Wikipedia

Three Men and a Cradle

Three Men and a Cradle (French: Trois hommes et un couffin) is a 1985 French comedy film by Coline Serreau.[1] The film was remade in Hollywood as Three Men and a Baby in 1987, which subsequently inspired nine adaptations in seven languages.

Trois hommes et un couffin
Film poster
Directed byColine Serreau
Written byColine Serreau
Produced byJean-Francois Lepetit
Starring
CinematographyJean-Jacques Bouhon
Jean-Yves Escoffier
Edited byCatherine Renault
Music byFranz Schubert
Distributed byActeurs Auteurs Associés
Release date
  • 1985 (1985)
Running time
106 minutes
CountryFrance
LanguageFrench

Plot

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Jacques, Pierre, and Michel, three bachelors, share a spacious apartment in the heart of Paris.

One evening, during a party held in their apartment, Jacques, a professional steward, agrees to act as a courier for a package that a friend will deliver to him the next day. With little time to inform his friends, he departs for the Far East for several weeks. Upon the arrival of the "package", Jacques' roommates discover it's a baby, seemingly Jacques' daughter, sent by her mother, Sylvia, citing her work commitments as preventing her from caring for the child. Reluctantly, the two friends, unaccustomed to the responsibilities of parenthood, find themselves overwhelmed by the demands of caring for an infant—feeding, changing diapers, and enduring sleepless nights.

One morning, two individuals come to claim the "package". Initially relieved, they hand over the cradle, only to realize moments later that the actual "package" awaited by the men was delivered by the caretaker days earlier, containing illicit drugs. Pierre and Michel narrowly rescue little Marie but must now swiftly return the drugs to menacing traffickers, all while under constant police surveillance. Through ingenuity and audacity, they manage to dispose of the incriminating cargo.

Upon Jacques' return from his travels, the baby is reunited with her mother, and to their own surprise, the absence of the child leaves a void in their lives. However, the child's mother eventually brings her back to the roommates, marking the beginning of a new chapter in the lives of the three men as they adapt to caring for the baby.

Cast

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Sequel

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A sequel film by Serreau, with the same characters, the same actors and called 18 ans après (18 Years After) was released in 2003.

Reception

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Critical response

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Three Man and a Cradle has an approval rating of 72% on review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, based on 18 reviews, and an average rating of 6.2/10.[2] Metacritic assigned the film a weighted average score of 44 out of 100, based on 14 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".[3]

Accolades

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Award[a] Date of ceremony[b] Category Recipient(s) Result Ref.
Academy Awards 24 March 1986 Best Foreign Language Film Three Men and a Cradle – Coline Serreau Nominated [4]
César Awards 22 February 1986 Best Film Won [5]
Best Director Coline Serreau Nominated
Best Writing Won
Best Supporting Actor Michel Boujenah Won
Best Supporting Actress Dominique Lavanant Nominated
Most Promising Actress Philippine Leroy-Beaulieu Nominated
Golden Globe Awards 31 January 1987 Best Foreign Language Film Three Men and a Cradle Nominated [6]

Remakes

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Trois hommes et un couffin was remade by Hollywood in English as Three Men and a Baby in 1987.[7]

The American adaptation itself was imitated by two Filipino films: Wake Up Little Susie (1988) and Rock-a-Bye Baby (1988), and was subsequently adapted into several Indian films, including Baalache Baap Brahmachaari (1989) in Marathi, Thoovalsparsham (1990) in Malayalam which was then remade as Chinnari Muddula Papa (1990) in Telugu, Thayamma (1991) and Asathal (2001) in Tamil, Heyy Babyy (2007) in Bollywood and Tatlı Bela (2018) in Turkish.[citation needed]

See also

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Notes

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  1. ^ Awards, festivals and organizations are in alphabetical order.
  2. ^ Date is linked to the article about the awards held that year, wherever possible.

References

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  1. ^ "FILM: '3 MEN AND CRADLE'". The New York Times. 25 April 1986. Retrieved 6 July 2021.
  2. ^ "Three Men and a Cradle - Rotten Tomatoes". Rotten Tomatoes. April 25, 1986.
  3. ^ "Three Men and a Cradle". Metacritic.
  4. ^ "The 58th Academy Awards (1986) Nominees and Winners". Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS). Retrieved 6 July 2021.
  5. ^ "The 11th César Awards (1986) Nominees and Winners". Academy of Cinema Arts and Techniques. Retrieved 6 July 2021.
  6. ^ "The 44th Golden Globe Awards (1987) Nominees and Winners". Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA). Retrieved 6 July 2021.
  7. ^ "How Three Men And A Baby Was Inspired by a French Film". Den of Geek. 27 November 2017. Retrieved 6 July 2021.
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Trois hommes et un couffin
Trois hommes et un couffin at IMDb
Three Men and a Cradle at AllMovie
Three Men and a Cradle at Rotten Tomatoes
Three Men and a Cradle at Box Office Mojo
18 ans après
18 ans après at IMDb
18 ans après at AllMovie
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