Ménage à quatre

Other commentators seem to feel this is, or should have been, a movie about the life of Frankie Lyman. However, as the title indicates, it is really about three women who fell in love ... with a guy named Frankie Lyman. As the movie brings home fairly early, there is not much about Frankie to love. He is portrayed as a shallow, self-centered fool, with as little understanding of the music business as of the women he scams into being his wives.

Did Frankie have raw talent? Of course he did. Did Frankie do anything to develop this raw talent into an enduring musical career? No evidence of that. So much for Frankie. Larenz Tate plays him fairly well on stage, and rather flat off stage. We are not given a clue as to what the attraction may have been.

And, since two of the women were relatively unaware of his celebrity status when they were first taken with him, and the third had a celebrity status of her own, we expect the movie to answer the title question. The women do not entirely succeed in this, but they are terrifically watchable while they try.

Halle Berry is great as Zola Taylor, singer with the Platters. Viveca Fox is almost as good as the home girl who turns hooker to support Frankie, and Lela Rachon is perfect as the goodie-two-shoes last wife, a God-fearing and educated working woman.

The music scenes are good, and the courtroom scenes are outrageously unrealistic.

This would have been a better movie if they had not specifically based the story on Lyman, but only alluded to him. In this manner, the Hollywoodization of the story would have been less noticeable. Unfortunately, realizing that such a course would inevitably preclude using the Lyman hits, they chose to make this a triography of the wives, and allow them to play off Tate's weak Lyman persona.

All in all, a good couple of hours of enjoyment that is not too compelling. When it was over, we found ourselves asking, "Why DID these three fools fall in love?"

I don't believe this movie didn't do better in the ratings. I thought it was clever and entertaining. Halle Berry is beautiful and Larenz Tate was engaging as Frankie Lymon. Again, Gregory Nava is a director to watch for. I didn't realize he also did Selena and that was a movie I also enjoyed. Nothing heavy or slick, no action, fires, explosions, just good story telling about characters and their relationships with one another.

Frankie Lymon died of a drug overdose in 1968.As a big one hit wonder with his song "Why Do Fools Fall In Love" Lymon might have received some royalties from the record, but didn't. When three former wives hear a version of the song done by Diana Ross,they want to sue for royalties but first each of the three women must win a court case to prove who was the real and legal wife of Frankie Lymon. The movie "Why Do Fools Fall In Love" is a shoddy and disrespectful look into the life of Frankie Lymon. The movie is truly about these three women trying to win the royalties of the song, not to prove they really loved Frankie Lymon. It is bad enough that Hollywood makes a movie about a black male celebrity that Hollywood always brings up the details of Lymon's drug use and points to him for the audience that he is a loser after his singing days are over. We never get a true look at Frankie Lymon and his life.Where did the movie fail in one big detail? Lymon was not as short as the actor who portrayed him ,the talented Larenz Tate,he grew up to over six feet tall.His singing voice changed of course,he couldn't sing those sweet songs of his youth,but he had a decent voice in his adult years. But no one wanted the grown up Frankie Lymon.They wanted this little kid with the falsetto voice,not the adult Frankie Lymon and he couldn't get noticed in the new R&B market that came to pass in the sixties. His story ,and the story of his former group the Teenagers,was done quite well in a PBS documentary about the group called "I Promise To Remember".This was shown several years ago and it is worth while to look at about what happen to the group ,where they are now(where they were at the time of the broadcast),and and what happened to Frankie in truth.It is a well done program. The movie is not,however.Filled with profanity,the women come off as bitter uneducated jerks only going for the money.The film and the film makers in essence then to degrade the subject as a three timing drug taking failure.The film lowers itself then as the wives complain about Frankie and start the feminist cant about men in general and Frankie in particular.It doesn't bother the filmakers that Lymon's real life family has to watch him being dragged thru the mud and embarrassed and that they have to have him and themselves disgraced in this fashion. The three women got thankfully very little after in the end and the viewers of this film receive the same,very little.Frankie Lymon was not perfect,he was no saint.But this film disgraces him ,just like Bird did to Charlie Parker.In the end of the film we see the real Lymon singing "Goody-Goody" on a TV show.It is the only glimpse of the real Lymon in the movie.But after this film Frankie Lymon shall be looked at in one way and one way only,as a tragic disgrace.

"Why Do Fools Fall In Love" is really just another average rock star biography. Larenz Tate is great as Frankie Lymon, as are Halle Berry, Vivica Fox and Lela Rochon as the three "wives" locked in a battle over his estate, but the film is way overlong. The title is certainly appropriate. For most of his career, Lymon was a habitual drug user and was at times abusive to many of the women who loved him. It seemed nobody who stood in his way was safe, especially that poor little dog he accidentally dropped out of an apartment window. When he died in 1968, many of his fans and friends were shocked at first, but then later they probably realized that he had paid the expected price for his lifestyle.

I bought this one in a previously-viewed movie bin at my local video store, but now I think I will return it. I don't think it's worth watching more than once.

Rating: **

It was true in the '50s and still is today: it's no exaggeration to state that most hitmaking careers are over in 18 months. Teen idols fare the worst, and such was the fate of Frankie Lymon, who scored but three Top 20 hits between February 1956 and the summer of 1957: "Why Do Fools Fall In Love," "I Want You To Be My Girl" (both with The Teenagers) and "Goody Goody" (as a soloist). After that, the industry and music buyers considered him to be yesterday's former fresh face. And, like most young teens who become overnight sensations, Frankie's firework-long popularity came to cripple him later as a) people would not accept him as anything other than a 13-year-old and b) he was utterly unprepared to cope with real life once his flash of fame had ended. An insightful peek into Frankie Lymon's mercurial life would have made a great movie -- but this isn't it. Instead, we get only a superficial look at Lymon, as the movie focuses instead on the three women who claimed to be his wife. Lymon does not deserve to be shoved into the background of his own biopic, especially as his story is representative of the rise and fall of many flash-in-the-pan artists who find themselves revered by the public one minute and then dumped into history's ashcan the next -- often before they really reach the summit of their skills. (Believe me -- as the writer of "The History Of Rock 'n' Roll," I know this all too well.) The three women battling over his estate were more a footnote to his story than the real drama and far too much time is allocated to letting the three female leads each take a star turn. Yes, Zola Taylor was the best-known of the three, but she is portrayed following her run with The Platters as an in-the-money solo star headlining live shows with her giant hit "Only You." Are the producers kidding? Zola Taylor didn't even JOIN The Platters until AFTER "Only You" had become a million-seller! The Platters scored big as the most successful hitmaking singing group of the late '50s (1955-9), despite the fact that the "group" was really lead vocalist Tony Williams -- with the others as mere background singers. (What were The Doors, for example, without Jim Morrison?) Zola only sang lead on a couple of minor Platters chart items -- and after leaving the act, immediately sank into near total obscurity. The Platters' golden era ended in 1960 after Tony left on his ill-fated solo career. (I explored this in great detail while assembling a 60-track Platters career retrospective 3-CD box set.) None of The Platters really made much money at all -- as they were mere salaried employees of their manager, Buck Ram. Ram wrote much of their material, told them what to sing and how, produced their records, owned The Platters' name and (no surprise) kept nearly all of the loot himself. The portrayal of Morris Levy, who owned several labels including Gee (the recording home of Lymon and The Teenagers) was pretty accurate. Not all record labels screwed artists as thoroughly as Levy's did, but his methods were none too unusual for the time. In fact, they're not much different than what the industry does today!