Product Details

• Actors: Halle Berry, Vivica A. Fox, Lela Rochon, Larenz Tate, Paul Mazursky
• Directors: Gregory Nava
• Writers: Tina Andrews
• Producers: Gregory Nava, Bruce Franklin, Harold Bronson, Mark Allan, Paul Hall
• Format: AC-3, Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, Full Screen, Special Edition, Widescreen, NTSC
• Language: English (Dolby Digital 5.1), French (Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo)
• Subtitles: English, French
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: R (Restricted)
• Studio: Warner Home Video
• DVD Release Date: January 19, 1999
• Run Time: 116 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (37 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 0790739313
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #15,782 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "Why Do Fools Fall in Love" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

From The New Yorker

Early on in this story of the doo-wop legend Frankie Lymon, there's a sequence in which the camera, standing in for the viewer, enters a rock palace from a busy city street in the mid-fifties. The honking car horns dissolve into the excited chatter of teen-agers in the lobby. Once through the doors of the auditorium, your eyes adjust to the darkness as you move down the aisle, taking it all in, from the balconies to the ornate ceiling to the group in the spotlight way down front. The closer you get to the stage, the more the music takes over: it's the majestic Platters singing "The Great Pretender," and up next are Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers. After that euphoric moment, it's all pretty much downhill for the talented and troubled Lymon (Larenz Tate), who left the Teenagers behind in 1957 and died of a drug overdose in 1968. The director, Gregory Nava, tells the story energetically, focussing on Frankie's three wives (Halle Berry, Lela Rochon, and Vivica A. Fox), who are all looking to get paid. Paul Mazursky is deliciously sleazy as Morris Levy, the president of Roulette Records (and copyright thief). -Ken Marks
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker

Product Description

Music-based romantic drama about the late singer/songwriter Frankie Lymon, who was responsible for many hit records but whose self-destructive life ended early, with many relationships left unresolved. three women, each claiming to be his wife, each with

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Entertaining delight!, June 3, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Why Do Fools Fall in Love [VHS] (VHS Tape)

The filmmakers know you've heard this tale before - true life chronicle of a young singing star's rise and tragic fall - and so they wisely downplay the standard bio trappings and instead focus on a raucously entertaining ride through Frankie Lymon's woman troubles. The smart screenplay revolves around the court battle of Lymon's three wives (yes, three!) over song royalties, leading to vivid (and often humorously contradictory) flashbacks of their lives with the singer. Larenz Tate is magnetic playing the many different sides of the ever-changing lead character, but the film ultimately belongs to Halle Berry, Vivica A. Fox and Lela Rochon as the wives. Each is allowed to shine as the trio portrays 30 years of changes in the women's lives, with Fox drop-dead hilarious as the most outrageous of the three. There's beautifully detailed '60s-era cinematography, sets, costuming and musical numbers, plus a side-splitting turn by Miguel Nunez as a young Little Richard. Major issues (such as '60s race relations) are barely glanced at, but what this film lacks in depth, it makes up for ten-fold in entertainment value. A winner!

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21 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars I guess I'm in the minority, because..., June 9, 2003

By 

The Fancy One "blackprincess" (Westchester County, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Why Do Fools Fall in Love [VHS] (VHS Tape)

I really didn't care for this movie very much. I suppose those who say they love it don't really know anything about Frankie Lymon or his music, and saw it as just another film about a famous singer who died before his time. It barely mentions anything about young Lymon's career with the Washington Heights' kid doo-wop group he started out with, The Teenagers - instead the focus was on his three wives fighting in court over whom was most entitled to the small fortune he left behind. In 1968, Frankie died at age 26 of a heroin overdose, but the story itself takes place in the 1980s, nearly 20 years after Lymon's death. Instead of a true biography of this young man's tragic story, we got this.

"Why Do Fools Fall In Love?", which obviously takes its title from the hit song that Lymon co-wrote, never really gives you the reason why Frankie (played by the talented actor Larenz Tate) was so very important in the history of R&B/rock and roll. He was a superstar by the time he was 13, but he was thrust into an adult world way before he should have. He experienced too much too soon - he lived fast, loved and partied hard, and died young. Ignoring the fact that he was the first teenaged idol of rock and roll (like the little Michael Jackson of his era) and was a huge influence on other kid groups that would come after his, in this film Frankie was overwhelmingly (and sometimes unfairly) portrayed as nothing more than some '50s rock n' roll has-been who was a womanizer, bigamist, and a violent drug addict. That in itself is a gross disservice to the memory of Frankie and his musical legacy. There were so many things about the life of this gifted young man that was not even addressed here, and it is downright insulting to his fans to try to pass this off as a biopic.

On top of that, the three actresses who played his wives (Halle Berry, Vivica A. Fox, Lela Rochon) got more screen time than Larenz did, and was billed over him. Excuse me, but wasn't this film supposed to be Frankie's story? Surely his upbringing and struggles as a teenage entertainer alone certainly would have been enough to make this watchable. I was not interested in seeing a movie about his wives. Who cares about them? They were all depicted as greedy, disgruntled women who only wanted the privilege of being legally called "the one and the only Mrs. Frankie Lymon" because money was involved. They certainly didn't seem to have much love for him.

Larenz Tate is one of my favorite actors and he did his best, but he was too old for the role of Frankie, at least at the age of 13, anyway. I had to wonder at just what age did he become involved with Zola Taylor of the Platters, because you're given the impression that he was dealing with her when he was only 13! The real fault in this film lies within the script, written by Tina Andrews (who was also responsible for the equally ridiculous script in a 1999 TV movie about the so-called "romance" between the third President of the United States, Thomas Jefferson, and one of his female slaves, Sally Hemings). It was awful, and just not worthy of any of the actors' talents. It's clear that Ms. Andrews had little or no knowledge of Frankie's life story, so this is why we got a ridiculous film about his widows trying to cash in on his estate. Herman Santiago, one of the original Teenagers, had also written a screenplay about Frankie, but it was bypassed in favor of the one written by Andrews - maybe the producers should have reconsidered. Andrews was not there, but Santiago WAS. He could have given us more insight about the life of his former friend than someone who never knew him.

I gave it three stars for the musical performances, the footage of the real Frankie performing at the end, and a cameo by Little Richard, but I feel the definitive movie about his life has yet to be made. This doesn't even come close! He deserves better.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars I love Gregory Nava....this film left a lot to be desired......, June 15, 2007

By 

D. Pawl "Dani" (Seattle) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Why Do Fools Fall in Love (DVD)

One of my favorite contemporary directors, today, is the great filmmaker, Gregory Nava. Nava is known best for the powerful EL NORTE, MI FAMILIA (MY FAMILY) and SELENA. He has great ability to combine warm humor with high drama, and [oftentimes] succeeds in shaping very compelling characters in the great stories he tells. Unfortunately, I don't feel that this really took place in WHY DO FOOLS FALL IN LOVE.

Frankie Lymon (Larenz Tate) was a legend, during his heyday. At thirteen years old, he was the lead singer of Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers. He also co-wrote the hit "Why Do Fools Fall In Love." This catapulted him into stardom, during the height of the do-wop era, in the United States. Not only was a trailblazer, due to his young age, but The Teenagers were a multiracial group, at a time where that was pretty progressive (the mid-1950s). Two of his band members were Puerto Rican, and Lymon and the other Teenagers were African-American. Success seemed synonymous with the name Frankie Lymon, but, as they say, "everyone will get their fifteen minutes of fame." Frankie's success took a u-turn, once his voice changed, and he began his descent into heroin addiction. In between his highs (and catastrophic lows--including the turbulent break-up between Frankie Lymon and The Teenagers), that left time and room for him in his schedule to get married to three women--at the same time! Of course, it wasn't nearly as straightforward as that. Botched court papers, troubles with addiction and unfinalized divorces led to this predicament. In the 1980s, the three women met face to face, and went on to take each other on in court, to determine who was to inherit Lymon's $4 million fortune. This co-stars Halle Berry, Lela Rochon and Vivica A. Fox, as the wives in question.

I found myself shaking my head in disappointment, thinking, "Ay, Gregory Nava, what were you thinking?" Okay, for starters, "Why Do Fools Fall In Love" is a great song. I won't argue with that. However, the song is almost constantly playing as the background soundtrack for this dramedy. I'm not exaggerating. It's great the first few times, but once you've heard it about ten times, you begin to wonder who was editing the film (or if editing even occurred). The other songs from the era are really great, classic tunes. They are undeniably catchy, but there are times where they feel more than a little manipulative. It's almost as though the director was relying on the music as a crutch for the film, so we'd forget the [slightly] melodramatic camera angles, uproarious emotional outbursts and shots of Lymon coming down or riding the high of his heroin use. Larenz Tate lipsynchs as well he can, and I do feel that he did a believeable job, playing Lymon here. However, Halle Berry (as Zola Taylor, female singer for The Platters), Vivica A. Fox (as Elizabeth Waters, a perpetual shoplifter) and Lela Rochon (as Elmira Eagle) felt more like caricatures to me than anything else. We have our diva, bad girl and church-going good girl. Three very different women for the three very different faces of the manipulative lothario, Frankie Lymon. And, he managed to fool all of them, equally. I realize that it's hard to portray the events of this story without it coming off as much more than an exploitative tabloid, due to the subject matter. Lymon tragically died of a heroin overdose at age twenty-five, just when he was contemplating getting his singing career together, after a long draught. It was very sad and unfortunate, and he was undeniably talented. What's more, the effect of his narcissism and addiction problems left tracks marks on many of his relationships. This wasn't a tribute, but more of an excuse to air the dirty laundry of someone too sick (and dead too many years), and it shows.