The Idolmaker

Though it's marred by an overly melodramatic and dubious finale, The Idolmaker is an unusally compelling film about the music business in the late 1950s and early 1960s. It shows how teen idols were created, promoted, and discarded by entrepreneurs cynically manipulating the adolescent audience. Ray Sharkey is superb in the title role. Read full review

Who thought that New Kids On the Block would turn out to be the most influential group of the ’90s? Anyone who was paying attention to history, of course. That’s why The Idolmaker is so fascinating. Based on the guy who gave us Fabian and Frankie, it understands the inevitable pattern that repeats itself time and time again. Read full review

It is a well-crafted movie that works, that entertains, and that pulls us through its pretty standard material with the magnetism of the Ray Sharkey performance. Read full review

THE IDOLMAKER takes itself too seriously, but is nonetheless one of the best and most energetic film treatments of the early days of rock 'n' roll and a fine depiction of how performers are groomed for stardom (far superior to THE ROSE). Read full review

The Idolmaker is a modest, interesting, well-acted movie, more lively than it is exciting. Read full review

The Idolmaker would be worth seeing if only for its modesty, which is a blessing in these days of ersatz epics. It's a small, honest, decently entertaining film with one outstanding performance. [08 Dec 1980, p.107]

Director Taylor Hackford is so enthusiastic reminiscing on an alternate soundtrack that he almost convinces you that this diminutive cult movie is better than it is. [27 Dec 1996]

The movie’s two main aims—to blow the lid off the music business and to exalt some of the unsung heroes of American pop culture—are somewhat contradictory, and haven’t been worked into a polished narrative. Read full review

A likable first feature by the director Taylor Hackford; it has verve and snap, despite a rickety script and a sloshy finish.

Taylor Hackford's 1980 debut feature The Idolmaker, inspired by the life of Bob Marcucci, discoverer and promoter of Fabian and others, has some gritty, satirical commentary on the pop music scene of decades past but is hampered by an ending that seems self-dramatizing fantasy made real. Ray Sharkey, however, is impressive in the title role. [11 Aug 1991, p.6]

Taylor Hackford directed, with occasional sharp, manic bursts, but the film is sluggish and sloppy overall, burdened with a dismally redundant plot line. Read full review