Three Men and a Baby

Infobox Film | name = Three Men and a Baby


caption = Theatrical release poster
director = Leonard Nimoy
producer = Robert W. Cort
Ted Field
writer = Jim Cruickshank
James Orr
Coline Serreau (for "Trois hommes et un couffin")
starring = Tom Selleck
Steve Guttenberg
Ted Danson
Nancy Travis
Lisa and Michelle Blair
music = Marvin Hamlisch
cinematography =
editing =
distributor = Touchstone Pictures
released = November 25, 1987 (USA)
runtime = 102 min.
country = USA
budget = $15 million
language = English
preceded_by =
followed_by = "Three Men and a Little Lady"
imdb_id = 0094137

"Three Men and a Baby" is a 1987 comedy film starring Tom Selleck, Steve Guttenberg, and Ted Danson. It follows the mishaps and adventures of three bachelors as they attempt to adapt their lives to pseudo-fatherhood with the arrival of one of the men's love child. The script for the film was based on the 1985 French movie "Trois hommes et un couffin (Three Men and a Cradle)". The 1987 ABC television sitcom "Full House" was based loosely on the film concept.

The eponymous baby was played by twins Lisa Blair and Michelle Blair [cite web|url=http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B0DE3D9173DF936A15752C1A961948260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all|title=Film Review: Three Men and a Baby|last=Maslin|first=Janet|date=November 25, 1987|publisher=NY Times|accessdate=2008-06-29]

"Three Men and a Baby" was the biggest box office hit of that year, surpassing "Fatal Attraction" and eventually grossing US$167 million in the United States alone. [ [http://boxofficemojo.com/yearly/chart/?yr=1987&p=.htm 1987 Yearly Box Office Resulsts] from Box Office Mojo] The movie was Leonard Nimoy's first non-"Star Trek" movie directorial role.

The soundtrack included the Peter Cetera song "Daddy's Girl", which was used for the movie's big music montage sequence.

The movie won the 1988 ASCAP award and the 1988 People's Choice Award for Favorite Comedy Motion Picture.

The movie was followed by the 1990 sequel, "Three Men and a Little Lady".

Plot

Peter Mitchell (Selleck), Michael Kellam (Guttenberg) and Jack Holden (Danson) are happy living their lives as bachelors in their lofty New York City apartment which they share. They all have girlfriends, jobs and a carefree lifestyle. This is disrupted when a baby arrives on their doorstep one day. A note with the child, Mary, indicates that it is Holden's, the result of an affair with a recent co-star actress. The baby arrives in Holden's absence—he is in Turkey shooting a movie—and his roommates mistakenly believe they are to deliver her to two men who arrive at their door asking for "the package".

When the baby arrives, Peter is forced to go the supermarket to shop for the baby's requirements while he left Michael with the crying baby. At the store, Peter has to spend ages making sure he is buying the right types of diapers, pacifers etc while Michael was left with a screaming baby for ages, annoying him. During this time, the baby does a poo in her diaper so, when Peter finally returns with multiple bags, he smells a nasty stench. The two men were left to change the baby's soiled diaper, resulting in comical fashion. They grimaced when they took the diaper off and, when using the wet wipes, Peter takes the whole pack at once to clean the poo with! He had also brought the wrong size diapers so the baby peed when the men tried to put a large diaper on her!

They discover moments before their departure that the men are drug dealers who were actually seeking a package of heroin. They retrieve the infant, leaving the men with a bottle of powdered milk.

What results is a major change to the men's lives as they try to adjust to pseudo fatherhood—balancing the demands of work, a social schedule and the rearing of a child. Soon their paternal instincts take hold, and they grow attached to the child.

The drug dealers, demanding payment, ransack the men's apartment looking for their drugs. The men formulate a plan to trap the dealers when they negotiate a deal to deliver the illicit goods.

Finally the baby's mother arrives, asking for Mary back. Moments before her departure back to England, Sylvia (Nancy Travis) realizes she cannot give up her career to raise her daughter alone. The men, having grown attached to the child, invite her to move into their apartment with them.

Urban legend

In the final cut of the movie, there is a scene, just over an hour into the film, in which Jack Holden (Ted Danson) and his mother (Celeste Holm) walk through the house with the baby. As they do so, they pass a background window on the lefthand side of the screen, and a black outline that appears to resemble a rifle pointed down can be seen behind the curtains. As the characters 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 film's 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 movie was filmed. The most common version of this rumor was that a nine-year-old boy committed suicide with a shotgun there, which is inspired by the earlier shape. This notion was discussed on the first episode of "" in January 2007 [ [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0946709/ TV Land: Myths and Legends at the Internet Movie Database] ] and was referenced on an episode of "Family Guy", and in "Hollywood Babylon", a second season episode of the TV series "Supernatural". A variation of the legend states that the ghost was Eric Clapton's son Conor, who died of a fall from a 53rd story window in 1991, over three years after the movie was released. The variation states that Clapton allowed the movie to be filmed in his New York City condominium [ [http://www.snopes.com/music/songs/tears.asp Urban Legends Reference Pages: Eric Clapton's Tears in Heaven] from Snopes.com]

However, according to Snopes.com, a website dedicated to investigating urban legends, the figure is a cardboard cutout "standee" of Jack, wearing a tuxedo and top hat, that was left on the set. This prop was created as part of the storyline, in which Jack, an actor, appears in a dog food commercial, but this portion of the story was cut from the final version of the film. The standee does show up later in the film, however, when Jack stands next to it as the baby's mother comes to reclaim her child. Snopes contends that the figure in the first scene looks smaller from its appearance in the latter 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 in the film were shot on a Toronto soundstage, and no residential dwellings were used for interior filming. [ [http://www.snopes.com/movies/films/3menbaby.asp "Three Men and a Ghost"; snopes.com; January 9, 2007.] ] [ [http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/section?category=ANSWERMAN "The Questions That Will Not Die"; rogerebert.suntimes.com; March 6, 2008.] ]

Production

The movie was filmed in Toronto. The construction scenes took place at Scotia Plaza, a major skyscraper that was being built at the time.Fact|date=March 2008

References

Box Office Leaders USA
before = The Running Man
date = November 29
date2 = December 13
year = 1987
after = Throw Momma from the Train Box Office Leaders USA
before = Eddie Murphy Raw
date = December 27
date2 = January 17
year = 1987
year2 = 1988
after = Good Morning, Vietnam