Three Ages
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If you let your mind wander back through History you will find that the only thing that has not changed since the world began is — LOVE. Love is the unchanging axis on which the world revolves.
—opening title card
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For his first feature film, Buster Keaton made an Affectionate Parody of D. W. Griffith's Intolerance, in which a Love Triangle plays out in prehistoric times, during the Roman Empire, and in 1920s America. (The idea was that if the feature-length version flopped, it could be re-edited into three separate shorts.)
Tropes used in Three Ages include:
- Affectionate Parody
- All Cavemen Were Neanderthals
- Anachronism Stew: In the stone age and Roman eras.
- Ancient Rome
- Bamboo Technology
- Big Little Man: Caveman Buster tries to grab a woman lying on the ground by the hair and drag her away, as cavemen were apt to do back then. The woman stands up and turns out to be a good two feet taller than Buster.
- Discreet Drink Disposal
- Dragged by the Collar: A variation. In the stone age segments, female characters are sometimes dragged by their hair.
- Everything's Better with Dinosaurs
- Love Triangle
- Nubile Savage: Margaret Leahy, who plays the love interest in all three eras, got her start in films by winning a beauty contest.
- The Oner: A caveman throws a rock at Buster, who uses a club to smack the stone back at his attacker, beaning him. Buster made a point of doing this gag in a single, continuous shot.
- Roof Hopping: Subverted hard -- even using a plank as a springboard, he doesn't make it. (This was an actual mishap that was worked into the film.)
- Somewhere a Palaeontologist Is Crying
- Spoof Aesop: When The Roman-era boy winds up in a lion's cage, he recalls that someone, somewhere, did something to a lion's paw...and gives the lion a pedicure.
- Stop Motion: Used in the first Stone Age section so Buster can ride a dinosaur.
- Throw It In: The failed Roof Hopping.
- Unsuspectingly Soused