Three Men and a Little Lady

Review by Thomas Glorieux:

Three Men and a Baby was a real success movie, it supported like the perfect 3 casted guys to raise a baby, and made wonderful use of all the clichés that men can't raise babies without a women. Now the success of course made sure in the sequel the baby grew up to become a small child, and the men returned to make sure they continued to raise her to adulthood. While the movie never reached the heights of the charming original, I like seeing it again and again. The mother of Ted Danson is excellent, the butler a joy to see and Danson alone as wedding priest so much funnier then his Cheers days, which says a lot. I also liked the music during the movie, but silly me never even assumed it was Newton Howard and just by sheer luck this copy made it to me, since its nearly impossible to find a disc of it. And the songs and score make this little Lady still a nice occasional listen, because several songs are a welcome deja vu to the film, and the score equally has its moments. The best song is the one at the end credits, namely 'Waiting for A Star to Fall', which has that lovely pre '90 feel still to it. And the raps of the 3 men are equally nice memories, 'Goodnight Sweetheart Goodnight' is even from the first film when the men try to make Mary fall asleep (with baby sounds attached to the recording), 'Three Men Rap' is funny especially in the movie, but on disc a somewhat childish back tune is added to it and makes the wit of this rap lose a bit of its value. 'Always Thinking of You' is equally good, but the rest I never really noticed, especially the jazz song of cue 5. The score by Newton Howard is perhaps not enough for just some 20 minutes, and divided into 14 tracks it might make most people think twice of getting it, but I guess the fan of Howard or the film will still think nice little memories of it. 'The Big Goodbye' is like a children lullaby with soft strings and tinkling sounds. And brings the theme forth for the first time.

What's funny is occasionally that Howard throws in the somewhat used cliché sounds or the sounds we accustom to certain things. Like the national anthem of England thrown in 'To England', or the wicked dark gothic sounds that stands for a place of hell like 'Pileforth', even cool is the brief violin sounding Beetlejuice like, even Elfman fanatics will have to admit that. And 'Motorcycle Montage' which is just 40 seconds long is cool because of its Robin Hood like heroics. 'Sylvia to Theatre' has a nice light swing to it while 'Peter's Plan' has first the main theme on tinkling sounds while ending with again these light sneaky tones for the return to Pileforth. These are all the differences in tone you will notice, the rest is the charming string and piano tones that sooth the rest. 'Peter & Sylvia in Dressing Room' has soft piano of the theme, 'Peter's Proposal' soft scoring for strings and piano, main theme in 'He Doesn't Like Me', nice gentle piano in 'Rainmaker' but of course a little romantic growth is a necessity. 'What About your Needs' is just that, piano performing the main theme, solo violin and the real deal when the theme just shortly grows with its wedding romance to its blushing form. That is basically Three Men and a Little Lady in a nutshell, and while its not a lot per se, its not nothing either. You get some songs that really depict the film, you get the nice music for another lovely background listen, and here you do hear some themes. I know its all not enough for the real soundtrack fanatic that wants more then just this, but I equally like hearing this score like The Man in the Moon which was reviewed on the same day. And as charming for instance that score sounded all the time, I welcome the equally cool heroics of 14, the gothic twists of 12 and the nice theme growing in 20 as much as the next one, no matter the time its been given.

Score: ***
Songs: ***

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Tracks

Single Disc

1. Always Thinking Of You: Donna DeLory (4.05)

2. Dance: David Baerwald (4.07)

3. Waiting For A Star To Fall: Boy Meets Girl (4.29)

4. Three Men Rap: Tom Selleck, Steve Guttenberg & Ted Danson (1.09)

5. Talkin': Najee (5.50)

6. Goodnight Sweetheart Goodnight: Tom S., Steve G. & Ted D. (1.04)

7. The Big Goodbye (3.05)

8. The Wharf (0.52)

9. Where Will You Live (1.14)

10. To England (1.04)

11. Peter & Sylvia In Dressing Room (2.28)

12. Pileforth (0.49)

13. Peter's Proposal (1.15)

14. Motorcycle Montage (0.40)

15. He Doesn't Like Me (1.36)

16. The Wedding Tent (0.26)

17. Rainmaker (1.24)

18. Sylvia To Theatre (1.04)

19. Peter's Plan (2.37)

20. What About Your Needs (1.29)

Total Length: 40.57

The use of artwork or photos is posted for non profitable reasons

=== Link to Composer Site: James Newton Howard ===