy.
Three Ages is a structurally unique, but unevenly executed Buster Keaton comedy. While the Stone Age segment was pretty amusing and some sequences in the later two storylines were a lot of fun in their goofiness, Keaton himself wasn’t as memorable here as he was in his other movies while the pacing and editing were all over the place. It needed less story and more humor.
My Rating – 3.5
Results
#1. Which of these Buster Keaton movies were released in 1923 and 1924?
Select all that apply:
