Yellow Submarine (film)

Yellow Submarine (also known as The Beatles: Yellow Submarine) is a 1968 animated jukebox musical fantasy adventure comedy film inspired by the music of the Beatles, directed by animation producer George Dunning, and produced by United Artists and King Features Syndicate. Initial press reports stated that the Beatles themselves would provide their own character voices. However, apart from composing and performing the songs, the real Beatles' only participation was in the closing scene of the film; the voices of their animated counterparts were provided by voice actors.
The film received widespread acclaim from critics and audiences alike, in contrast to the Beatles' previous film venture Magical Mystery Tour. Pixar co-founder and former chief creative officer John Lasseter has credited the film with generating wider interest in animation as a serious art form, as it had been generally considered a children's medium at the time. Time commented that it "turned into a smash hit, delighting adolescents and aesthetes alike". Half a century after its release, it is still regarded as a landmark of animation.
Pepperland is a cheerful, music-loving paradise under the sea, home to Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. The titular Yellow Submarine rests on an Aztec-like pyramid on a hill. At the edge of the land is a range of high blue mountains.
The land falls under a surprise attack from the music-hating Blue Meanies, who live beyond the mountains. The attack starts with a music-proof glass globe that imprisons the band. The Blue Meanies fire projectiles and drop apples (a reference to the Beatles' then-new company Apple Corps) that render Pepperland's residents immobile as statues, and drain the entire countryside of colour.
In the last minutes before his capture, Pepperland's elderly Lord High Mayor sends Old Fred to get help. The Apple Bonkers "bonk" the Mayor with several large apples as Fred takes off in the Yellow Submarine. He travels to Liverpool, where he follows a depressed Ringo to "The Pier", a building on the top of a hill, and persuades him to return to Pepperland with him. Ringo collects his mates John, George, and Paul. The four decide to help Old Fred, and journey with him back to Pepperland in the submarine. They pass the Sea of Time, the Sea of Science, and the Sea of Monsters, where Ringo presses the forbidden panic button, and gets swept out of the submarine, until the Fab Four manage to save Ringo with a rescue button, bringing Ringo back into the submarine. In the Sea of Nothing, they meet Jeremy Hillary Boob Ph.D., a short and studious creature. Ringo invites the Boob to join them aboard the submarine. They arrive at the Foothills of the Headlands, where they are accidentally separated from the submarine and Fred. They then find themselves in the Sea of Holes, where Ringo picks up a hole and puts it in his pocket. Jeremy is kidnapped by a Blue Meanie, and the group finds their way to Pepperland.
Reuniting with Old Fred and reviving the apple-bonked Lord Mayor, they look upon Pepperland's now-miserable, grey landscape. The Beatles dress up as Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and steal some instruments. The four rally the land to rebellion. The Chief Blue Meanie retaliates by sending out the Dreadful Flying Glove, which John defeats. Pepperland is restored to colour as its residents revive and flowers re-bloom. Ringo uses the hole in his pocket to release the Lonely Hearts Club Band, and they join the Beatles in combating the Meanies' multi-headed dog. Ringo then rescues Jeremy, who performs some "transformation magic" on the Chief Blue Meanie, causing the Meanie to bloom roses and sadly concede defeat. John extends an offer of friendship, and the Chief Blue Meanie has a change of heart and accepts, confessing that he is related to the Bluebird of Happiness.
The film ends with a segment featuring the real Beatles, who playfully show their souvenirs. George has the submarine's motor, Paul has "a little 'love'," and Ringo has "half a hole" in his pocket (having apparently given the other half to Jeremy). Ringo points out John looking through a telescope, which prompts Paul to ask what he sees. John replies that "newer and bluer Meanies have been sighted within the vicinity of this theatre" and claims "there is only one way to go out.... Singing!" There is a short reprise of "All Together Now", which ends with translations of the song's title in various languages appearing in sequence on the screen.
Cast notes
The Beatles were not enthusiastic about participating in a new motion picture, having been dissatisfied with their second feature film, Help! (1965), directed by Richard Lester. However, they saw an animated film as a favourable way to complete their commitment to United Artists for a third film. Many fans have assumed that the cartoon did not meet the contract's requirements, but the documentary film Let It Be (1970) was not connected to the original three-picture deal.
The Beatles make a live-action cameo appearance in the final scene, which was filmed on 25 January 1968, shortly before the band's trip to India. This was done primarily to fulfil their contractual obligation to United Artists to actually appear in the film. The cameo was originally intended to feature a post-production psychedelic background and effects, but because of time and budget constraints, a blank, black background remained in the final film. While Starr and McCartney still looked the same as their animated counterparts, Lennon's and Harrison's physical appearances had changed by the time the cameo was shot. Both were clean-shaven, and Lennon had begun to grow his hair longer with accompanying mutton-chop sideburns.
The original story was written by Lee Minoff, based on the song by John Lennon and Paul McCartney, and the screenplay was penned by four collaborators including Erich Segal. George Harrison's character's recurring line "It's all in the mind" is taken from The Goon Show.
As with many motion-picture musicals, the music takes precedence over the actual plot, and most of the story is a series of set pieces designed to present Beatles music set to various images, in a form reminiscent of Walt Disney's Fantasia. Nonetheless, the film still presents a modern-day fairy tale representing the values of its intended hippie audience.
The dialogue is littered with puns, double entendres and Beatles in-jokes. In the DVD commentary track, production supervisor John Coates states that many of these lines were written by Liverpudlian poet Roger McGough (who, coincidentally at that time, was married to Thelma Pickles, a former girlfriend of both Lennon and McCartney), though he received no credit in the film.
In the DVD commentary track, Coates states that the Meanies were always intended to be coloured blue. However, Millicent McMillan recalls that the Blue Meanies were originally supposed to be red, or even purple, but when Heinz Edelmann's assistant accidentally changed the colours, the film's characters took on a different meaning. Coates acknowledges in the commentary that the "Are you Bluish? You don't look Bluish" joke in the film is a pun on the then-contemporary expression "You don't look Jewish", but that it was not intended to be derogatory. It was a reference to how most villains in movies were played by Jewish actors.
The Beatles' animated personas were based on their appearance during the Sgt Pepper's press party at Brian Epstein's house, on 19 May 1967. The film also includes several references to songs not included in the soundtrack, including "A Day in the Life", the lyrics of which are referenced in the "Sea of Holes" scene; the orchestral breaks earlier in the film are also taken from the song.
Animators Robert Balser and Jack Stokes were hired as the film's animation directors. Charlie Jenkins, one of the film's key creative directors, was responsible for the entire "Eleanor Rigby" sequence, as well as the submarine journey from Liverpool, through London, to splashdown. Jenkins also was responsible for "Only a Northern Song" in the Sea of Science, plus much of the multi-image sequences. A large crew of skilled animators, including (in alphabetical order) Alan Ball, Ron Campbell, John Challis, Hester Coblentz, Geoff Collins, Rich Cox, Duane Crowther, Tony Cuthbert, Malcolm Draper, Paul Driessen, Cam Ford, Norm Drew, Tom Halley, Dick Horne, Arthur Humberstone, Dennis Hunt, Greg Irons, Dianne Jackson, Anne Jolliffe, Dave Livesey, Reg Lodge, Geoff Loynes, Lawrence Moorcroft, Ted Percival, Mike Pocock, Gerald Potterton, and Peter Tupy, were responsible for bringing the animated Beatles to life. The background work was executed by artists under the direction of Alison de Vere and Millicent McMillan, who were both background supervisors. Ted Lewis and Chris Miles were responsible for animation cleanup.
George Dunning, who also worked on the Beatles cartoon series, was the overall director for the film, supervising over 200 artists for 11 months. "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" was Dunning's idea, which he turned over to Bill Sewell, who delivered more than thirty minutes of rotoscoped images. By that time, Dunning was unavailable, and Bob Balser, with the help of Arne Gustafson, edited the material to its sequence length in the film.
The animation design of Yellow Submarine has sometimes been incorrectly attributed to famous psychedelic pop art artist of the era Peter Max, as his art style greatly resembles the style used in the film, but the film's art director was in fact Heinz Edelmann. Edelmann, along with such contemporaries as Milton Glaser and Seymour Chwast, pioneered the psychedelic style for which Max would later become famous, but according to Edelmann and producer Al Brodax, as quoted in the book Inside the Yellow Submarine by Hieronimus and Cortner, Max had nothing to do with the production of Yellow Submarine.
Edelmann's surreal visual style contrasts greatly with the efforts of Walt Disney Animation Studios and other animated Hollywood films that had been previously released at the time (a fact noted by Pauline Kael in her positive review of the film). The film uses a style of limited animation. It also paved the way for Terry Gilliam's animations for Do Not Adjust Your Set and Monty Python's Flying Circus (particularly the Eleanor Rigby sequence), as well as the Schoolhouse Rock vignettes for ABC and similar-looking animation in early seasons of Sesame Street and The Electric Company. (Only one of the animation staff of Yellow Submarine, Ron Campbell, contributed subsequent animation to Children's Television Workshop.)
In addition to the 1966 title song "Yellow Submarine", several complete or excerpted songs, four previously unreleased, were used in the film. The songs included "All Together Now", "Eleanor Rigby", "It's All Too Much", "Baby, You're a Rich Man" (which had first appeared as the B-side to "All You Need Is Love" in June 1967), "Only a Northern Song" (originally recorded during sessions for Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band) and "Hey Bulldog". Written by Lennon, this last track was cut from the film before it opened in the US. "Hey Bulldog" was restored for the US theatrical and home video reissue in 1999.
The film's instrumental music was an orchestral score composed and arranged by George Martin. One of the film's cues, heard after the main title credits, was originally recorded during sessions for "Good Night" (a track on The Beatles, also known as the "White Album") and would have been used as the introduction to Ringo Starr's White Album composition "Don't Pass Me By". The same cue was later released as "A Beginning" on the 1996 Beatles compilation Anthology 3.
The original soundtrack album comprised the four new Beatles songs, two other Beatles songs (the title song and "All You Need Is Love"), and orchestral pieces by George Martin.
The orchestral pieces were also used in the short NASA Apollo 9 mission films, which were part of the series that NASA made for every mission.
Another soundtrack was released in 1999 that contained all of the Beatles' songs from the film except "A Day in the Life".
The film was distributed worldwide by United Artists in two versions. The version originally shown in UK differs from the version distributed internationally. The most notable difference is its inclusion of the song "Hey Bulldog" that is missing in the international theatrical version. It has been replaced by a shorter battle scene where the people of Pepperland, led by the Beatles, attack and defeat the Blue Meanies. It was felt that, at the time, American audiences would grow tired from the length of the film.
Other differences are several alternate shots in "All You Need Is Love", the liberation of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band from the glass ball and a small additional shot of Jeremy after his liberation. The international version also includes the Beatles song "Baby You're A Rich Man" during the liberation of the alter-ego Beatles which was missing from the original UK version; it was, however, added to the 5.1 mix of the restored UK cut released in 1999.
Yellow Submarine received widespread critical acclaim. Released in the midst of the psychedelic pop culture of the 1960s, the film drew in moviegoers both for its lush, wildly creative images and its soundtrack of Beatles songs.
The film grossed $993,385 in the U.S. and $282,158 in other countries for a total of $1,275,543 worldwide.
On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds a 97% approval rating based on 57 reviews, with an average rating of 7.9/10. The website's critical consensus states: "A joyful, phantasmagoric blend of colorful animation and the music of the Beatles, Yellow Submarine is delightful (and occasionally melancholy) family fare". On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 78 out of 100, based on 17 critics, indicating "generally favourable reviews".
Roger Ebert of the Chicago-Sun Times praised the film for its creative animation and screenplay, giving it 3 and a half stars in his original review, saying ''Yellow Submarine", curiously enough, exists on two levels with nothing in between. It is beautifully simple and childlike on one level, and erudite and deep on another". He later upgraded the film to a full 4 stars, hailing it a masterpiece of animation, and believed that it "boasts the best soundtrack out of any other animated film." He would then place it on his "The Great Movies" list.
The Beatles celebrated the release of the film in July 1968 with a submarine-themed disco, which was attended by guests all wearing yellow, at the Royal Lancaster Hotel in Bayswater, London. In a 1980 interview, John Lennon said of the film, "I think it's a great movie, it's my favourite Beatle movie. Sean loves it now, all the little children love it".
Of all the Beatles films released by United Artists, Yellow Submarine had been the only one to which UA retained the rights, leading up to its purchase by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1981. In 2005, Sony Pictures Entertainment led a consortium that purchased MGM and UA. SPE handled theatrical distribution for MGM until 2012. 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment was responsible for home video distribution when the most recent home video release went out of print until 30 June 2020.
For the 50th anniversary of the movie in 2018, it was screened in the UK and Ireland for one day on 8 July 2018, and in the US from 8 July 2018. Amazon negotiated exclusive streaming rights to the film via its Prime Video service, starting 13 July 2018 in the UK, the US, Canada, Germany, Spain, France and Italy under a deal with Apple Corps. The companies declined to disclose the length of Amazon's exclusive rights.
With the dawn of the home-video era came an opportunity to release Yellow Submarine on VHS and LaserDisc. However, it was held up by United Artists for some years over music-rights issues. Coinciding with the CD release of the soundtrack album, MGM/UA Home Video issued the film on home video on 28 August 1987. To the disappointment of fans in the UK, the film was presented in its US theatrical version, thereby omitting the "Hey Bulldog" scene. The video was discontinued around 1990, and for many years copies of the original VHS issue were considered collectables.
On 14 September 1999, then-rights holders Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and Apple reissued the film for the first time on DVD and VHS using restoration techniques of the time. The sound was remixed to Dolby 5.1, and the film was re-edited to its European theatrical version, with the "Hey Bulldog" number restored. This version (released by MGM Home Entertainment, which was available exclusively through Warner Home Video worldwide) went out of print once the rights reverted to Apple Corps.
On 20 March 2012, Apple Corps announced that the film had been restored by hand for DVD and Blu-ray release on 28 May 2012 (29 May in North America), later delayed one week to 4 June 2012 (5 June in North America). The company stated: "The film's soundtrack album will be reissued on CD on the same date. The film has been restored in 4K digital resolution for the first time – all done by hand, frame by frame". The delicate restoration was supervised by Paul Rutan Jr and his team, which included Chris Dusendschon, Rayan Raghuram and Randy Walker. No automated software was used to clean up the film's repaired and digitised photo-chemical elements. The work was done by hand, a single frame at a time, by 40 to 60 trained digital artists, over several months.
In addition to the DVD and Blu-ray re-release, the restored version also received a limited theatrical run in May 2012.
For the 30th anniversary of the film, the soundtrack and score were remixed in 5.1 stereo surround sound at Abbey Road Studios by mix engineer Peter Cobbin.
On 14 September 1999, United Artists and Apple Records digitally remixed the audio of the film for a highly successful theatrical and home video re-release. Though the visuals were not digitally restored, a new transfer was done after cleaning the original film negative and rejuvenating the colour. A soundtrack album for this version was also released, which featured the first extensive digital stereo remixes of Beatles material.
The previous DVD release also featured a music-only audio track, without spoken dialogue, leaving only the music and the songs.
In August 2009, Variety reported that Walt Disney Pictures and filmmaker Robert Zemeckis were negotiating to produce a computer-animated remake of the film. Motion capture was to be used, as with Zemeckis' previous animated films The Polar Express (2004), Beowulf (2007), and A Christmas Carol (2009). Variety also indicated that Disney hoped to release the film in time for the 2012 Summer Olympics in London. Disney and Apple Corps officially announced the remake at the inaugural D23 Expo on 11 September 2009.
Comedian Peter Serafinowicz was cast to voice Paul, Dean Lennox Kelly as John, Cary Elwes as George, Adam Campbell as Ringo and David Tennant was in talks to voice the Chief Blue Meanie. California-based Beatles tribute band the Fab Four was cast to perform the performance capture animation for the animated Beatles.
In May 2010, Disney closed Zemeckis' digital film studio ImageMovers Digital after unsatisfactory box-office performance of A Christmas Carol. On 14 March 2011, Disney abandoned the project, citing the disastrous opening weekend results of Simon Wells' Mars Needs Moms. Criticism toward motion-capture technology was also a factor.
After its cancellation at Disney, Zemeckis tried to pitch the remake to other studios. By December 2012, Zemeckis expressed that he had lost interest in the project, stating: "That would have been great to bring the Beatles back to life. But it's probably better not to be remade – you're always behind the 8-ball when do you [sic] a remake".
In 2021, footage of the remake surfaced online, revealing that the film would have potentially utilized soundbites from the original and even recreate certain scenes. One of the more notable differences was a sequence during Ringo's introduction where he was going to be tempted by a siren presumably created by the Blue Meanies.