Three Ages Trivia Quiz

Answer: He's riding a dinosaur.

Keaton was willing to use special effects when necessary -- in this case, a stop-motion dinosaur. The mastodon was just an elephant with prosthetics added to its tusks to make them more impressive. Though Keaton falls down plenty of steep hills in his career, he doesn't in "Three Ages". And though he posed on a pony on the set of "Our Hospitality" (1923), to my knowledge he never rode one on film.

The part of the Beauty is played by Margaret Leahy. Leahy had won a beauty contest. The prize -- a role in a feature film with Norma Talmadge, Keaton's sister-in-law. Norma and her sister, film star Constance Talmadge, judged the contest. But when it turned out that Leahy couldn't act, director Frank Lloyd refused to work with her. Norma's husband, Joe Schenck, was Keaton's producer. He fobbed Leahy off on Keaton because he figured bad acting wouldn't do as much damage to a comedy as it would to a drama. Keaton was a good sport and did his best to work around his dead weight of a co-star, treating her with almost superhuman kindness and patience.

Leahy was never given a part -- even a bit part -- in another film. She, for her part, said sour grapes to the film industry, but evidently never recovered emotionally from the disappointment; at age 64, she burnt all her scrapbooks of her brief time in the spotlight, and died in an apparent suicide.

Answer: He knocks them each on the head with his club.

Papa Joe knocks Wallace on the arm, chest, leg, and head with his club, and finds him a solid specimen of a man. But one blow to Buster's head topples him. Papa Joe shoves Buster aside.

Keaton had known Big Joe Roberts since childhood, when Roberts had been a neighbor near the Keaton summer home in Muskegon, Michigan. Roberts was a favorite comic foil for Keaton, who used him in 18 of his films, and would no doubt have used him in more had Roberts not died of a stroke shortly after finishing filming on "Our Hospitality" (1923).

Answer: Using a stone Ouija board with a turtle as the pointer

Buster presents his card -- a flat rock with a cartoonish likeness of himself -- to gain entrance to the soothsayer. Buster wants the "Wee Gee" to tell him if he is loved. The turtle is placed on the board -- a large flat rock -- and Buster and the soothsayer place their fingertips on it. The four markers are skull, moon, star, and sun. The turtle goes to the sun -- then bites Buster's finger.

Here we get both a continuity error and a revealing mistake. In the medium-shot, Buster's hands are near the turtle's side. But in the close-up, Buster's right hand -- or, rather clearly, a hand double's right hand -- is directly in front of the turtle's mouth. Keaton often used hand doubles to hide the fact that he'd lost the tip of his right index finger as a small child.

Answer: A chariot with four sadly mismatched steeds

Buster's chariot is pulled by what appear to be a donkey, two mismatched horses, and a mule. The gags around his arrival take the form, mostly, of deliberate anachronisms such as a license plate and a no parking sign (in Latin).

When Buster and Wallace come before Margaret's father, seeking her hand, Papa Joe tells Wallace, "Thou rankest high in the Roman army --" before turning to Buster and declaring "and thou art the rankest!" Yes, in every age, Papa Joe prefers Wallace to Buster -- over Margaret's unheeded objections.

Answer: It hits a bump and falls apart.

The stunt is amazing to behold, with the car rolling along toward the camera, then disintegrating into a pile of disconnected parts atop a patch of missing pavement. Buster slides off the pile, clutching the steering wheel in one hand. He gives his now quite literal sorry heap a brief glance, throws the steering wheel down in disgust, and stomps off.

Answer: By their bank books

"Of course you gentlemen understand that my daughter's happiness hangs in the balance," she tells them. The balance, of course, being the balance in their bank books. She looks impressed with Wallace's bank book, from the First National Bank. Buster's is, of course, from the Last National Bank. It leaves Mama Lillian shocked and dismayed. Buster's reactions, as he peers into Wallace's bank book and reaches for his own, are subtle but eloquent. We don't need Mama Lillian's reaction to know Buster is broke.

Unlike Big Joe Roberts, who was in nearly every Keaton film until his death, Lillian Lawrence only played in this one Keaton film. Her film career, which ended with her death in 1926, spanned only 19 films. In contrast, Roberts was in 18 Keaton films over a 27-film career.

Answer: The woman falls madly in love with Buster and he has to shake her to resume courting Margaret.

In the Stone Age, Buster approaches a woman who is lying on a rock, overlooking the vista below. After his flirtations flop, the woman -- 6'2" Blanche Payson -- stands up and glares down at the petite Buster before smacking him with a club and knocking him backward off the cliff. Buster throws kisses to the camera as he falls into the water below -- getting his lucky dunking. Payson's career spanned over 130 films, from 1916 to 1946.

In the Roman Age, a beautiful, somewhat scantily-clad young woman saunters by and flirts with Buster. As he takes her in his arms to kiss her, she drops to the ground and the two begin wrestling.

In the Modern Age, Buster follows Margaret and Wallace into a restaurant and ends up drunk after a man pours his bootleg booze into a water carafe and leaves it on Buster's table. After Buster passes out, Wallace has the waiter bring a note to the girl Buster had been flirting with: "Get rid of that big boob and meet me outside. I am sitting behind you pretending to be asleep." The woman's boyfriend reads it, identifies Buster as the author, and clobbers him. Keaton said later that the gag was based on a real practical joke he'd seen somebody pull.

Answer: A chariot race

Buster used his wits rather than brute strength in the Stone Age duel, embedding a stone in his club. For this unsportsmanlike behavior, he is tied to the tail of the mastodon by his feet, and sent off to be dragged around on a world tour.

For the Roman Age chariot race, Buster again uses his wits. It's a snowy day, so he replaces his chariot's wheels with runners, and his mismatched equines with sled dogs. (He keeps a spare dog in the trunk.)

After losing the race, Roman Age Wallace dumps Buster into a lion's den. We'll get back to this later.

Answer: A game of football

Many of the names on the two opposing teams are the names of people involved in Keaton's film career, such as writers (Joseph) Mitchell, (Clyde) Bruckman, and (Jean) Havez; cinematographers (Elgin) Leslie and (William) McGann; actor (Kewpie) Morgan; electrician (Denver) Harmon; and (Lou) Anger, an old vaudeville friend who had introduced Keaton to Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle and thus launched his film career.

The game itself starts with Buster getting trampled, continues through various mishaps, and ends with Buster making a spectacular run to score the winning touchdown in his own unorthodox way.

Answer: He slips his flask of hooch into Buster's pocket so that Buster gets busted.

Through Wallace's trick, Buster gets arrested. And to add insult to injury, just as Buster is being hauled off, Wallace shows him the newspaper announcement: He and Margaret are to be married at noon tomorrow.

Wallace Beery had originally worked as an elephant trainer's assistant in the Ringling Brothers Circus -- which explains his comfort working with the elephant-mastodon in the Stone Age sequences. He was successful as a heavy in silent films, but really came into his own when sound films enabled filmmakers to take advantage of his deep voice. He won an Oscar for his role in "The Champ" (1931), and is perhaps best remembered for his role as Long John Silver in "Treasure Island" (1934).

Answer: He launches himself onto Wallace with the cavemen's makeshift catapult.

When Buster flies into Wallace, the rival is knocked over backward off the cliff. Buster grabs Margaret by the hair and drags her off, caveman style. She smiles in joy at being united with her beloved.

Biographer Edward McPherson said that Keaton used a double for the hair-dragging scene to hide his disfigured hand, but since his fingers are hidden by Leahy's wig, it's impossible to tell.

Answer: He gives it a manicure.

The intertitle tells us, "Somehow he vaguely remembered that somewhere -- sometime -- somebody made friends with some lion by doing something to some of its paws." Hence the manicure, which the lion seems to enjoy and appreciate very much indeed.

He gets rescued by Margaret's father, who spots him and lifts him out of the lion's lair by dangling a whip down for Buster to grab.

Unlike the usual animals in Keaton films, this lion is clearly a man in a costume. Not that Keaton was unwilling to deal with real lions -- he planted himself squarely between two of them in "Sherlock Jr." (1924). But giving a real lion a real manicure was too much even for Buster Keaton.

Answer: He tries -- unsuccessfully -- to leap onto the roof of another building.

Buster slips into a phone booth in the police station, and manages to escape when two workmen haul his phone booth off and replace it with another.

The rooftop leap is a spectacular failure, and an example of why Keaton always insisted that his cameramen continue filming no matter what, until Keaton yelled, "Cut" or was killed. In this case, Elgin Lessley and William McGann kept cranking as Keaton, who had fully intended to land on the other roof, missed sadly and slammed against the brick wall. His fingers brushed the ledge but he wasn't able to get a grip, and he fell into the safety net.

When he recovered from his injuries, Keaton checked the footage and was pleased with it. He elaborated on the stunt, dropping through three awnings before catching hold of a drain pipe which broke free and swung him down through a window into a firehouse, and down the firehouse pole onto the back of the fire truck -- which dumped him back in front of the police station he'd just escaped from.

Answer: He hauls her back to the church for a wedding of their own.

This scene belies Keaton's reputation as The Great Stone Face. His expression passes through solicitous care, resignation as he turns to leave Margaret, confusion as she beckons him back, through a patient and stoic curiosity, to quiet bliss, to a look of fierce determination as he flings his hat aside, grabs Margaret by the hand, and runs with her back to the taxi. And all that vivid emotion passes over his face in a little under 16 seconds.

Answer: By a little dog

Keaton loved to give his audience the unexpected. First age -- they got married, they had kids. Second age -- they got married, they had kids, making up in cleanliness and order what they lacked in numbers. And with the audience expecting perhaps one or two extremely fastidious children, Keaton threw a curve and gave them a yappy-looking little dog.

In closing it's worth pointing out that the intertitles in this first Keaton independent feature differ from his other intertitles, in that they have backgrounds to help the audience identify which age the scene is set in -- a rocky landscape, a Roman city, and a modern skyline.