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3 hommes et un couffin (Original French ONLY Version)

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Shrewd advice: Always seek out the original when America decides to remake a foreign film in its own image. The Hollywood moneymaker "Three Men and a Baby" and its unmentionable sequel are, well, laughable alongside the superior French comedy "Three Men and a Cradle" now out on DVD. Men's bonding with children isn't new to cinema ("Kramer versus Kramer"), but treating child abandonment as farce was when this film opened in 1985. It became a big European hit, won France's best film Cesar Award, and got nominated for a Hollywood Oscar. Absolutely delightful describes it best.

Three bachelors in an upscale apartment continue to pursue women and their jobs, deflecting police snoopers and drug dealers, all the while caring for a baby girl left on their doorstep. That's the set-up, which the American remake never got beyond. The movie is really about how gender switching, including diaper-changing and bottle feeding, permits the inner man to express his true self. All of the actors have a sweet sense of ensemble, yet each man bonds with the baby in his own way. If you have to ask how this perfectly charming comedy will end, you have never been a parent.

I saw this movie before the mediocre American remake, THREE MEN AND A BABY, came out, and I'm so glad I did. There's really no comparison.

The premise -- three confirmed bachelors taking care of a tiny baby -- seems contrived at first, but the three principle actors, Roland Giraud, Boujenah and Dussollier, deftly handle their characters with humor, intelligence and sympathy. There are some very funny scenes, not so much with the expected gee-I'm-a-man-handling-a-little-baby kind of slapstick but rather the three men arguing with each other and their friends.

Best of all, the sweet scenes are never overly-sentimental or trite but instead are gentle and moving. Roland Giraud is absolutely brilliant. MILD SPOILER: The scene in which Giraud comes home to find the apartment ransacked has him running frantically throughout looking for the baby. When he finally finds her, safe and sound, his absolute relief and joy flood from the screen. I fell in love with him at that moment.

You'll most likely find this in the foreign film section of your local video store, as I did many years ago, and if you're like me, you'll wind up ordering it. However, lucky you will only pay a pittance compared to the $89.95 I shelled out way back when. Yes, I wanted it that much.

This 1985 French comedy is best known as the source material for the Disney hit Three Men and a Baby, but is quite entertaining in its own right. Pierre, Michel and Jacques, three self-centered ladies' men who share a spectacular Paris apartment, are thrown for a loop when an ex-girlfriend abandons infant Marie--"the fruit of our passion"--on their doorstep. (This is apparently a temporary measure, designed to teach Jacques, the baby's actual father, a lesson.) As you can probably predict, the complaints and bumbling new-dad hijinks are many, and they grow highly attached to Marie...just in time for the mother to arrive to take her back. Or will she?

This is hardly a perfect movie--there's a subplot involving drug smugglers and mistaken identity that's particularly clunky and out of place--but it's silly and warmhearted fun for anyone who doesn't mind a movie with a (very cute) baby as the center of the action. No slapstick, just a domestic comedy with a sharply Gallic sense of humor and some surprisingly gentle moments. The actor who plays Michel, and whose character seems to love Marie the most, is particularly good. Recommended.

A very funny and heartwarming look by Coine Serreau at role reversal when men are faced with the overwhelming responsibility of nurturing a baby--in the early '80's it clearly took three men to do an adequate job! French with English sub-titles

« Trois Hommes et un Coffin » est la meilleure comédie que j'ai vue depuis longtemps ! C'est une combinaison parfaite d'esprit et d'intrigue. Roland Giraud, Michel Bougernah et André Dussellier jouent les rôles de trois célibataires qui sont pris au dépourvu par un bébé qui était abandonné devant leur porte. Les événements après que la petite Marie entre dans leur vie sont très amusants, mignons, dramatiques et touchants. L'humour est très intelligent et adéquat pour le style du film. Ce film est une bonne idée pour reprendre le courage après une mauvaise journée !

Ce film est très attendrissant. Si vous aimez les comédies romantiques, vous aimerez ce film. Il y a trois hommes que sont très indépendants. Un jour, ils ont un petit problème quand un bébé est placée devant leur porte. Deux des trois hommes doivent s'occuper de bébé pendant que l'autre est parti. C'est le chaos quand les deux hommes essaient de s'occuper de bébé sans aucune idée de comment le faire. Le bébé est très jolie est elle fondra votre caeur. Les hommes dans le film sont très drôles en essayant de s'occuper d'un bébé pour la première fois. Je pense que presque tout le monde aimera ce film. J'adore tous les aspects du film, surtout la comédie. C'est pour les hommes et femmes et pour tous les âges.

I guess a clueless guy being suddenly saddled with the care of a wailing infant is always pretty funny. Even John Wayne was cast in a babysitting role in 3 Godfathers, a 1948 western drama which had its moments of funny. In 1985, the French comedy THREE MEN AND A CRADLE (3 HOMMES ET UN COUFFIN) came out and was so successful that it inspired the 1987 American adaptation Three Men and a Baby, which then also amassed buckets of duckets. However, I do think that THREE MEN AND A CRADLE is more layered and, therefore, more truthfully emotional than THREE MEN AND A BABY.

I just love watching Frenchies being anxious and frantic, as opposed to, say, being smug and obnoxious. It lowers my blood pressure. THREE MEN AND A CRADLE tells of what happens when a baby girl is abandoned on the doorstep of a posh apartment shared by three Parisian bachelors enjoying the good life. There's a subplot revolving around dope smuggling, but mostly the film is about how these three men transform - reluctantly, at first - from swinging womanizers into doting father figures.

If you're into scatological humor, then you're in luck. If you're into sentimental stuff, then you're also in luck, although this French version isn't as mawkish or precious as its American counterpart. By the way, don't get me wrong, I dig THREE MEN AND A BABY, which is darn enjoyable but does play for easy laughs more so than this one. THREE MEN AND A CRADLE, for example, goes more into exploring the state of despondency the guys go thru, with the baby's departure. Also, more attention is paid to the baby's mother, who we learn is a struggling model, barely able to make ends meet. You can see why she has trouble tending to her baby and how then this impacts the film's resolution.

Still, both film versions offer up men who work themselves into a dither, scampering to impromptu learn to care for a baby. THREE MEN AND A CRADLE is chock-full of cute baby moments, but, of course - and the same goes for its remake - the pound for pound best moment is the three "dads" lullabying the baby to sleep. In this one, the tune happens to be "Au Clair de la Lune."

The three actors playing the roommates are excellent, their timing locked in. Their rapid, back-and-forth dialogue, and especially their arguments, are pretty wonderful to watch. But, more than anyone else on screen, Roland Giraud (Pierre) shines as the crabby point-of-view character. Pierre the architect is the most responsible of the three and manages to keep the movie grounded enough, in spite of the broad antics, that you don't instantly dismiss this movie as madcap fluff. Not that child abandonment is madcap fluff...

I also like that these three confirmed bachelors aren't classically handsome studs. They look like average Joes with normal physiques, and they don't mind going shirtless in several scenes. In fact, the artist guy is fairly slovenly looking, which in a way makes him an even more endearing character. But not as endearing as the baby, who is an awesomely cutesy-ootsy so-and-so.

I just found out that there's a sequel to THREE MEN AND A CRADLE, titled 18 Ans Apres (Original French Version - No Subtitles) (18 YEARS LATER), which came out in 2003 and reunited the cast and director. It took me about thirty seconds, after finding out, to order that puppy.

Colin Serreau made a tender film, which has been become through the years a referential film, with unsuspected well comments around the world. A trio of bachelors receive a six month old roommate; and what initially supposes a bundle of unexpected joy will transform a bundle of trouble.

A movie that talks us about one of the multiple faces of the meaning of love

This film represented to France in 1985 as Best Foreign film

this is the original film and much less schmaltzy and cute than the truly awful American remake (3 men and a baby). Don't watch the bad remake, watch this. 3 batchelors, keen on women and wine are left with a baby. Yes the men grow to love Marie, but only in time, and only really when they release a package of drugs is the real parcel to be collected. love is not instant (as in the US remake). subtle too. I saw this subtitled years ago in a cinema in NZ and have loved it since.

Three young independent bachelors live together in Paris. One day, a woman, known to all three men, leaves a baby on their doorstep. She wants them to care for it while she goes to America. It's a total disaster for them at first, as expected, and just as predictably they soon grow fond of the little tike, learn responsibility, and become less selfish. When the mother returns and they have to give the baby up, they are despondent and their lives suddenly have a big hole in it. Sounds like it should be a big mess, but actually it's very well done and, best of all, believable. [This is the French version which inspired the American remake two years later.]