The film was released to most North American audiences on March 29, 1991;[8] however, it was not made available to audiences in other continents until 2002 when a DVD was released. Another DVD was released in 2006 for the film's 15th anniversary.[9] The movie received mixed reviews from critics.[10]
Plot
Five boys - Donald "Duck" Matthews, Anthony "Choirboy" Stone, J.T. Matthews, Terrence "Dresser" Williams, and Eddie King, Jr. - perform at a Battle of the Bands contest as The Heartbeats. The group loses to Flash and the Ebony Sparks, but pleases the crowd and is noticed by Jimmy Potter. Jimmy offers to manage the group, promising them $100 if they do not win the next month's Battle. After they lose again, Jimmy pays them. When the owner of the club asks to hire them, they agree to let Jimmy manage them.
Bird and The Midnight Falcons, witnessing the Heartbeats rehearsing for a competition, become concerned they could lose; Bird asks his girlfriend to invite her friends and boo The Heartbeats while cheering The Falcons. The announcer, a cousin of one of the Falcons, forces The Heartbeats to use the house piano player. Duck grows frustrated with the pianist's playing and takes over his stool. Eddie leads the group in a number that results in Bird's girlfriend fainting in his arms. The Heartbeats win the contest and the interest of Big Red Davis, who owns Big Red Records. Big Red offers them a deal, but Jimmy and his wife Eleanor Potter, aware of Big Red's corruption, decline. The group instead releases their first single on Jimmy's own independent label and searches for a record company they can trust, but no one else is interested aside from a label that wants to buy Duck's songs for a group they have already signed, The Five Horsemen. As a result, the Heartbeats are forced to sign with Big Red.
The group goes on the road for a music tour. However, the travel is marred by racism and poor living conditions. Dresser's girlfriend visits and reveals she is pregnant. The group's first album cover features white people, despite the label having earlier approved a photo of the Heartbeats as the cover.
Throughout the mid-to-late 1960s, The Five Heartbeats receive awards, chart hits, and are featured on magazine covers. However, Eddie abuses alcohol and cocaine, affecting his performance and prompting his girlfriend, Baby Doll, to break up with him. Convinced that Jimmy intends to replace him due to his deteriorating condition, he cuts a deal with Big Red to have Jimmy cut out of his contract. Jimmy threatens to go to authorities with information about bootlegged LPs, cooked books, and payola that could have Big Red arrested, leading the latter to have him killed. Following Jimmy's funeral, the group learns that Eddie's deceit caused the fallout between Jimmy and Big Red. Big Red is convicted of Jimmy's murder, forcing the group to sign with a new record label. Guilt-ridden over his indirect role in Jimmy's death, Eddie leaves the Heartbeats and falls further into substance abuse and poverty.
The Heartbeats add Flash as their lead singer in Eddie's place. Duck comes to suspect his fiancée, Tanya Sawyer, is having an affair with Choirboy. He follows her to a hotel but discovers that Tanya is meeting with J.T., not Choirboy. Tanya's relationship with J.T. predates her relationship with Duck, but she says she is now in love with Duck. J.T. urges Tanya to disclose the affair, but she refuses. At an awards ceremony celebrating their success, Flash announces he is going solo. Duck reveals that he knows about the affair between Tanya and J.T. and also leaves the group, resulting in the Heartbeats' disbandment.
In the early 1990s, Choirboy has returned to singing in his father's church. Eddie has become sober after converting to Christianity: he is now married to Baby Doll, sings in Choirboy's choir, and manages his own group. He asks Duck to write songs for them, who agrees. J.T. is now married to a wife and two children, including a son named "Duck"; the brothers reconcile. The only one to have maintained a singing career is Flash, who transitioned from doo-wop to pop music, and is part of the group Flash and The Five Horsemen.
At a family gathering, the former Heartbeats reunite with their families and friends and try to remember and show their old moves. At first, Eddie declines, but Eleanor, coming to terms with her husband's death, forgives him.
Cast
Robert Townsend as Donald "Duck" Matthews, The Five Heartbeats' co-founder and brother of fellow Heartbeat's member J.T. Matthews, and originally was only the composer and musician for the group.
Leon Robinson as J.T. Matthews: J.T., the older brother to Duck. A womanizer; he and his brother Duck share a close and sometimes turbulent relationship.
Michael Wright as Eddie King, Jr., the lead vocalist of the band and falls into a life of drugs and alcohol.
Tico Wells as Anthony "Choirboy" Stone, a choir boy in his father's church, Stone's father does not support his decision to become a secular music artist.
Harry J. Lennix as Terrence "Dresser" Williams, the group's bass singer. He is replaced by Ernest "Sarge" Johnson as the choreographer after Sarge out-dances Dresser.
John Canada Terrell as Michael "Flash" Turner, previously lead singer of Flash and the Ebony Sparks, Flash is brought in as The Five Heartbeats' lead singer when Eddie goes into a downward spiral.
Hawthorne James as Big Red Davis, corrupt owner of Big Red Records.
Theresa Randle as Brenda Williams, Dresser's girlfriend.
Production
After writing (along with Keenen Ivory Wayans), producing, directing, and starring in his first film Hollywood Shuffle, Robert Townsend had attained near-cult status among independent filmmakers due to his dedication to that film—a project which caused him to max out all his credit cards and spend nearly $100,000 of his own money raised through savings and various acting jobs in order to produce the film. When writing Townsend's first studio film The Five Heartbeats, Townsend and Wayans kept comedy an important aspect of the film, but also explored complex characters in a more dramatic way.[11]
The Five Heartbeats was originally set up as a development deal at Warner Bros. in 1988, with Keenan Ivory Wayans, his brother Damon, and others tapped to star.[12] Warner passed on the project, and the Wayans moved on to develop and star in the Fox sketch comedy show In Living Color instead.[12]
Townsend resurrected Heartbeats at 20th Century Fox in 1990.[12] Years before, Townsend had had a small role as a member of the fictional Motown-style group "The Sorels" in the 1984 film Streets of Fire. His original screenplay was inspired by the lives and careers of Motown group The Temptations, and Townsend had met with former lead singers David Ruffin and Eddie Kendrick with the intention of hiring them as technical advisors.[12] Fox vetoed bringing Ruffin and Kendrick onto the production, for fear that Motown founder Berry Gordy, Jr. might sue the studio.[12]Rhythm and blues-singing group The Dells, who were renowned for their four-decade career, became the technical advisors instead.
Townsend used his film to depict a similar story to the careers of the Temptations and the Dells, following the lives of three friends who aspire to musical stardom.[10] Given the setting of the film, he was able to tie in other elements, such as race relations, as well.[10][bettersourceneeded]
Due to the production's budgetary constraints, Townsend used little-known actors of the time, with the exceptions of Leon Robinson, Diahann Carroll and Harold Nicholas of The Nicholas Brothers.[1] Townsend had considered Denzel Washington as Eddie King, Jr. and Whitney Houston as Baby Doll.[12] The former was not cast due to budget concerns and the latter passed on the role as it was felt to be too small.[12]
Promotion
To promote the film prior to its release, Townsend, along with the other actors who portrayed the fictional musical quartet The Five Heartbeats (Leon Robinson, Michael Wright, Harry J. Lennix, and Tico Wells) performed in a concert with real-life Soul/R&B vocal group The Dells, one of many groups that inspired the film. The Dells sang and recorded the vocals as the actors lip synced.[13]
Soundtrack
The Five Heartbeats (Music from the Motion Picture)
A soundtrack for the film was released by Virgin Records, featuring original music by various artists. Both "Nights Like This" and "A Heart Is a House for Love" became top 20 hits on the U.S. BillboardHot R&B Singles chart.[15] Many of the tracks are credited to fictional characters in the film as opposed to the actual vocalists. After 7's "Nights Like This" won the film an ASCAP Award.[16]
The film grossed approximately $8.5 million after being released in 862 theaters throughout North America.[18] The film was not well received by a majority of critics.[10] On Rotten TomatoesThe Five Heartbeats has an approval rating of 39%, based on reviews from 18 critics.[10]
...at feature length, Townsend shows a real talent, and, not surprisingly, an ability to avoid most cliches, to go for the human truth in his characters...by the end we really care about these guys...There is one obligatory scene showing racial prejudice against the group, and it seems a little tacked on, as if the only purpose of the Southern trip was to justify the scene.[19]
Due to the nature of the film, music montages were often used to progress the plot; critics considered this a major flaw.[20]
The numerous musical performances in the film were highly acclaimed.[20] All Music complimented the Dells' lead singer Marvin Junior (who provided the singing voice for fictional character Eddie King Jr.) stating that he was "one of the most underrated voices in pop music."[14] Tressa Thomas' performance of "We Haven't Finished Yet," in particular, was given favorable attention by critics.[21][22]
The film received an ASCAP award for Most Performed Songs in a Motion Picture for the song "Nights Like This."[23]
Home media
A DVD was released for the film in 2002, a special edition was also released in 2007 for the film's 15th Anniversary which includes additional content.[9]
↑ Erickson, Hal. "The Five Heartbeats: Overview". MSN. Microsoft. Archived from the original on 2014-07-30. Retrieved 2019-02-15. Loosely based on the life and times of several R&B; artists (The Dells, The Temptations, Frankie Lymon, Sam Cooke and others) The Five Heartbeats traces the rise and fall of a popular African-American 1960s singing aggregation.
↑ Jet Vol. 109, No. 4 'The Five Heartbeats' Celebrates 15th Anniversary With Special DVD. "Also written by Keenen Ivory Wayans, the film won an ASCAP Award for the song, Nights Like This. "
In Living Color is an American sketch comedy television series that originally ran on Fox from April 15, 1990, to May 19, 1994. Keenen Ivory Wayans created, wrote and starred in the program. The show was produced by Ivory Way Productions in association with 20th Television and was taped at stage 7 at the Metromedia Square on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California.
A heartbeat is one cardiac cycle of the heart.
Damon Kyle Wayans Sr. is an American stand-up comedian, actor, producer, and writer. He performed as a comedian and actor throughout the 1980s, including a year-long stint on the NBC sketch comedy series Saturday Night Live. He later became a writer and performer on Fox's sketch comedy show In Living Color (1990–1992), on his animated series Waynehead (1996–1997) and on his TV series Damon (1998). Since then, he has starred in a number of films and television shows, some of which he has co-produced or co-written, including Mo Money, The Last Boy Scout, Major Payne, Bulletproof, and the sitcom My Wife and Kids. From 2016 to 2019, he starred as Roger Murtaugh in the Fox television series Lethal Weapon. He is a member of the Wayans family of entertainers.
White Chicks is a 2004 American buddy cop crime comedy film directed by Keenen Ivory Wayans from a screenplay co-written by Wayans, Xavier Cook, Andy McElfresh, Michael Anthony Snowden, with additional contributions by and starring Marlon Wayans and Shawn Wayans. It also stars Jaime King, Frankie Faison, Lochlyn Munro, and John Heard. In the film, two black male FBI agents go undercover as white women by using whiteface to protect two hotel heiresses from a kidnapping plot targeting socialites.
The Wayans Bros. is an American sitcom television series that aired on The WB from January 11, 1995, to May 20, 1999. The series starred real life brothers Shawn and Marlon Wayans, comedian John Witherspoon and Anna Maria Horsford.
Leon Preston Robinson, usually credited as simply Leon, is an American actor and singer who began his professional career as a film actor in the early 1980s. He is best known for his roles as J.T. Matthews in the 1991 Robert Townsend film The Five Heartbeats, Derice Bannock in the 1993 film Cool Runnings, Shep in the 1994 basketball drama film Above the Rim, and Little Richard in the 2000 film Little Richard.
I'm Gonna Git You Sucka is a 1988 American blaxploitation parody film written, directed by and starring Keenen Ivory Wayans in his directorial debut. Featured in the film are several noteworthy African-American actors who were part of the genre of blaxploitation: Jim Brown, Bernie Casey, Antonio Fargas and Isaac Hayes. It co-stars John Vernon, Kadeem Hardison, Ja'net Dubois, John Witherspoon, Damon Wayans, Clarence Williams III and Chris Rock, and acts as the film debuts of comedian Robin Harris and brothers Shawn and Marlon Wayans.
Robert Townsend is an American actor, director, comedian, and writer. Townsend is best known for directing the films Hollywood Shuffle (1987), Eddie Murphy Raw (1987), The Meteor Man (1993), The Five Heartbeats (1991) and various other films and stand-up specials. He is especially known for his portrayal of The WB's sitcom The Parent 'Hood 's main character Robert Peterson, the series he created and directed select episodes of ran from 1995 to 1999. Townsend is also known for his role as Donald "Duck" Matthews in his 1991 film The Five Heartbeats. He later wrote, directed and produced Making the Five Heartbeats (2018), a documentary film about the production process and behind the scenes insight into creating the film. Townsend is also known for his production company Townsend Entertainment which has produced films Playin' for Love, In the Hive and more. During the 1980s and early–1990s, Townsend gained national exposure through his stand-up comedy routines and appearances on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. Townsend has worked with talent including Halle Berry, Morgan Freeman, Chris Tucker, Beyoncé, Denzel Washington, Ayo Edebiri, and many more.
Wild 'n Out is an American sketch comedy and battle rap improv game show television series created and hosted by musician and comedian Nick Cannon currently airing on VH1. It debuted on July 28, 2005, on MTV.
Harold Joseph Lennix III is an American actor. He is known for his roles as Terrence "Dresser" Williams in the Robert Townsend film The Five Heartbeats (1991) and as Boyd Langton in the science-fiction series Dollhouse. Lennix co-stars as Harold Cooper, assistant director of the FBI Counterterrorism Division, on the NBC drama The Blacklist. Lennix also played J'onn J'onzz / Calvin Swanwick / Martian Manhunter in the DC Extended Universe films Man of Steel, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, and Zack Snyder's Justice League.
Hollywood Shuffle is a 1987 American satirical comedy film about the racial stereotypes of African Americans in film and television. The film tracks the attempts of Bobby Taylor to become a successful actor and the mental and external roadblocks he encounters, represented through a series of interspersed vignettes and fantasies. Produced, directed, and co-written by Robert Townsend, the film is semi-autobiographical, reflecting Townsend's experiences as a black actor when he was told he was not "black enough" for certain roles.
Little Man is a 2006 American comedy film directed by Keenen Ivory Wayans, who co-wrote and co-produced it with Marlon and Shawn Wayans, who both also star in lead roles. The film co-stars Kerry Washington, John Witherspoon, Tracy Morgan, Lochlyn Munro, Chazz Palminteri and Molly Shannon. It follows a very short jewel thief who hides the proceeds of his latest robbery, then pretends to be a very large baby in order to retrieve it.
D. C. Benny, born Ben Wartofsky, is an American stand-up comedian. Wartofsky was born in Washington, D.C., and lives and works in New York.
Damon Kyle Wayans Jr. is an American actor and comedian. He starred as Brad Williams in the ABC sitcom Happy Endings, for which he was nominated for the Critics' Choice Television Award for Best Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series in 2012, and as Coach in the Fox sitcom New Girl. In 2014, he starred in the comedy film Let's Be Cops, and provided the voice of Wasabi in Big Hero 6.
Most Wanted is a 1997 American action thriller film directed by David Glenn Hogan, produced by Eric L. Gold and written by Keenen Ivory Wayans, who also starred in the lead role. The film co-stars Jon Voight, Jill Hennessy and Paul Sorvino. The film was released by New Line Cinema in the United States on October 10, 1997.
"A Heart Is a House for Love" is a 1991 hit soul and R&B song composed by Tristin Sigerson, Davitt Sigerson, and Bob Thiele and recorded by The Dells. It was originally featured in the movie and soundtrack album The Five Heartbeats. The song originally only climbed to number 94 on the R&B/Hip Hop section of the Billboard American charts, but peaked at number thirteen after the release of the movie. It was The Dells' most successful hit of the 1990s. It was also their last hit single to reach the top 20 of any Billboard Chart.
Melissa Smith, known professionally as Melissa Molinaro, is a Canadian-American pop singer, actress, dancer, choreographer, and model. She is perhaps best known for her reality TV appearances on Making the Band 3 and Pussycat Dolls Present: The Search for the Next Doll. She co-starred in Dolph Lundgren's action film, Command Performance, and had a major role in Honey 2. She adopted her mother's maiden name Molinaro as her professional name in 2010. Melissa has received notable attention from her appearance in Old Navy's "Super C-U-T-E" commercial in 2011 and for the video for "Dance Floor", the first single from Melissa's debut album "The Love/Dance Project".
Hawthorne James is an American character actor and director, known for his role as Big Red Davis in the 1991 film The Five Heartbeats.
The Jheri curl is a permanent wave hairstyle that was popular among Black Americans during the 1980s and early 1990s. Invented by the hairdresser Jheri Redding, the Jheri curl gives the wearer a glossy, loosely curled look. It was touted as a "wash and wear" style that was easier to care for than the other popular chemical treatment of the day, the relaxer.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
