User Reviews

I loved most of this production and also both of the superb Debbie Geller books on Brian Epstein. However, this documentary could have done without the sappy floating face closeups of Brian. Also, he was very often a happy, funny guy: the sad pathetic Eppy should have been balanced by more of a look into his brilliant wit and humor (parts of his personality he kept out of the public eye so as not to take any attention away from his boys -- who, by the way, in private he could match in repartee). Shamefully, there is precious little good material available on Brian Epstein, a man whose vision changed the world.

By the way, the American A&E Biography version of this production had been cut up so badly it bore no resemblance to the original Bafta award-winning UK documentary. Not to mention the fact that A&E blatantly lied about his manner of death for publicity purposes. The Wikipedia entry on Mr. Epstein comes closer to the truth, if you care to search for that.

Until the assassination of John Lennon by the deranged Mark David Chapman in December 1980, the greatest tragedy in the story of the Beatles was the death of their manager Brian Epstein in August 1967 aged only 32.

This documentary covers the Epstein story going as far as any film can go towards showing that his death was not suicide but one of those unfortunate miscalculations that often happen with people who are hooked on drugs, be they prescription or otherwise.

Epstein failed at everything from school to the army - National Service as it was then. It was only when his father set him up with a record store inside the family business that he found his forte. He was a key figure in not only in the career of the Beatles but in the Mersey Beat story generally, that massive outburst of musical talent that like others before and since took the world by storm. He also managed Cilla Black.

This film includes contributions from many people who knew Epstein including most significantly Paul McCartney, who was interviewed for it, and John Lennon, who of course appears only in archive footage.

(The above is a review of the entire two part documentary).

Anyone less likely than the young Brian Epstein to mastermind a new, brash musical trend, appealing to every wild teenager, jarring to every genteel bourgeois, would be hard to imagine. Brian was middle-class gentility on two legs, a well-groomed son of the synagogue, who seemed destined to spend his life welcoming customers to his father's furniture store, carefully insulated from the stench of the slums and the dodge-and-scamper of street-life.

It was actually his failure as a furniture salesman (and everything else) that prompted his father to let him have part of the building for his record business. Here his uncanny knack of sensing a hit, from among a mass of new material by young unknowns, led directly to his backing of the Beatles, against much expert advice.

This was about the time Benjamin Britten declared that "we have one skin less" - outwardly referring to composers, but hinting at a different 'we', who were at that time a genuinely persecuted minority. Brian's thin skin would be both the making and the breaking of him. He could actually be quite stubborn, pressuring the four lads to wear identical suits and hairstyles, and ordering the anarchic Gerry Marsden to take elocution lessons. (Marianne Faithfull said they needed one grown-up figure around.) But that secret and sinister world of resins, acids and white powders was beckoning, encouraged by Lennon, and he would sink further and fatally into its embrace. That was quite apart from the other secret world of his private life, where his constant unhappiness was all too plain - just an endless sequence of one-night pick-ups, without a semblance of a relationship. And at the low point, he told his chauffeur that he envied him for having a close family.

But he needed to be needed by the Beatles, and when they were fully launched, that need became uncomfortably diminished. As for his possible suicide (after some rent-boys failed to show up), we still don't know. I remember one report of a man walking quickly away from the house, muttering about 'a terrible mistake'. Mysteriously, we never heard any more of that one.

I was fascinated by this excellent documentary on Brian Epstein and his relationship to both the early Liverpool music scene and the Beatles. He was an elegant, flamboyant background figure who was more interesting than some of the rockers who eclipsed him.The producers did an amazing job of researching and shooting location footage, and obtaining interviews with people who were there in the beginning.There is rare, archival footage here that would be impossible to see anywhere else. I rate it a 10 out of 10.