The Three Ages

Rating:
Summary: Finally, a good copy!
Review: For years, public domain copies of The Three Ages have relied on a far from complete, contrasty 16mm print suffering from a lot of neglect and nitrate decomposition. The nicest thing about this DVD is Kino's greatest gift to the cinemaphile--you actually can see the movie. The pairing of Keaton with Beery is ingenious -- they even keep their own names in the "Modern Story."

Rating:
Summary: Finally, a good copy!
Review: For years, public domain copies of The Three Ages have relied on a far from complete, contrasty 16mm print suffering from a lot of neglect and nitrate decomposition. The nicest thing about this DVD is Kino's greatest gift to the cinemaphile--you actually can see the movie. The pairing of Keaton with Beery is ingenious -- they even keep their own names in the "Modern Story."

Rating:
Summary: First true Keaton feature (sort of) minor but enjoyable
Review: Keaton's first real attempt at a starring comedy (after The Saphead) hedged its bets by adopting an Intolerance-like structure that would have allowed him to cut it up into three shorts had it failed. Happily, it didn't and he soon went on to greater things. He plays three romantic losers vying for the same girl against the same bully in Caveman, Roman and Modern costumes. A minor but breezily enjoyable comedy; the tape is rounded out by My Wife's Relations, which is the one real dog among his short films, and The Boat, which is one of his best (it includes the famous image of Buster going down with the ship, only his porkpie hat remaining on the surface of the water).

Rating:
Summary: Buster - the best there ever was
Review: Keaton's Three Ages is one of his lesser works, but it shows the same attention to detail that would be so praised in his best-known work, The General. Keaton's comedy is so matter-of-fact that whenever he does a gag, it appears to make perfect sense to the viewer. If his Roman character is in a chariot race, and one of the dogs is lame, then of course he will stop, examine the dog, take a spare dog from a box on the back of the chariot, and exchange them!

My Wife's Relations does indeed reflect the tensions occurring in Keaton's married life at that time. He married Natalie Talmadge because she wanted to get married, and Buster seemed a likely prospect (I am quoting from various Keaton biographies here). The fact that he cast Natalie as the leading lady in Our Hospitality does not mean that they were getting along, but that he wanted to placate her. Keaton, who lived uneasily with his wife's relations, made the film as a way of complaining about his in-laws without actually voicing his complaints. The film is a bitingly funny one.

The Goat (in other words, scapegoat) is yet another fantastically funny short in which Keaton is a victim of fate. His sense of comedy was far beyond that of Chaplin or Lloyd, which is why it stands up so well today.

Rating:
Summary: This Set Contains My Favorite 2-Reeler
Review: THE THREE AGES (1923): "The Three Ages" is the telling of 3 love stories, set at 3 different periods in history: Stone Age, Roman, and Present (1920's). All 3 stories have the same plot: innocent Buster is competing for a girl who's also being wooed by a flashy rival, played by Wallace Beery in a pre-fame role. "The Three Ages" is Buster's debut as a feature-length movie star. Because it was his first try at the big reels, he decided to tell 3 stories, so that if he was displeased with the outcome, he could release the 3 stories as 2-reel shorts, the best of which, I think, is the 1920's-period sequence. "The Three Ages" worked out for him and was a hit when it was released, but I would not rank it as high as the classic features he made in the future, such as "The General" and "Steamboat Bill, Jr.". Still, it's fun to watch, and has clever gags.

THE GOAT (1921): Out of 35 Buster 2-reelers I've seen, "The Goat" is my personal favorite. One reason is because Buster intentionally made himself look like a moron by opening "The Goat" with a clever gag of himself getting into a long bread line that happens to end in front of a male clothing store, outside of which stand 2 mannequins that look like they're in the line, and which he gets behind and thinks are real guys. We see the line progressing towards the bread-receiving window, but Buster stays stationary because, of course, the mannequins are immobile. "The Goat" also includes the famous "bullseye" scene of Buster sitting on the nose of a train that's speeding directly towards the camera and stops just short of inches from it. "The Goat" contains some great street shots of Los Angeles in 1921. In the far distance, you can see some slow horse and wagon transportation eerily driving by, evidence that even in the early 1920's, the U.S. hadn't fully made the transition to 100% automobile. On the night I found out I wasn't getting promoted at my workplace, I decided it was either the neck of a whiskey bottle or "The Goat" that I was going to reach for. I chose "The Goat".

MY WIFE'S RELATIONS (1922): Charging him with a citizen's arrest, an old battleaxe brings Buster before a judge - a polish-only speaking judge - who thinks they want to get married. The judge performs the ceremony in a language the 2 don't understand, and they idiotically say "yes" to everything he asks them. Buster goes home to the shanty where his bride lives with her dad and loser brothers, and they start brow-beating him right away. Ho-hum...Buster makes the best of a bad situation. When the family erroneously finds out that he's coming into an inheritance, they kiss his you-know-what, until the end of this 2-reeler, when they find out he hasn't got a dime, and go back to beating him up again. "My Wife's Relations" is thought by Buster scholars to have been based on his real-life domestic situation, involving his wife Natalie's famous actress sisters and their overbearing mother.

Rating:
Summary: This Set Contains My Favorite 2-Reeler
Review: THE THREE AGES (1923): "The Three Ages" is the telling of 3 love stories, set at 3 different periods in history: Stone Age, Roman, and Present (1920's). All 3 stories have the same plot: innocent Buster is competing for a girl who's also being wooed by a flashy rival, played by Wallace Beery in a pre-fame role. "The Three Ages" is Buster's debut as a feature-length movie star. Because it was his first try at the big reels, he decided to tell 3 stories, so that if he was displeased with the outcome, he could release the 3 stories as 2-reel shorts, the best of which, I think, is the 1920's-period sequence. "The Three Ages" worked out for him and was a hit when it was released, but I would not rank it as high as the classic features he made in the future, such as "The General" and "Steamboat Bill, Jr.". Still, it's fun to watch, and has clever gags.

THE GOAT (1921): Out of 35 Buster 2-reelers I've seen, "The Goat" is my personal favorite. One reason is because Buster intentionally made himself look like a moron by opening "The Goat" with a clever gag of himself getting into a long bread line that happens to end in front of a male clothing store, outside of which stand 2 mannequins that look like they're in the line, and which he gets behind and thinks are real guys. We see the line progressing towards the bread-receiving window, but Buster stays stationary because, of course, the mannequins are immobile. "The Goat" also includes the famous "bullseye" scene of Buster sitting on the nose of a train that's speeding directly towards the camera and stops just short of inches from it. "The Goat" contains some great street shots of Los Angeles in 1921. In the far distance, you can see some slow horse and wagon transportation eerily driving by, evidence that even in the early 1920's, the U.S. hadn't fully made the transition to 100% automobile. On the night I found out I wasn't getting promoted at my workplace, I decided it was either the neck of a whiskey bottle or "The Goat" that I was going to reach for. I chose "The Goat".

MY WIFE'S RELATIONS (1922): Charging him with a citizen's arrest, an old battleaxe brings Buster before a judge - a polish-only speaking judge - who thinks they want to get married. The judge performs the ceremony in a language the 2 don't understand, and they idiotically say "yes" to everything he asks them. Buster goes home to the shanty where his bride lives with her dad and loser brothers, and they start brow-beating him right away. Ho-hum...Buster makes the best of a bad situation. When the family erroneously finds out that he's coming into an inheritance, they kiss his you-know-what, until the end of this 2-reeler, when they find out he hasn't got a dime, and go back to beating him up again. "My Wife's Relations" is thought by Buster scholars to have been based on his real-life domestic situation, involving his wife Natalie's famous actress sisters and their overbearing mother.

Rating:
Summary: Surreal, Wacky Comedy!
Review: THE THREE AGES is Buster Keaton's parody of D.W. Griffith's INTOLERANCE. Buster and Wallace Beery star as romantic rivals for the hand of pretty Margaret Leahy. The twist is that the story is told thrice by intercutting between three time periods: prehistoric, Ancient Rome, and Modern Times (1920's). The gags are fast and furious and many are truly surreal; highlights include caveman Buster attempting to woo Amazonian Blanche Payson, a Roman chariot race hindered by snow(!), and a beautifully constructed chase sequence with Buster escaping from a police station and inadvertantly returning there a few minutes later. The Kino source print has apparently been pieced together from the best available materials and with a few minor exceptions is sharp and clear. It also has a nicely done music score conducted by Robert Israel. As a sidenote, many filmographies list Oliver Hardy in the cast. The actor in question is in fact a near-Hardy lookalike named Kewpie Morgan.

Rating:
Summary: Surreal, Wacky Comedy!
Review: THE THREE AGES is Buster Keaton's parody of D.W. Griffith's INTOLERANCE. Buster and Wallace Beery star as romantic rivals for the hand of pretty Margaret Leahy. The twist is that the story is told thrice by intercutting between three time periods: prehistoric, Ancient Rome, and Modern Times (1920's). The gags are fast and furious and many are truly surreal; highlights include caveman Buster attempting to woo Amazonian Blanche Payson, a Roman chariot race hindered by snow(!), and a beautifully constructed chase sequence with Buster escaping from a police station and inadvertantly returning there a few minutes later. The Kino source print has apparently been pieced together from the best available materials and with a few minor exceptions is sharp and clear. It also has a nicely done music score conducted by Robert Israel. As a sidenote, many filmographies list Oliver Hardy in the cast. The actor in question is in fact a near-Hardy lookalike named Kewpie Morgan.

Rating:
Summary: The Bus Man Cometh
Review: This is one of the Bus Man's lesser known, but certainly not lesser works.

Three Ages is a tad jarring at first, because the three tales of romance mix ups criscross between the Flinstonic era (haha), Ancient Rome, and the Roaring 20s. Even if you don't usually like romatic comedy, the Bus man's personality and brilliant comic timing will make you smile and laugh. I'm not really sure if our man is actually being dragged by an elephant in the caveman scenes, but the lion he deals with in the Roman segment is obviously fake. The pre-Lost world animated segments of the Bus man riding the dinosaur is impressing and amusing even for modern audiences.

In either case, while this isn't exactly a knee-slapper, it's certainly an amusing and pleasant way to spend an hour and a half, as well as the shorts.

Rating:
Summary: The Three Ages/ THE GOAT/ My Wife's Relations
Review: THREE AGES is Buster's first feature where he has creative control. This is three shorts within a feature. Many great moments in each of the "Three Ages". I love the race scene with the dogs. In my view, The Three Ages is just a notch below his greatest movies, which is to say it is still a classic. This tape also includes two shorts: The Goat and My Wife's Relations.

THE GOAT IS BUSTER'S BEST SHORT and maybe the funniest short EVER made. Buster is mistaken for a killer "Dead Eye Dan". Big Joe Roberts plays the heavy.