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.
