3 Men and a Little Lady (1990)

Complete with Ealing Comedy characters who last saw the light in 1950. And all so's we can make a few more bucks from our 3 "Creatives" ,this time as fishes out of water in the bucolic English countyside. We have Boarding Schools with Joyce Grenfell - like mistresses,bristling with hockeysticks and blackboard dusters,senile butlers like just about every film featuring a Country House,and a villainous would - be husband,beautifully spoken but rotten to the core. - like all aristos are of course. The "Boys" fly to England to prevent the mother of the now rather older "Baby" from marrying her Theatre - Director fiancée who is a thoroughly nasty piece of work. Tom Selleck(moustache as doleful as ever)decides he is in love with her. Ted Danson - in one of the most excruciatingly embarrassing scenes I have ever sat through - (only watchable through clenched fingers) does a turn(well,he is supposed to be an actor - don't call us Ted - we'll call you) where he pretends to be a senile vicar.You need to know no more. If things turn out real bad for the studio we may - 27 years on see "Three Pensioners and the feminist Vlogger". Never say never.

If there is anything we know its that perfect 80's comedies deserve at least one sequel. 3 Men and a Little Lady is the perfect epilogue to the original film. We get to see where everyone from the first film is and how their life ends up and it was well written and worthy. It didn't feel just like a cash in which it probably was. The first film was more of a comedy than this sequel. Certainly there are still some funny moments but this one has much more drama and romance than the first and that's okay. It works very well and we needed more character development from the three Dad's and from Sylvia who gets a full character in this one. I felt like with the first movie it was just full of 80's clichés and popular culture and I couldn't help but notice that this movie didn't have that vibe. Granted the movie was made in 1990 which is outside of the 80's window but somehow I didn't feel like it had quite the style the first one had. I suppose, they made the movie under the pretense that everyone already knew the characters and they didn't need to rehash who they were and what they did for a living and that is probably a wise choice on their part.Tom Selleck, Steve Guttenberg, and Ted Danson are back and in full swing in their old roles. The three of them still have great chemistry and are a little older, a little wiser and a little more mature this time around. Their personalities aren't quite as vibrant as the first film but they are who they were the first time around and that is a compliment. They don't outdo each other and they are great together. Nancy Travis returns as Sylvia but as a main character. I can't figure out why they chose to make her "English." Travis' accent is okay at best and its distracting. There is really no reason to make her British other than her return to England which they could have done easily in another way. Still she is good and has good chemistry with everyone. Robin Weisman, who never did much of anything else, is downright terrific as Mary. She's appropriately adorable and does a great job. Christopher Cazenove is our pseudo-villain looking to break up the beloved foursome. Cazenove is the perfect 80's comedy villain and he carries out his role very well.Taking over from Leonard Nimoy at the directing duties is the amazing Emile Ardolino. I say amazing in particular because of his duties directing the classic (one of my favourites) Dirty Dancing but also classic comedy Sister Act. He tells a great story and you can tell he wanted this to be much more than just a run of the mill sequel. It is fun and worthy and lives up the popularity of the first one. The two movies together make up a classic little series that must be seen. I for one would be thrilled to see them do a third part even more than twenty years later as long as they put as much work into it as they did the first two films. 7.5/10

This movie is the sequel to 3 Men and a Baby which is based on a French Film. Unfortunately I have not seen the French film so I cannot comment on it, though I would like to. This movie is the sequel to the American version so I doubt that I can compare it with the original anyway. The baby girl has now grown up and they are looking to take her to a school. At this time she is having fun with three dads but when she gets to school she learns that this is not normal. It seems that this is going to be the plot, with her trying to adapt to the social norm when she does not fall into it, but this is not the case. Rather her mother decides that she needs to marry and they guy, Tom Sellick, whom she wants to marry seems to be more interested in the girl than her so she goes after a wealthy director who lives in England. At first the director seems to be a nice guy but we learn that he is really a creep and this comes to revelation when he secretly sends the girl to a harsh boarding school. Thus the three men but prove to the woman that he really is a creep. This movie is not really a thematic movie but it is still enjoyable. There are two quite funny characters, the butler and the substitute vicar that makes a joke out of senility. Yet a theme does exist in the movie and that is that a child needs a mother and a father. Sending children to a private school is not really appropriate if it is simply to get them out of the way. Sometimes it is not possible to have the children attend school, especially if the child lives in the country and finds it difficult to attend school every day, so a boarding school is appropriate. Unfortunately people use such schools as a way to get their children out of their hair, which is what I feel is quite inappropriate. Marriage implies that the partners take upon each other's burdens. If one partner has a child then when you marry the woman you take the child as your own. It is not appropriate to marry then send the child away, especially without informing the mother. This is why Sellick was the much better father, but he focused on the girl and not the mother, which is what upset the mother. Yet it is revealed later that he did love the mother but was too shy to reveal this. Instead he hid behind the child so that he did not need to expose himself. I did not find the movie all that bad, though the critics scathed it. I disagree. Though it was clichéd in a lot of places, it was still quite a good movie.

This expected sequel is a change in comic direction from the first film, although its not enough to bring "Little Lady" up to the standard of '87's big hit.Baby 'Mary' has grown up now, and at five years old she's about to start school. However the story revolves this time around her mom, who is looking for the ideal husband and father to marry. 'Peter' (Tom Selleck) hopes it will be him, but he can't bring himself to tell her so.The new format, romantic comedy, brings fewer laughs and fast becomes quite predictable. None of the lead players do much, and if not for Fiona Shaw, who delivers some hilarious scenes as headmistress Elspeth Lomax, "Three Men and a Little Lady" would not have been much at all.Sunday, February 21, 1993 - T.V.