‘How can something so small create so much of something so disgusting?’
80’s comedy classic Three Men and a Baby is perhaps best known now for being the film that features an actual ghost (in reality, and quite disappointingly, the ghostly apparition that absolutely does appear in the back of one of the shots is actually just a prop of a cardboard cut out of Ted Danson). This is to do the film a huge disservice, however. My wife and I have embarked on a cinematic odyssey of late taking in a number of different baby related films in preparation for the birth of our own daughter. Three Men and a Baby has probably been the best of all of them…
The set up is delicious. Three ridiculous bachelors (played by Danson, Tom Selleck and Steve Guttenberg – the three wise men of ’80s cinematic comedy) are forced to look after a baby for reasons that are never really clear (nor do they matter). They also get caught up in a drug deal involving a dangerous gang of criminals. None of this makes a lick of sense but that’s very much part of the film’s overall charm. What does make sense is just how much goddamn fun it is seeing these three characters attempting to look after a baby. I could watch Selleck and Guttenberg bicker over changing nappies for hours.
Directed by Leonard Nimoy (yes, that is Spock from Star Trek), it is fitting that Three Men and a Baby was the highest grossing film of 1987 – the year of my own birth. And it’s easy to see why. The three leads are irresistible and share a great chemistry. Selleck, particularly, is a revelation. I left this film just wanting to be held in his strong arms. Perhaps I want him to change my nappy? No. That’s too far. He’s bloody great anyway.
Three Men and a Baby is so much more than just ‘That film with the ghost in it’. Pound for pound, Nimoy’s movie is probably the most underrated comedy of the ’80s.