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Three Men and a Baby is a 1987 American comedy film directed by Leonard Nimoy. It stars Tom Selleck, Steve Guttenberg, and Ted Danson as three bachelors as they attempt to adapt their lives to de facto fatherhood with the arrival of the love child of one of the men. The script was based on the 1985 French film Trois hommes et un couffin.
| Three Men and a Baby | |
|---|---|
 Theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by | Leonard Nimoy |
| Screenplay by |
|
| Based on | Trois hommes et un couffin by Coline Serreau |
| Produced by | |
| Starring | |
| Cinematography | Adam Greenberg |
| Edited by | Michael A. Stevenson |
| Music by | Marvin Hamlisch |
Production companies | |
| Distributed by | Buena Vista Pictures Distribution |
Release date |
|
Running time | 102 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $11—15 million[1][2] |
| Box office | $240 million[3] |
The film was the biggest American box office hit of that year, surpassing Fatal Attraction and eventually grossing $167 million in the United States and Canada[4] and $240 million worldwide.[3] The film won the 1988 People's Choice Award for Favorite Comedy Motion Picture.[5] The film had received a sequel Three Men and a Little Lady (1990), which also featured Selleck, Guttenberg and Danson. A remake was announced in for Disney+ with Zac Efron among the cast.
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Architect Peter Mitchell, cartoonist Michael Kellam, and actor Jack Holden are happy bachelors in their shared New York apartment, with frequent parties and flings. One day, a baby named Mary arrives on their doorstep with a note revealing she is the result of Jack's tryst with an actress named Sylvia during a Stratford Festival Shakespearean production a year prior.
Jack is in Turkey shooting a B movie, and makes arrangements with a director friend to have a package delivered to the apartment. Jack asks his roommates to keep the delivery a secret per his friend's wishes; when Mary arrives, they believe she is the "package".
Peter and Michael are totally befuddled how to care for Mary, and Peter leaves to buy supplies. Their landlady Mrs. Hathaway delivers a small box – the actual "package" of heroin – which Michael tosses aside. They learn to care for Mary, including diaper changes, baths, and feedings.
Four days later, two drug dealers arrive at the apartment for the package. Peter and Michael mistakenly give them Mary, along with a can of powdered milk the dealers believe is the heroin. Peter discovers the actual package; realizing the mix-up, he runs downstairs but trips, spilling the package's contents. He gathers up the drugs and confronts the men outside, causing a scuffle. A police officer on horseback intervenes; Peter rescues Mary, but the dealers flee with the can of powdered milk. The officer detains Peter and Michael at the apartment until Sgt. Melkowitz, a narcotics officer, arrives to question them. Jack calls from Turkey, but Peter and Michael are unable to talk openly as they are being recorded. They successfully hide the drugs, learning that Jack's friend Paul Milner is a drug dealer. A suspicious Melkowitz puts them under surveillance.
Mrs. Hathaway babysits Mary while Peter and Michael go to work. Returning home, they find Mrs. Hathaway bound and gagged and the apartment ransacked by the dealers, but Mary safe; a note threatens, "Next time we'll take the baby". Peter and Michael continue to care for Mary, adjusting to 'fatherhood' and growing attached.
Peter incapacitates an intruder, who turns out to be Jack, returning early after his movie role was cut. Jack assures Peter and Michael he knew nothing about the heroin. He initially denies his connection to Mary, but Sylvia's note convinces him he is Mary's father. Peter and Michael pass all parenting responsibility to Jack, who quickly grows to love her.
They receive a news clipping in the mail – Milner has been attacked by the drug dealers and hospitalized – with another threat: "Don't let this happen to you!" Peter, Michael, and Jack formulate a plan to trap the dealers, arranging a meeting. Jack, disguised as a pregnant woman, leaves the building with Mary, while Peter and Michael leave in a cab, followed by undercover officers, but manage to lose them in another cab driven by Jack. The three meet the dealers at the top floor of a construction site. Michael, hidden in the vents, records Peter's conversation with the dealers but falls into the room, and a chase ensues. They manage to trap the dealers in an elevator as the police arrive. With the recording, they prove their innocence to Melkowitz, and the dealers are arrested.
Peter, Michael, and Jack fully embrace their role as Mary's guardians, until Sylvia arrives to take Mary with her to London. After she leaves with Mary, the three realize how desperately they miss the baby. Racing to the airport, they just miss Sylvia's plane for London. Defeated, they return home to find Sylvia and Mary at the door. Sylvia tearfully says she doesn't want to give up acting but must if she has to raise Mary alone. They invite her and Mary to move in; she accepts, and the four live happily with the baby.
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- Tom Selleck as Peter Mitchell, one of the 3 roommates, an architect and the center figure of the trio
- Steve Guttenberg as Michael Kellam, the youngest of the three roommates and a cartoonist
- Ted Danson as Jack Holden, one of the 3 roommates, a skilled actor and Mary's birth father
- Lisa and Michelle Blair as Mary, the baby and Jack's illegitimate daughter
- Margaret Colin as Rebecca, Peter's old flame
- Celeste Holm as Mrs. Holden, Jack's mother
- Nancy Travis as Sylvia Bennington, Mary's mother, an actress with whom Jack had a fling
- Alexandra Amini as Patty
- Peter Brown as Store Clerk
- Francine Beers as Woman at Gift Shop
- Philip Bosco as Sgt. Melkowitz, an NYPD narcotics detective
- John Gould Rubin as Paul Milner, a TV commercial director and Jack's friend
- Paul Guilfoyle as Vince, one of the drug dealers Milner had dealings with
- Earl Hindman as Satch, one of the drug dealers Milner had dealings with
- Barbara Budd as Actress
- Michael Burgess as Man at Party
- Claire Cellucci as Angelyne
- Eugene Clark as Man #2 at Party
- Derek de Lint as Jan Clopatz, Rebecca's new beau and a concert cellist
- Dave Foley as Grocery Store Clerk
- Jackie Richardson as Edna
- Cynthia Harris as Mrs. Hathaway, the landlady of the apartment complex the three men reside in
- Colin Quinn as Gift Shop Clerk
- Mario Joyner as taxi driver
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Mary was played by twins Lisa and Michelle Blair.[6]
The soundtrack included the Peter Cetera song "Daddy's Girl", which was used for the movie's big music montage sequence, the Miami Sound Machine song "Bad Boy", which opened it, and the John Parr song "The Minute I Saw You", which ended the film.
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Just over an hour into the final cut of the film, there is a scene that shows Jack and his mother (played by Celeste Holm) walking through the home with Mary. As they do so, they pass a background window on the left-hand side of the screen, and a black outline that appears to resemble a rifle pointed downward can be seen behind the curtains. As they walk back past the window 40 seconds later, a human figure can be seen in that window. A persistent urban legend began circulating August 1990 (shortly before the sequel, Three Men and a Little Lady, premiered) that this was the ghost of a boy who had been killed in the house where the film (or this scene) was filmed. The most common version of this myth was that a nine-year-old boy committed suicide with a shotgun there, explaining why it was vacant: because the grieving family left. This notion was discussed on the first episode of TV Land: Myths and Legends in January 2007, and was referenced in "Hollywood Babylon", a second-season episode of the TV series Supernatural.
The ghost rumours were widely believed for years, and the image, though chilling in retrospect, was taken out of context. This serves as a testament to how a ghost story can become exaggerated over time and ultimately accepted as truth.
The figure is actually a cardboard cutout "standee" of Jack, wearing a tuxedo and top hat, that was left on the set. It was created as part of the storyline, in which he, an actor, appears in a dog food commercial, but this portion was cut from the final version of the film. The standee does show up later in the film, when Jack stands next to it as Sylvia comes to reclaim Mary. Snopes.com contends that the one in the first scene looks smaller than it does in the later scene because of the distance and angle of the shot, and because the curtains obscure its outstretched arms. As for the contention that a boy died in the house, all the indoor scenes were shot on a Toronto sound stage, and no kind of residential dwellings were used for interior filming.[7][8]
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Critical response
The critical response to Three Men and a Baby was generally positive. On Rotten Tomatoes the film holds an approval rating of 67% based on reviews from 70 critics, and an average rating of 5.9/10. The site's consensus reads: "Like the French farce it's based on, Three Men and a Baby is too self-satisfied with scatalogical humor to qualify as a bundle of joy, but the role of makeshift daddy brings out the best in Tom Selleck".[9] Metacritic gave the film a score of 61 based on 16 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[10] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A−" on an A+ to F scale.[11]
Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times, despite noting several aspects he saw as flaws, praised the film, remarking: "Because of Selleck and his co-stars... the movie becomes a heartwarming entertainment". He gave it 3 (out of four) stars.[12] Janet Maslin of The New York Times wrote "this story is about four babies, not just one" and "the film bubbles along in a funny if predictable way, with a lot more gags than the earlier film managed".[6]
Box office
The film opened in theaters on Wednesday, November 25, 1987. It grossed $168 million in the United States and Canada[1][13][14] and $72 million internationally for a worldwide gross of $240 million.[3] It was notable for the Walt Disney Studios since it was the first production from the studio to gross over $100 million domestically in its initial run and its highest-grossing film at the time until surpassed in 1990 by Pretty Woman.[15][16] It was the highest-grossing film of 1987 domestically, with an estimated 42 million tickets sold in the US.[citation needed]
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The film was followed by a 1990 sequel titled Three Men and a Little Lady which also featuring Selleck, Guttenberg and Danson.[17][18] Guttenberg spoke about the two films in 2023, saying he felt the first was the strongest of the two films.[19]
Selleck said in 2010, Disney had spoken to him about a potential third film tentatively titled Three Men and a Bride.[20] Selleck later mentioned in 2013 that the third film "seemed to be real, and then it disappeared." while a Disney spokesman said that a new Three Men and a Baby entry was in development as of 2013. [21]
A remake was announced in 2020 for the Disney+ streaming service with Zac Efron set to be in the cast.[18] Maurice "Mo" Marable was chosen to direct the reboot in January 2021.[22] Marable stated than when "you go back and you watch the original Three Men and a Baby you go, "times have changed.""[23] Marable continued that "guys are not as stupid as they were back in the day. The cast will be very diverse, that's the only way I would do it.[23] As of 2023, Marable was still set to direct the remake as his first feature film.[24]
When asked about a reboot of the series, Guttenberg responded that he was not excited about it, saying that the audiences would prefer a sequel as they wanted to be reminded of a "better time. When you see a sequel, it reminds you what happened before. And you can come back to that."[19]
Adaptations
While direct inspiration has never been confirmed[failed verification], the television show Baby Daddy, an American sitcom that premiered in 2012 on ABC Family, has been compared to the film.[25][unreliable source?][26][unreliable source?][27]
This film also served as inspiration for other adaptations, and was remade in several regions:
- Balache Baap Brahmachari (1989) Marathi film[citation needed]
- Thoovalsparsham (1990) in Malayalam[citation needed]
- Chinnari Muddula Papa (1990) in Telugu[citation needed]
- Thayamma (1991) in Tamil[citation needed]
- Asathal (2001) in Tamil[citation needed]
- Heyy Babyy (2007) in Hindi[citation needed]
- 3 Dads (2017)[28] in Japanese[better source needed]
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- The Three Godfathers (novel) – 1913 novel by Peter B. Kyne
- My Two Dads – American sitcom
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