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Hitmakers: The Teens Who Stole Pop Music (2001)
Director: Morgan Neville
Movie review
From Time Out Film Guide
For supposedly disposable music, pop of the last 50 years has drawn a parade of documentarists. Neville himself has been down Tin Pan Alley before with a film on songwriters Leiber and Stoller, and 1619 Broadway - the Brill Building - loomed large in Allison Anders' loose Carole King fictionalisation Grace of My Heart, with John Turturro in Phil Spector-esque wig. Perhaps by way of acknowledging the precedent, Turturro narrates this straightforward memento of the young '60s song factory workers - King and Goffin, Weill and Mann, Jeff Barry, Neil Sedaka - who knocked out, with remarkable fecundity, pop hits for the likes of The Shirelles, The Drifters, Bobby Vee and The Righteous Brothers. It swings into the story at a fair lick, zigzagging through the decade's cultural conditions, the shifting fortunes and the relationships at work, while present-day talking heads vouch for the ingenuousness of the songs' feelings. It's informative, comprehensive - and just a little too dry.Author: NB
Cast & crew
Director: Morgan Neville
Producer: Morgan Neville
Cast: Carole King, Jerry Goffin, Barry Mann, Cynthia Weill, Jeff Barry, Ellie Greenwich, Burt Bacharach, Hal David, Jerry Leiber, Mike Stoller, Neil Sedaka, Shadow Morton, John Turturro full cast
Genre(s): Documentaries
Duration: 90 mins
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