Cheap 3 Men and a Cradle (Video) (Roland Giraud, Michel Boujenah, André Dussollier) (Coline Serreau) Price

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Customer Reviews of 3 Men and a Cradle

Silly, But Quite Fun
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.

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I fell in love with Roland Giraud... (mild spoilers)
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.