Three Men and a Baby

Em: 00:02:23

Hi, everyone, I'm Em, and welcome to verbal diorama. Episode 345, three men and a Baby.

This is a podcast that's all about the history and legacy of movies you know and movies you don't that doesn't have kids but knows those nappies are far too big for that baby. Welcome to Verbal Diorama. Whether you're a brand new listener, whether you're a regular returning listener, thank you so much for being here.

Thank you so much for choosing to listen to this podcast. I'm so happy to have you here for the history and legacy of Three Men and a Baby.

And as always, if you are a regular returning listener, thank you so much for continuing to listen and support this podcast over the last seven years and now 345 episodes. That's quite a nice number. Three, four, five. Thank you for your support. It genuinely means so much.

And if you are a brand new listener, welcome to this podcast. Hopefully you will become a regular returning listener. And as I said, there's lots of episodes there for you to pick and choose from.

This month on the podcast has been very different, but also super fun as well.

I've done two double episodes, something completely different, where I picked two similar movies that had the same concept and did a versus between them. And both of them have had really good receptions.

So I will definitely go back to more twin movies in the near future because people seem to really love the idea of pitching two movies against each other and obviously the history and legacy of each and how the history and legacy of each kind of intertwine with each other. So I did Dante's Peak and Volcano and Deep Impact and Armageddon.

And yeah, I've had some really lovely comments about both of those episodes, so thank you so much. Deep Impact and Armageddon did extremely well, like the best that a debut's ever had on this podcast.

So people clearly love Armageddon and maybe they also love Deep Impact as well. And then I did an episode on Ever after, which is my personal favourite, Cinderella Story. So very different month.

And finishing out the month with something again, very different. A very 80s comedy about parenthood and fatherhood and how men just simply can't look after children without it causing general comedic hijinks.

In April, I did an episode on Short Circuit and a movie that has simultaneously aged poorly and actually well in the depiction of Number Five, who I still think is a marvellous creation. And in that movie was Steve Gutenberg.

And remembering how much of a force he was in the 80s, I immediately bumped three men and a Baby up the schedule because it's always kind of been there, hovering.

But I really wanted to do more Steve Gutenberg because this is the movie I remember him from the most other than Police Academy, which was will come to this podcast at some point too. And it was just a movie that I watched a lot as a kid, but I never really watched as an adult. And so obviously I rewatched it for this podcast.

And, you know, minus the whole drug smuggling thing, it's actually a really fun, sweet movie. So let's jump into it. Here's the trailer for Three Men and a Baby.

Em: 00:07:41

Peter, an architect, Jack, an actor, and Michael, a cartoonist, live lives of eternal bachelors in a Manhattan penthouse designed by Peter. After Peter's birthday party, Jack leaves to film a movie in Turkey.

Before he flies out, he calls his roommates and tells them that a friend of his needs a small package held at the penthouse for a few days until his associates come to pick it up. When a baby girl, Mary, is left on the doorstep, Peter and Michael mistaken her to be the mystery package.

And with the baby is a note saying she is Jack's daughter. Peter and Michael have no idea how to look after a baby.

And when their landlady delivers a small box, the actual package, which contains drugs, it gets tossed aside. At first they struggle to care for Mary, but soon get the hang of childcare, including nappy changes, baths and feedings.

Four days later, two drug dealers arrive at the apartment for the package. Peter and Michael mistakenly give them Mary before realising what they actually came for. Let's run through the cast.

We have Tom Selleck as Peter Mitchell, Steve Guttenberg as Michael Kellum, Ted Danson as Jack Holden, Margaret Colin as Rebecca, Celeste Holm as Mrs. Holden, Nancy Travis as Sylvia Bennington, Philip Bosco as Sergeant Melkowitz, Paul Guilfoyle as Vince, Cynthia Harris as Mrs. Hathaway and Michelle and Lisa Blair as Mary.

Three men and a Baby has a screenplay by Jim Cruikshank and James Orr, was directed by Leonard Nimoy and was based on Trois Homme et un Couffin by Coline Serreau. It's a tale as old as time.

d it all happened in Paris in: 1985

That was Three Men and a Cradle, or in French, Trois Homme et un Couffin.

winning three Cesar Awards in: 1986

starts at Disney in the early: 1980

The studio had spent years asking itself what Walt would have done, and the answer wasn't working. Disney started the decade reeling from decisions that had been made to cut costs, and its animation division was struggling.

The: 1970

Live action family films starring the likes of Don Knotts and Jodie Foster were keeping the lights on, but Disney as a brand was hobbled. The rise of Steven Spielberg and George Lucas as the new masters of cinematic imagination didn't help either.

on's crisis came to a Head in: 1985

The Black Cauldron had been in development for over a decade and ended up costing $25 million, the most expensive animated feature ever made at that point, double the budget of its predecessor, the Fox and the Hound. It took in only $21 million domestically. The studio's animation unit was gutted.

Animators were relocated to a rundown building in a sketchy neighbourhood and the division looked like it was end of feature animation entirely. That is covered in more detail in episode 241 on the Black Cauldron.

So I would highly recommend, if you are interested in that period in Disney animation, please listen to that episode.

February: 1984

domestically in the summer of: 1984

He immediately brought in Jeffrey Katzenberg to operate under the Touchstone and Hollywood Pictures banners. Katzenberg focused the studio on adult orientated comedies through Touchstone.

In: 1986

Flash Films in the summer of: 1986

the American version going in: 5050

With Coline Serreau already attached as a director, the hunt went on for stars who were known to the public but cheap.

f of Magnum PI which ran from: 1980

A long list of names were considered for Jack, Jeff Daniels, Danny Glover, John Hurd, Kevin Klein, Gary Oldman, Bill Pullman and Dennis Quaid among them. Ted Danson was cast fresh off his fame as Sam Malone on Cheers, which gave the movie a second major TV heartthrob alongside Tom Selleck.

Selleck and Danson were seen as outliers because in those days TV stars were TV stars and very few successfully crossed over into movie stars. Steve Guttenberg was different. He was riding high in the movies at the time.

He'd recently starred in Cocoon, multiple Police Academy films and Short Circuit, making him one of the busiest comedy stars of the mid-80s. And he was the one who was seen to have the most potential star power.

But even he was struggling with his career, finding himself in more Police Academy movies than he probably wanted to be associated with, and struggling to find focus in his career up to that point.

Rounding out the cast would be big screen newcomer Nancy Travis, not British, but American, putting on an accent as well as Academy Award winner Celeste Holm as Jack's mother.

Shortly before filming was due to begin, Coline Serreau left the remake for health reasons, although a later report indicated that she was fired after repeatedly clashing with the screenwriters and studio executives. And so then the search was on for a director to replace her.

But as I mentioned, Michael Eisner had come over from Paramount, and during his tenure as studio chief, he had overseen the Star Trek movie sequels. And after the success of Star Trek the Wrath of Khan, another previous episode of this podcast, that's episode 266.

Leonard Nimoy was excited to return as Spock. In fact, he was so excited he wanted to Direct Star Trek 3.

Michael Eisner was reluctant to hire Nimoy, but Nimoy persuaded him and Star Trek the Search for Spock became his directorial debut. Critics praised his direction on the movie, and it would lead to Nimoy returning to direct Star Trek the Voyage Home.

Leonard Nimoy was an unlikely but effective choice to direct Three Men and a Baby. He'd already proven himself commercially with Star Trek 3 and 4, and Nimoy was trusted by both Eisner and Katzenberg to deliver cheap and quick.

Star Trek IV was also deliberately comedic in tone, and it had been a massive commercial and critical success. It was essentially Nimoy's audition reel for a comedy. Without anyone realizing it at the time.

Leonard Nimoy came on board as a director just five weeks before shooting began. By the time he arrived, all three actors were already cast, the set was already under construction, and a search for the babies was already underway.

With the principal cast already hired, Nimoy was the new kid on the block, and he arrived to some scepticism.

However, he fully understood what he was there to do, and during the two week rehearsal period before filming, he encouraged the three leads, then bachelors Tom Selleck and Steve Guttenberg and the long married Ted Danson to go out on the town in Toronto where they were Filming to connect as a threesome, they visited clubs, bars and restaurants to help them connect with each other and the feeling of bachelorhood they needed to project on screen. And it worked because the three men genuinely became good friends.

Nimoy reviewed videotape footage of around 200 sets of twin girls for the role of Mary before narrowing the search down to four sets of twins, which were then brought in to be seen in person before the final choice was made.

The reason twins were used was practical because child labour laws strictly limit how long an infant can be on set, so casting twins effectively doubled the available filming time.

Identical twins Lisa and Michelle Blair were just four months old when they were cast, and their mother Geriann described the whole thing as a bit of a fluke.

She'd been on maternity leave, heard about the casting call and thought it would just be a fun day out in Toronto with her daughters and believing it was just for a single scene in a movie. Fortunately, Lisa and Michelle were naturals. They say never work with children or animals.

But despite Nimoy's fears that the babies wouldn't perform when they were supposed to, he found both were consummate professionals and always hit their cues. They became enamoured by the boom mics on set. They would follow it with their eyes rather than looking at the cast.

So Nimoy and his crew had to start hiding and disguising the microphone and to keep their eyelines where they needed them. And when one of the babies pees on Tom Selleck in the movie, that was apparently Lisa, but Michelle also did pee on him on a separate occasion.

Lisa is the twin featured in the iconic film's poster, which was photographed by Annie Leibowitz. The wet spot visible on Tom Selleck's shirt in that shot. That was also Lisa's doing.

Neither twin pursued acting beyond the film and baby Mary would be recast for the sequel. Three Men and a Baby remains Michelle's only screen credit.

e one further appearance in a: 1999

graphy ran from April to June: 1987

Because there is an urban legend associated with Three Men and a Baby.

And in August: 1990

The urban legend claimed the figure was the ghost of a boy who had once lived in the house used for filming, and most versions of the rumour claim the boy died by shooting himself with a rifle, after which his grieving parents abandoned the house.

In reality, it was a cardboard standee of Ted Danson's character Jack, dressed in a tuxedo and top hat that had been left on the set, and it was filmed on a soundstage in Toronto, not in a house. The prop was created for a subplot in which Jack appears in a dog food commercial, but this was cut from the final version of the film.

So, sadly, no, there is no ghost visible in Three Men and a Baby, and there never has been. Three Men and a Baby marked a tonal difference between it and the movie it was a remake of.

The movies appear to exist in almost polar opposite worlds, one where people are enamoured with babies and one where they're treated as an annoyance. In the French film, the men never verbally express the depth of their pain.

Their attachment to Marie is conveyed through attitude, glances and behaviour rather than dialogue, reflecting the French masculine ideal of impenetrable strength. The American version takes the opposite approach. The men are openly demonstrative, proudly taking Mary out in public.

The original plot remains mostly intact in the remake, with one significant exception. The American drug dealers are caught and the men help the police bring them in, whereas in the French film the dealers get away.

The men in the American version develop a rapport with the police inspectors, with one officer even wanting to hold Mary, which is a warmth entirely absent from the French film, where the police are more aggressive and the men are under much tighter surveillance. And the endings are different as well.

The American version closes with all four adults, Peter, Michael, Jack and Sylvia, living together happily, with baby Mary as an unconventional family unit in their penthouse apartment. The French version opts for something closer to shared custody, which is a much less Hollywood ending.

Serreau and Nimoy treated the material differently. Nimoy's remake externalizes everything. It's broader comedy, brightly lit and with a tidier resolution.

They reveal fundamentally different assumptions about what an audience wants from a film and and the differences between French and American comedy. Three Men and a Baby is less of a translation and more of a cultural reinterpretation.

er Leonard Nimoy's passing in: 2015

me I met Leonard Nimoy was in: 1986

He showed me a model of the set and spoke about how these three characters were going to form one complete man who'd raised the little girl. He and his wife Susan cooked dinner.

ith Broderick Crawford in the: 1950

When we were making Three Men, his plan was to make us a family. He was always encouraging us to go to dinner together. He was manipulating the experience with a heart. He wasn't a Machiavellian manipulator.

He was a Mother Teresa manipulator. I felt he was especially protective of me. Once we were walking outside the hotel and there were fans who wanted to take pictures, which we did.

As he walked away, he said, the camera takes your soul. Be careful of that. I think he meant it as a metaphor for the business, but he was really serious.

I was like, okay, I won't let the camera take my soul. And this is the ideal time to segue into the obligatory Keanu reference of this episode and

Em: 00:24:52

And if you're new here and you don't know what that is, it's where I try and link every episode with Keanu Reeves in some way, because he is the best of men. And this one was particularly difficult. But I found a way around it because this is a movie about a baby.

So I thought, well, how about I go to a baby website?

ze. And it's Currently, as of: 2025

So there are a lot of baby boys or young boys or teen boys or grown adult boys that are called Keanu, which makes a lot of sense, I suspect, because it is a cool name, and you would only ever be associated with Keanu Reeves if you were a baby called Keanu. Moving on to the music. This is a very 80s movie with a very 80s soundtrack. There's a lot of saxophone on this soundtrack.

It includes songs like the Minute I Saw You, the theme from Three Men and a Baby performed by John Parr and the Miami Sound Machine with their songs Bad Boy and Conga, which for those who are interested is Gloria Estefan.

Tom Selleck, Steve Gutenberg and Ted Danson contribute to the soundtrack for their rendition of Goodnight Sweetheart, Good Night and the score was composed by Marvin Hamlisch.

th November: 1987

st American box office hit of: 1987

t the time until surpassed in: 1990

Three Men and a Baby is too self satisfied with scatter logical humour to qualify as a bundle of joy, but the role of makeshift daddy brings out the best in Tom Selleck and of course with it making an incredible amount of money at the box office and getting positive critical reviews, a sequel was all but inevitable.

ee Men and a Little lady from: 1990

He later mentioned in: 2013

upposing she was born in late: 1986

More women were entering the workforce.

The radical feminism of the: 1970

The women's movement somewhat ironically helped birth what some sociologists called the daddying movement, because working mothers were busier outside the home and less available within it. So fathers had to fill that role. And the cultural shift created a broader society more hospitable to changing gender roles and stereotypes.

But the dramatic shift in father's roles that had been forecast in the 70s and early 80s hadn't fully materialised by the time three men and a Baby was made. And most fathers still fell somewhere between the newly idealized nurturing father and the absent deadbeat dad.

Three Men and a Baby imagines men who are capable of nurturing, but treats their doing so as inherently comedic.

Research from this period shows that despite greater father involvement, men still played a secondary role in family life and gravitated towards play rather than physiological care, especially with infants. The new father was emerging but hadn't yet displaced the men are the breadwinner paradigm.

But this is a movie that works based on the strength of its performances, especially Tom Selleck, because his performance as Peter works because cooing over a baby is so at odds with what audience expected from the type of broad shouldered macho male pinup that Tom Selleck represented in the age of Reaganite conservatism. The film needs its heroes to be incompetent at first, because the jokes only land if competent fathering is still a surprise.

To its credit, the film avoids the obvious trap of suggesting women are automatically capable caregivers, while men are constitutionally incompetent. Sylvia, Mary's mother, is the most revealing character in this sense, and she's also the most poorly served character in this sense.

She abandons her baby on a doorstep because she can't manage career and motherhood simultaneously. And rather than the film treating this as a crisis worth exploring or talking about, she's just a plot mechanism to get the baby to the doorstep.

Mary is the product of a casual fling that her father doesn't even remember.

Her mother's abandonment of the baby is basically framed as the inciting incident that allows the men's stories and the men's emotional journey to begin. Rather than a situation worthy of its own empathy.

Through a more contemporary lens, what Sylvia experiences can be seen as a recognisable portrait of postnatal overwhelm. She is a woman alone, without a partner or support network.

She is British, living in the States, she has no family around, and she simply cannot cope with work and childcare, which is something that many parents can empathise with and experience.

The movie doesn't name or examine any sort of postnatal overwhelm or postnatal depression, but instead it uses her crisis as a comedic springboard and then tidies it away in the third act when she returns. And ultimately they then become this unconventional family unit. But Three Men and a Baby is genuinely progressive about fatherhood.

It helped normalize the idea of men as primary caregivers at a pivotal cultural moment, while also simultaneously being quite negative about motherhood. It's a film that expanded what masculinity could look like on screen. It helped to reshape Americans views of male caregivers.

So it's not surprising that Hollywood began green lighting other family friendly comedies featuring men taking care of kids.

ook who's Talking followed in: 1989

Men were finally allowed to show care, empathy and compassion to children on screen, and it wasn't seen as emasculating in any way. But mostly, Three Men and a Baby changed the game for Disney at a time when the studio desperately needed to make money.

Jeffrey Katzenberg was responsible for reviving a studio.

And under his management, the animation department eventually produced who Framed, Roger Rabbit, the Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin and the Lion King. Katzenberg also sealed the Pixar deal that produced Toy Story. The touchstone live action revenue was the engine financing all of that.

Katzenberg focused the studio on adult orientated comedies. Down and out in Beverly Hills, Three Men and a Baby and Good Morning Vietnam. And their success led to the animation renaissance that followed.

So while we may not think we have Tom Selleck, Steve Guttenberg and Ted Danson to thank for much except Magnum PI, Richard from Friends, Police Academy, Saving people from LA Fires. It's true, Gutenberg is a real life hero. Cheers and the Good Place, which, let's be honest, I don't think any of us are in the Good place right now.

We actually have this movie contributing to saving Disney at a time when they needed saving. So where's Three Men and a Bride Disney? The actors want it, we want it.

Do it as a Disney plus original because 40 year old Mary deserves her happily ever after. Thank you for listening as always.

I would love to hear your thoughts on Three Men and a Baby and thank you for your continued support of this podcast. For the next episode, Kaijune Returns.

Now if you don't know what Kaijune is, it's Kaiju movies in the month of June and it's something that I've done a couple of times over a couple of years looking at some wonderful monster movies during the month of June and it returns with the biggest shark movie in the world, not Jaws because Bruce has appeared on this podcast before. Several times actually, because I've done episodes on Jaws and then I did an episode on Jaws 2, Jaws 3D and Jaws the Revenge as well.

So they are all episodes that already exist. So it's not Jaws? No, no, no. It's not a great white shark. It's a Megalodon.

Jason Statham returns to Verbal Diorama in the Meg, the first movie of literally the biggest Kaijune that's ever existed.

After a short break, please join me next episode for the history and legacy of the Meg and that'll be in your podcast feeds in about mid June ish sort of time. Thank you for listening to Verbal Diorama, a totally free and independent podcast that relies on listener support.

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