{"id":3881,"date":"2024-09-06T14:53:53","date_gmt":"2024-09-06T14:53:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=3881"},"modified":"2024-10-14T11:58:25","modified_gmt":"2024-10-14T15:58:25","slug":"three-men-and-a-baby","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/09\/06\/three-men-and-a-baby\/","title":{"rendered":"Three Men and a Baby"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Three Men and a Baby <\/strong>(1987)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Touchstone\/Comedy-Drama\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 102 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG (language, sexual references, drug material)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Leonard Nimoy\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Jim Cruickshank and James Orr\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Marvin Hamlisch\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Adam Greenberg\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: November 25, 1987 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Tom Selleck, Steve Guttenberg, Ted Danson, Margaret Colin, Celeste Holm, Nancy Travis, Lisa and Michelle Blair, Philip Bosco, Paul Guilfoyle, Earl Hindman, Cynthia Harris, Derek de Lint, John Gould Rubin.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: $167.7M (US)<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: *** \u00bd<\/p>\n

\u00a0American remakes of French comedies are always hit-or-miss. They\u2019ll either be horrible (e.g. Pure Luck, Father\u2019s Day) or great (e.g. The Woman in Red, The Birdcage). Three Men and a Baby<\/strong> definitely belongs in the latter category. A re-deux of Trois Hommes et un Couffin<\/em> (Three Men and a Cradle), it stays pretty faithful to Coline Serreau\u2019s comedy about three swinging bachelors and the baby that changes their lives forever. I saw this version a long time ago on cable and don\u2019t remember a lot about it. The American version, on the other hand, I\u2019ve seen multiple times. It\u2019s just as enjoyable now as it was when I first saw it in December \u201987. That\u2019s right, I didn\u2019t see Three Men and a Baby<\/strong> on opening day. Call it temporary insanity, but I opted to see Teen Wolf Too that day. It\u2019s a decision I regret to this day.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The three men at the center of Three Men and a Baby<\/strong> are architect Peter (Selleck, Magnum PI), cartoonist Michael (Guttenberg, Police Academy 1-4) and actor Jack (Danson, Cheers). They share an apartment in NYC where they see more than their fair share of action- i.e. women and parties. That all changes with the arrival of a baby… at their front door. She\u2019s Jack\u2019s daughter, the result of a tryst the year before with an actress named Sylvia (Travis, So I Married an Axe Murderer). Peter and Michael are understandably perplexed. Jack told them a package would be delivered to the apartment for a friend of his and they should just put it aside until somebody comes to pick it up. He\u2019s off in Turkey shooting a movie when baby Mary arrives leaving his two clueless roommates to care for her.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Naturally, Peter and Michael think Mary is the \u201cpackage\u201d, but she obviously isn\u2019t. The real package arrives just moments after Mary. In all the confusion, they throw it aside and forget about it until they hand the baby off to two drug dealers, Vince (Guilfoyle, Howard the Duck) and Satch (Hindman, Home Improvement). It turns out the actual package contains bags of heroin. The guys realize their mistake and retrieve Mary, but now they\u2019re persons of interest to narcotics detective Sgt. Melkowitz (Bosco, The Dream Team).<\/p>\n

\u00a0All of this goes down before Jack returns home. Naturally, he\u2019s shocked to learn he\u2019s a daddy. Although his two friends initially leave him to figure out the art of caring for a baby on his own, they eventually become a paternal unit. Then Sylvia shows up at the door asking for her baby back.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I don\u2019t have any major criticisms of Three Men and a Baby<\/strong>. I think it\u2019s a delightful film when it sticks to the main plot. It\u2019s an ideal situation to mine for laughs. There are so many comic possibilities in three single men taking care of a baby. Take the scene where Selleck\u2019s character goes to the market to buy a jar of baby food for their unexpected guest. He quickly learns it\u2019s not that simple, especially since he doesn\u2019t know how old the baby is. He ends up going to several stores and buying a ton of stuff- e.g. formula, nipples, bottles and diapers in different sizes. It leads to a hilarious scene of Peter and Michael attempting to change a diaper. They have no idea what they\u2019re doing, of course. It may be a familiar situation, but director Leonard Nimoy makes it work. Yes, that Leonard Nimoy, Mr. Spock himself. It turns out the Vulcan has a gift for comedy and sweetness.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I\u2019ll concede that the drug subplot is an uneasy fit, but it doesn\u2019t ruin the movie. What I mean to say is I don\u2019t mind it myself, but I can see where other viewers would be put off by it. It\u2019s a little jarring when action movie motifs turn up in a cute, heartwarming comedy. But like I said, it doesn\u2019t hurt Three Men and a Baby<\/strong> too badly. All it does is distract from the main plot for a bit. Thankfully, it doesn\u2019t figure into the movie\u2019s climactic scene of the guys racing to the airport to stop Sylvia from leaving with Mary. I know, a mad dash to an airport is one of the biggest movie clich\u00e9s ever. So what? Nimoy makes it work too.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Selleck, Guttenberg and Danson all do a terrific job in Three Men and a Baby<\/strong>. Their comic performances as they fumble and stumble through a crash course in baby-rearing are brilliant. The love they develop for Mary is sweet and touching. Veteran actress Celeste Holm (All About Eve) has a great scene as Danson\u2019s mother who refuses to take Mary off his hands; it\u2019s time he learned to be a responsible adult. Really, the entire cast does a fine job.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The bottom line is this: Three Men and a Baby<\/strong> is genuinely funny. It\u2019s also sweet and good-hearted. Today, it\u2019s an oasis in a desert of crude, mean-spirited comedies. A remake starring Zac Efron (Neighbors 1 & 2) is reportedly in the works. I\u2019m afraid to think what the makers might do to it. Thank you, but I\u2019ll stick with the one from \u201987. It\u2019s nice and I like it that way.\"\"<\/p>\n

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Three Men and a Baby (1987)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Touchstone\/Comedy-Drama\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 102 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG (language, sexual references, drug material)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Leonard Nimoy\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Jim Cruickshank and James Orr\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Marvin Hamlisch\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Adam Greenberg\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: November 25, 1987 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Tom Selleck, Steve Guttenberg, Ted Danson, Margaret Colin, Celeste Holm, Nancy Travis, Lisa and Michelle Blair, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5627,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3881","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-comedies"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/Three-Men-and-a-Baby-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3881","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3881"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3881\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5630,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3881\/revisions\/5630"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5627"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3881"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3881"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3881"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}