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Charlie Chaplin was the graceful mime, Harold Lloyd was the surprisingly athletic everyman, and Buster Keaton was The Great Stone Face. His expression never varied, but his acrobat's body performed the most astounding knockabout comedy and genuinely dangerous stunts in cinema. Other stars had stunt doubles, but Keaton not only performed his own stunts, he sometimes did the stunts for other actors in his films as well. Already a veteran of many short comedies, first with Fatty Arbuckle and then on his own, Buster Keaton cautiously entered the realm of feature length films in 1923 with "Three Ages", a spoof inspired in part by D.W. Griffiths' 1916 multi-era epic "Intolerance".
Surveying the eternal battle for love and glory in the Stone Age, Ancient Rome, and the Age of Prohibition, Three Ages was constructed as three thematically linked short subjects that could easily be un-linked and distributed separately if the longer film was not well received. In each segment the object of Buster's affection was Margaret Leahy, and his villainous rival was Wallace Beery. Riding dinosaurs in the Stone Age, chariots in Rome, and automobiles in the 1920s, Buster battled his larger foe for the hand of the lovely Miss Leahy.
Extras for Three Ages include excerpts from D.W. Griffiths' "Man's Genesis" of 1912, a survey of shooting locations for Three Ages, and three re-cuts of the film into stand-alone short films. Unlike Charlie Chaplin and Harold Lloyd, who owned the rights to their films and carefully protected the negatives and prints, Keaton's films were relatively neglected. Serious nitrate decomposition shows in the last part of Three Ages, the segment depicting the "present day" (1923). But the film is eminently watchable nonetheless.
This Kino Blu-ray release of Three Ages is packaged with Sherlock Jr., now one of Keaton's most popular feature length films, although not particularly successful at the time of its release in 1924. Sherlock Jr. has Keaton as a daydreaming movie projectionist who wants to be a detective. Displaying Keaton's skill as a film innovator, Sherlock Jr. has some of the earliest and best camera effects, clever and enjoyable today, but breathtaking in 1924. Extras include an audio commentary, a documentary on the making of the film, and a video "essay" about shooting locations.
The silent era would begin its rapid collapse less than five years after the release of Three Ages, but in the meantime Keaton would produce over a half dozen classic comedies that are among the finest films in cinematic history. Both Keaton and his screen rival from Three Ages, Wallace Beery, had rough and gravelly voices. For Beery this was no problem, as it fit his physique and the roles he played. But for Buster the advent of sound was the death knell for his career. He made a few sound films that were unsuccessful, then he appeared in occasional cameo bits in films such as Sunset Boulevard and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. His star faded, but has blazed increasingly brightly since his death, as better copies of his films have become available for home video. One of Hollywood's true originals and a genius of motion picture inventiveness, Buster Keaton has achieved a place of honor in the history of film, and in the hearts of his growing number of fans.
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