"Three Men" and a Ghost?
There don't seem to be as many really famous ghost photographs made
today as there used to be. The honor of being the best known ghost
picture of recent years probably goes to an unlikely candidate: the
so-called "ghost boy" in the movie Three Men and a Baby.
The comedy had its theatrical release in 1987, and it wasn't until
it had been out on home video for a while that the ghost stories
surrounding the film began to circulate. In one of the final
scenes, a figure is briefly visible behind the curtains of a
window. It looks like a motionless young boy. At one point there is
an object in the window which some have interpreted as a shotgun
pointed at the boy's head.
The popular rumor is that a boy had died in the house where the
movie was filmed, whether by being shot, or falling out the window,
or some other grisly means, and his ghost returned to haunt the
film crew. In fact, the scene in question was shot on a Hollywood
soundstage, not in a real home where anyone ever lived or died. And
the "boy" everyone has seen was not a ghost -- he was
cardboard.
According to the cast and crew, the mysterious figure was a
life-size cardboard cutout of the movie's star, Ted Danson. Someone
on the set propped it up in front of the window as a joke.
There are those who have accused the film's producers of starting
the hoax in order to beef up ticket sales. If this were the case,
surely they would have made sure everyone knew about the "ghost
boy" long before the movie was on the video shelves for a couple of
years. Remember, Three Men and a Baby was directed by Leonard
Nimoy. He would never do anything so illogical.
