Movie Review: Midas Man

I have been seeing people talk about Midas Man for a while. It’s been years in the making and it’s finally here after many delays due to events that we all lived through and I’d rather not think about anymore. Multiple people have been called the Fifth Beatle and one of the contenders for that title is their manager Brian Epstein. I’ve interviewed a musician who has met Brian Epstein and he’s said he’s a gentleman and that tracks with everything I’ve ever read about him. Rock band managers don’t get a lot of love for good reason because a lot of them have screwed over musicians, but Brian Epstein does and you might be wondering why. This movie might explain it. As someone who was born Jewish and is bisexual myself, I always thought Brian Epstein seemed really cool and kinda relatable, even though I’m not gay. 

Much like a lot of Jews, he comes from an immigrant entrepreneurial background. The movie opens up with him standing in the Cavern Club watching The Beatles, but that’s not where the story begins, that’s just where his life and the Fab Four’s life changes. No, his family owned a shop and up until he became a rock band manager, that’s where he’d work and like many (grand)children of immigrants, he was expected to take over the business one day. He’s an excellent salesman with a good ear for music and had some excellent ideas like selling pop and rock records and that’s a transferrable skill to being a rock band manager. One of his innovations was guaranteeing that if NEMS didn’t have a record, he could order it in and it’d be in the shop within five days. This was the days before Amazon Prime, which is the streaming service this movie is on. Now that’s customer service!

But he wanted more than just to run one of the biggest record stores in North West England. There’s a whole world out there outside of Liverpool. And a certain band had just come back from Hamburg. Word gets out about this disc called “My Bonnie” by a group based in Germany being really in demand and Brian Epstein goes over to see them one day at the Cavern Club in November 1961. He loves what he has seen and goes backstage to invite them to have a chat. Of course, John Lennon being John Lennon he’s bantering with him. As you can expect, a naysayer said there’s no way he can manage a rock band without experience. Well, there’s a first time for everything, right? 

He talks to their manager Alan Williams and he doesn’t believe in the band and says they should be called The Bootles, because they’ll only make it as far as Bootle. Brian Epstein sees star potential and wants to buy out their contract and take over managing them. The Beatles visit his office and they’re unprofessional, to say the least. Not punctual. A bit rough around the edges. But he sees an opportunity, a diamond in the rough and he’s gonna turn them into gold by smartening up their image. From there, he takes them to a shop to get them some bespoke suits and a clean cut but modern and youthful haircut. He teaches them to bow properly. This gives them a better image and turns them into influencers, before influencers.

The infamous Decca audition happens and they famously turn down The Beatles and Brian Epstein advocates for them. The out of touch Decca A&R guys dismiss him and say that he’s wasting his time managing them, and he’s like mark my words, they’ll be bigger than Elvis. He goes back to his parents and he feels dejected, like a failure. But he picks himself up and dusts himself off and gets back to pounding the pavement, sharing the Beatles’ demo tape with labels. No after no after no, until Parlophone take a chance on them. The Beatles think this is a joke and are sceptical.

He talks to producer George Martin, another person called the Fifth Beatle, and encourages them to produce The Beatles. They record, but they’re not happy with Pete Best’s drumming because it’s keeping them from reaching their fullest potential so Brian fires him. While “Telstar” topped the charts, “Love Me Do” was at #49. 

Brian Epstein tries to hook up with a guy, but he ends up stealing his heirloom watch at knifepoint. He can’t go to the police because it is illegal to be gay and if he does, it’s self-snitching. 

Even with this bump in the road, he gets a success with another band he managed, Gerry and the Pacemakers, “How Do You Do It?” topping the charts. Not only did he sign them, but also Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas and Cilla Black (the former coat check girl at The Cavern). As the groups he managed gained more success, he moves to London to be closer to the music industry, expanding NEMS. Jobs are created and The Beatles have a full publicity machine behind them. The Beatles are now hobnobbing with the upper echelon, playing at the Royal Variety Performance, feeling like a fish out of water because they’re working class Liverpudlians playing for royalty and aristocrats and other rich people. From there, Brian Epstein talks to Ed Sullivan, played by former late night TV show host Jay Leno. Sullivan is sceptical about having The Beatles on his show, but Epstein successfully persuades him to book them for a historical performance.

Fame comes a lot of downsides and one of them is always being under scrutiny. The Beatles are being looked at like they’re under a microscope and they’re under fire for the mildest things like playing at certain venues in Japan, not meeting Imelda Marcos while they were in tour in the Philippines, and John Lennon’s quote about The Beatles being more important to kids than Jesus being taken out of context. Reaction to The Beatles becomes polarised and there’s this generational gap. On top of that, the band members want to go in separate directions creatively and they’re hating life on the road because they feel like prisoners and they can’t even hear themselves play, so they quit touring. Meanwhile Brian Epstein’s lover, Tex, has done him dirty, stealing $20k in cash that has been left in his briefcase. Because of homophobia, he fears being blackmailed. He comes out to his parents and his father asks if there’s something they didn’t give him. 

We get to 1967 and The Beatles are done touring and instead move into the studio to create more complex, experimental sounds. Brian Epstein talks to them about Yellow Submarine. Brian Epstein’s father dies and he’s clearly shaken and worried that his father was ashamed of him. Queenie reassures that he loved him and was proud of him. He exceeded his father’s expectations. 

The Beatles perform “All You Need Is Love” for a BBC satellite broadcast. Brian walks across the Abbey Road zebra crossing, symbolising his death in 1967 – shortly after that broadcast, at just 32 years old. His death really impacted The Beatles and was likely a factor in their breakup.

Final Impressions/Conclusion:

It’s a well-edited, well written, pretty well cast film – I appreciate that they didn’t use big names to play The Beatles although I think the actor who played John Lennon was a bit short, but that’s just a little nitpick (it’s really hard to cast actors to play such iconic famous people in biopics and it’s big shoes to fill) and I wasn’t the biggest fan of Jay Leno being cast as Ed Sullivan, but it didn’t bother me that much. I think it was cool that the actor who played Brian Epstein, Jacob Fortune-Lloyd is Jewish.

I found it an enjoyable watch, even if I knew most of the facts and the story. It’s just really cool to see it come to life in movie format. The humour really came through and I liked seeing The Beatles’ banter and wit that they were known for, especially John Lennon. Overall I enjoyed watching it and I think Beatles fans will enjoy it too. I like how the editing was very modern and fun, but not too flashy and in your face like Bohemian Rhapsody. I’d give it a B.

The main criticisms I have of the film are it’s a real shame that they couldn’t get the rights to use The Beatles’ songs so they could only play covers that they’ve recorded and other Merseybeat songs. I will say that “You’ll Never Walk Alone” playing in the credits was an appropriate choice, though. That’s what I think makes it fall flat in some bits like when The Beatles are performing. I think if they had the rights to use The Beatles’ music it would have been better, no question about it. The other thing is I wish that it talked more about his life before The Beatles. Often in biopics they focus on the height of their fame, but I didn’t see anything about his upbringing and his childhood and his background in acting school. I think that would have been interesting and something a hardcore fan would like to see, rather than just the story people know. I appreciate that his Jewish background was seen, but I would have liked to have seen more about him being gay and some of the challenges he experienced in the 60s related to that and more about his relationships. He was arrested for being gay before The Beatles’ fame and from studying celebrities who have been arrested for being gay, it definitely leaves them with trauma and I think that could have been explored in the film. But that’s just me speaking from an LGBT perspective. I don’t know if there would have been issues around defamation or maybe it would have been too sensational, but I think if they talked about The Krays and them allegedly blackmailing Brian Epstein. Still, that’s just my opinion.

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