POETRY / FILM / THREE DAY CINEMATIC POETRY CHALLENGE
Three Men a Baby and a Whole Lot of WTF?
The urban legend of the ghost captured in a blockbuster film
I bet that you’ve seen Three Men and a Baby, the film starring Guttenberg, Selleck, and Danson. Not forgetting the titular baby, indeed! But you ever notice that eerie boy-phantom?
The ghost-boy apparently captured on film became quite the hot urban legend, you see. And I well recall that when I was a kid the story enthralled both my sister and me.
At the part where Jack’s mother appears on the scene to meet for the first time her son’s tiny tot, in the background, the ghost of a boy can be seen (and some say the rifle with which he’d been shot).
On the grapevine, the spooky tale spread like a virus, and this was before all that internet stuff! In those days the playground was where we transmitted our gossip and rumours (plus loads of pure guff!).
The gist of the tale was the flat used in filming Three Men and a Baby had once been the site of the violent and traumatic death of a young boy who in the apartment died by suicide.
According to some, the boy jumped from the window. In the version that I heard, he had used a rifle. This second account garnered even more traction from the fact that the curtain had ruffled a trifle
and as a result, many viewers imagined they could see the shape of the gun in the frame. The presence of this spectral weapon thus proved the story’s veracity, many would claim.
This legend would flourish for thirty-odd years, though many of us would soon grow to be skeptical. Perhaps it had been just a marketing ploy manufactured on purpose or just illusion optical?
The truth was revealed a few years ago by no less than Tom Selleck, the movie’s big star. When asked in an interview with Jimmy Fallon old Magnum P.I. said the story’s bizarre.
Three Men and a Baby was made on a sound stage, not filmed in a house or apartment as claimed. The ‘boy’ in the shot was a cut-out of Danson whose character, Jack, was an actor most vain.
It has been such good fun to muse on the legend of Three Men, a baby, and a spooky ghost boy, and today while re-visiting this classic movie I’ve learned its director was Leonard Nimoy! 😮
Many thanks to Jeff Ehren for tagging me in his Three Day Cinematic Poetry Challenge.
No pressure, of course, but for their potential interest in the challenge, I’m tagging Jennifer McDougall Anthony O'Dugan Will Hull Elle Beau ❇︎ Skye Mo'ipulelehua Kahoali'i Adelia Ritchie Sarah Paris Denise Larkin Kyomi O'Connor Carlos Garbiras Haikuster Sherry McGuinn Michael Burg, MD (AKA Medium Michael Burg) Denise G Eva Rotolo Lindsay Soberano-Wilson Hogan Torah Eric Pierce Edward Riley Kiki Wellington Gaby Rogut Tree Langdon Dave Logan Marcus Christine Stevens Ann Marie Steele Carolyn Hastings Melanie J. Christina M. Ward Galit Birk, PhD Orla Kenny Laurie Perez Terry Trueman TC Hails Roz Warren and anyone else reading this who would like to give this fun little challenge a go.
Jupiter Grant is a self-published author, blogger, narrator, and audiobook producer. Buy me a coffee here: https://ko-fi.com/jupitergrant
More from Jupiter;
