However, it can also be argued that Epstein had long since ceased to be the guiding force behind the group anyway. While Epstein tragically took his life in August 1967 and filming commenced the following month, he was already on board with the early planning and had given his approval. On the face of it, this theory seems to have something going for it, chronologically speaking, but it’s not really the case.
Epstein, so the story goes, would never have allowed them to make such a mess of a film and would have overseen something much more palatable to the general audience watching at Christmas. The most enduring slice of conventional wisdom regarding this television special is that it demonstrates just how much The Beatles missed Epstein’s guiding hand and that they started going off the rails almost immediately without him. However, forget what you’ve heard about this being a dreadful mistake, a terrible film, disposable nonsense or The Beatles going off the rails without the guiding hand of their manager, Brian Epstein, as it’s not only inventive, original and influential but, more importantly, as a record of Britain in 1967 and as a love letter to post war England, it actually stands up as quite an important piece of work. To suggest that this 1967 effort made by The Beatles at the end of the Summer of Love and broadcast on BBC1 on Boxing Day of that year can be elevated to such heights would be very wide of the mark. The Rolling Stones were subjected to a range of polarising opinions of their 1972 album Exile on Main Street when it was first released and yet now it has cemented its position as their most celebrated work. Hitchcock’s Vertigo has been voted the best film of all time by the BFI’s Sight and Sound magazine despite the mixed reviews upon its initial release. The history of the arts in the twentieth century is littered with works which were panned, dismissed or subject to lukewarm contemporary reviews which have gone on to be hailed as masterpieces.
Critics don’t always get things right, even when they broadly agree with each other.
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