Three Men and a Cradle (Serreau, 1985): Cinema Museum, 2pm
This is a 35mm screening in the French Sundaes strand at the Cinema Museum.Chicago Reader review:
Directed by Coline Serreau (Why Not?), this was a box office
sensation in France, though from this side of the Atlantic it seems
little more than a passable imitation of a 50s situation comedy. Roland
Giraud, Michel Boujenah, and Andre Dussollier are three carefree
bachelors who learn a lot of Important Lessons about life,
responsibility, and respect for women as they take care of a baby
abandoned on their doorstep. How do you say, corny? Serreau
directs for maximum freneticism, with her actors rushing around and
regurgitating great torrents of imperfectly subtitled dialogue (a
gratuitous subplot involving drug traffickers seems to have been
inserted just to double the hysteria), and while there are more than a
few laughs, most of them are laughs of recognition—seeing these gags
again is like coming across long-lost (and vaguely embarrassing)
relations. The film’s only eccentricity is its jarringly anomalous,
dark, claustrophobic visual style—it’s as if Abbott and Costello had
invaded the world of The Godfather.
Dave Kehr
Here (and above) is the trailer.
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