Three women each claim to be the widow of 1950s doo-wop singer Frankie Lymon, claiming legal rights to his estate.
Director: Gregory Nava
Stars: Halle Berry, Vivica A. Fox, Lela Rochon.
Russell Clark ... choreographer
Neisha Folkes-LeMelle ... assistant choreographer
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0123324/
Watched online, poor copy, blurry.
39 songs in the Soundtracks; includes multiple performances of some.
Interesting story, told well, but not something to recommend to others, not something I want to own. Lots of good music from the doo-wop era and through the 60s and early 70s, with heavy emphasis on the title track.
The estate consisted only of unpaid royalties for songs Lyman wrote, and in the epilog they claim only $15k was paid to the eventual winner, not $4M.
Lyman's life was another sad tale of the need for adulation turning into the need for heroin, but the nature of the overlapping timeline (as each widow tells her story in turn) confuses whether the drug use was consistent after a certain point; it seemed not to be. And they seem to have fabricated the final night of his life (was he really at a concert of wife HB before ODing?).
The cast is good, but the characters feel a bit stereotyped, if only for brevity with so many stories to tell.
The director's name is familiar because his immediately prior project was Selena ('97).
Rated 6.3 (3,264)
Warner & more, dir. Nava; 6
