Three Men and a Baby

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Three Men and a Baby

Three Men and a Baby DVD cover
Directed by Leonard Nimoy
Produced by Robert W. Cort
Ted Field
Written by Jim Cruickshank
James Orr
Coline Serreau (for Trois hommes et un couffin)
Starring Tom Selleck
Steve Guttenberg
Ted Danson
Nancy Travis
Music by Marvin Hamlisch
Distributed by Buena Vista Pictures
Release date(s) November 25, 1987 (USA)
Running time 102 min.
Language English
IMDb profile

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).

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 US alone[1]. 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.

Contents

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

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".

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.

A rumour went around that a boy killed himself during filming and his ghost can be seen in the movie. But the "dead boy" was actually a cardboard cutout of Ted Danson's character [2] (though the rumor is still debated). Other versions of the rumor are:

  • That the boy was the grandson of the rumoured "hanging man" in The Wizard of Oz.
  • The boy had been killed in the "flat" where the movie was filmed. In reality, it was filmed on a sound stage.

This rumour is an example of an urban legend. This was first topic discussed on the first episode of "TV Land's Myths and Legends"

The movie was filmed in Toronto. The construction scenes took place at Scotia Plaza, a major skyscraper that was being built at the time.

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