Three Men and a Cradle

Trois hommes et un couffin
Trois hommes et un couffin
	Film poster
Directed by	Coline Serreau
Written by	Coline Serreau
Produced by	Jean-Francois Lepetit
Starring	Roland Giraud; Michel Boujenah; André Dussollier; Dominique Lavanant; Philippine Leroy-Beaulieu;
Cinematography	Jean-Jacques Bouhon; Jean-Yves Escoffier
Edited by	Catherine Renault
Music by	Franz Schubert
Distributed by	Acteurs Auteurs Associés
Release date	1985;
Running time	106 minutes
Country	France
Language	French

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.

Plot

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

Roland Giraud as Pierre
Michel Boujenah as Michel
André Dussollier as Jacques
Philippine Leroy-Beaulieu as Sylvia
Dominique Lavanant as Madame Rapons
Marthe Villalonga as Antoinette
Annick Alane as The Pharmacist

Sequel

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

Critical response

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

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	Three Men and a Cradle – Coline Serreau	Won	^[5]
		Best Director	Coline Serreau	Nominated
		Best Writing	Coline Serreau	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

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]}

Notes

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

References

^ "FILM: '3 MEN AND CRADLE'". The New York Times. 25 April 1986. Retrieved 6 July 2021.
^ "Three Men and a Cradle - Rotten Tomatoes". Rotten Tomatoes. April 25, 1986.
^ "Three Men and a Cradle". Metacritic.
^ "The 58th Academy Awards (1986) Nominees and Winners". Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS). Retrieved 6 July 2021.
^ "The 11th César Awards (1986) Nominees and Winners". Academy of Cinema Arts and Techniques. Retrieved 6 July 2021.
^ "The 44th Golden Globe Awards (1987) Nominees and Winners". Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA). Retrieved 6 July 2021.
^ "How Three Men And A Baby Was Inspired by a French Film". Den of Geek. 27 November 2017. Retrieved 6 July 2021.

External links

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

[4] Awards, festivals and organizations are in alphabetical order.

[5] Date is linked to the article about the awards held that year, wherever possible.

[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.

[6] "The 58th Academy Awards (1986) Nominees and Winners". Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS). Retrieved 6 July 2021.

[7] "The 11th César Awards (1986) Nominees and Winners". Academy of Cinema Arts and Techniques. Retrieved 6 July 2021.

[8] "The 44th Golden Globe Awards (1987) Nominees and Winners". Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA). Retrieved 6 July 2021.

[9] "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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v t e French submissions for the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film
1948–1960	Monsieur Vincent (1948) The Walls of Malapaga (1950) Forbidden Games (1952) Gervaise (1956) Gates of Paris (1957) My Uncle (1958) Black Orpheus (1959) La Vérité (1960)
1961–1980	Last Year at Marienbad (1961) Sundays and Cybèle (1962) The Fire Within (1963) The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964) Pierrot le Fou (1965) A Man and a Woman (1966) Live for Life (1967) Stolen Kisses (1968) My Night with Maud (1969) Hoa-Binh (1970) Ramparts of Clay (1971) The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972) Day for Night (1973) Lacombe, Lucien (1974) India Song (1975) Cousin, cousine (1976) Madame Rosa (1977) Get Out Your Handkerchiefs (1978) A Simple Story (1979) The Last Metro (1980)
1981–2000	Diva (1981) Coup de Torchon (1982) Entre Nous (1983) So Long, Stooge (1984) Three Men and a Cradle (1985) Betty Blue (1986) Au revoir les enfants (1987) La Lectrice (1988) Camille Claudel (1989) Cyrano de Bergerac (1990) Van Gogh (1991) Indochine (1992) Germinal (1993) Wild Reeds (1994) French Twist (1995) Ridicule (1996) Western (1997) The Dreamlife of Angels (1998) East/West (1999) The Taste of Others (2000)
2001–present	Amélie (2001) 8 Women (2002) Bon Voyage (2003) The Chorus (2004) Joyeux Noël (2005) Avenue Montaigne (2006) Persepolis (2007) The Class (2008) A Prophet (2009) Of Gods and Men (2010) Declaration of War (2011) The Intouchables (2012) Renoir (2013) Saint Laurent (2014) Mustang (2015) Elle (2016) BPM (Beats per Minute) (2017) Memoir of War (2018) Les Misérables (2019) Two of Us (2020) Titane (2021) Saint Omer (2022) The Taste of Things (2023) Emilia Pérez (2024)