Yellow Submarine
(1968, Rated G)
7/5/19
I’m sorry to say that I lost my dad’s VHS copy of this movie as a kid. He has told me that he couldn’t care less about it now, and of course, I believe him. Still, I do feel a sliver of guilt about it every now and again. So . . . yeah. Sorry, Dad. :/ In another example of five-year-old mistaking on my part, by the time I saw this movie, I had already been on a long and steady diet of Disney fare, resulting in the misguided belief that anything animated was exclusively for kids and therefore fun, while anything not animated was exclusively for grownups and therefore not fun. While certainly not family unfriendly by any stretch, this was one of the first films I saw that began to subtly chip away at that belief, for which I am now eternally grateful. And as an added bonus, I don’t think I could have had a better introduction than this to the immortal musical movement that was The Beatles.
Eighty thousand leagues beneath the sea lays (or lies, the narrator’s not too sure) the beautiful utopia known as Pepperland. In this paradise full of light and color, and under the protection of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, the gentle, peace-loving inhabitants spend their days creating music with which to entertain and bring joy to one another. But the hairy, long-nosed blue meanies decide they are fed up with such cheerful sounds and attack with all their music-hating might, reducing Pepperland to a gray and silent wasteland. At the behest of the elderly Lord Mayor, the only slightly less elderly sailor, Old Fred, takes the titular yellow submarine and travels up to the surface to seek help. He ultimately finds himself in 1960’s England, where he comes across a bored and depressed Ringo Starr wandering the streets of Liverpool. Touched by Old Fred’s story, Ringo takes him to meet his band mates: the charismatic John Lennon, the spiritual George Harrison, and the nonchalant Paul McCartney. And so the Fab Four agree to accompany Old Fred in the magical sub through bizarre and dangerous waters. Armed with nothing but the powers of music, peace, and love, the Beatles must face off against the spitefully insane Chief Blue Meanie and his oddball minions in order to save Pepperland and restore its people to their former happy and harmonious selves.
The film is based on the song of the same name, written by McCartney and Lennon and first released on the Beatles’ 1966 album, Revolver. It was originally intended as a nonsense song for children, but over time has been increasingly believed by adults to carry social and political symbolism. I personally see it as a song best enjoyed with a bunch of friends of any age who couldn’t care less how long it goes on or whether they or anyone else can carry a tune to begin with. And no, you don’t have to be either drunk or high to get the full, delightfully silly effect:
We all live in a yellow submarine
Yellow submarine, yellow submarine
We all live in a yellow submarine
Yellow submarine, yellow submarine
And speaking of trippy states of mind, this is the movie that set the standard for me when it comes to animation that’s a combination of explosively colorful and weird to the point where you start to wonder if the creators weren’t on something themselves. Anime like Mononoke and Catnapped! and obscure pre-90’s movies like Fantastic Planet and Twice Upon a Time spring to mind. Though primarily 2-D animated, Yellow Submarine cranks the eye-candy level up to 11 by utilizing a variety of animations and art styles. Among others, there’s rotoscoping, Andy Warhol-esque Pop art, and cut-out imagery reminiscent of Monty Python’s Flying Circus.
Moreover, though made when the Beatles were at the height of their popularity, Yellow Submarine still looks and feels like a high-quality animated musical with real artistic effort put into it rather than just an hour and a half worth of Beatles songs strung together by a series of random acting scenes. (Magical Mystery Tour, I’m looking at you.) Not only are the song segments fun music videos in their own right, but the classic Beatles tunes peppering the film (pun intended!) blend seamlessly with the narrative and help to move it along. “Eleanor Rigby” is played as the yellow submarine flies over Liverpool, with “all the lonely people” going through the motions of their seemingly unfulfilling day-to-day lives:
Eleanor Rigby, picks up the rice
In the church where a wedding has been
Lives in a dream
Waits at the window, wearing the face
That she keeps in a jar by the door
Who is it for
All the lonely people
Where do they all come from?
All the lonely people
Where do they all belong?
In the much more upbeat “All Together Now”, our heroes have just entered the sub and are now learning, or rather playing with, the controls, and having a grand old time doing it:
All together now
All together now
All together now
All together now
And the crew perform “When I’m Sixty-Four” while traveling through the Sea of Time, after first shrinking down into children, and then literally being buried in piles of their own whitening hair as they age into old men:
“When I get older losing my hair
Many years from now
Will you still be sending me a Valentine
Birthday greetings bottle of wine
If I'd been out till quarter to three
Would you lock the door
Will you still need me, will you still feed me
When I'm sixty-four”
There are also strong elements of Alice in Wonderland, but not just for the obvious reasons, like the weird landscapes and the crazy creatures. The protagonists act not like they’re on not a rescue mission, but rather a self-guided tour: they encounter some curiosity, have an experience with it, and then move on to the next one. As a matter of fact, the Beatles don’t react half as strongly to their adventures as Alice does to hers, and what they see is way freakier than anything Carroll ever came up with. But this actually makes them even funnier to watch because of how utterly dorky they are. Whether they’re stumbling from one fever-dream situation to another—and surviving through nothing but sheer dumb luck—or bantering in their thick British accents about some pseudo-philosophical gibberish like lazy college buddies, sometimes they just make you want to shake your head in a mixture of aggrieved pity and barely-suppressed exasperation, even when their lovably goofy charm makes you laugh:
PAUL: Do you ever get the feeling . . .
JOHN: Yeah?
PAUL: . . . that things aren’t as rosy as they appear to be under the surface?
GEORGE: What’s happening, John?
JOHN: Well, in my humble opinion, we’ve become involved in Einstein’s space-time continuum theory.
GEORGE: Oh, aye.
JOHN: “Relatively” speaking, that is.
GEORGE: Of course. Maybe time’s going on strike.
PAUL: What for?
GEORGE: Shorter hours.
RINGO: I don’t blame it. Must be very tiring being time, mustn’t it?
OTHERS: Why?
RINGO: Well, it’s a 24-hour day, isn’t it?
JOHN: You surprise me, Ringo.
RINGO: Why?
JOHN: Dealing in abstracts.
Not to mention their puns so embarrassingly lame they make Looney Tunes humor look sophisticated:
OLD FRED: (Amazed, as he and Ringo approach a table on which the Frankenstein monster lays sleeping) Frankenstein?
RINGO: Oh, yeah, I used to go out with his sister.
OLD FRED: His sister?
RINGO: Yeah, Phyllis. (Sees a lever and goes to grasp it) Hey. I wonder what would happen if I pull this lever?
OLD FRED: (Waves his hands at him worriedly) You mustn’t do that!
RINGO: (Unperturbed) Can’t help it, I’m a born “Liver-pooler.”
[. . .]
OLD FRED: (After examining the yellow submarine’s motor) By Neptune’s knickerbockers! She’s puttered out.
JOHN: Well, maybe we should call a road service.
PAUL: Can’t. No road.
RINGO: And we’re not “sub-scribers.”
OTHERS: (Groaning and face-palming with visible pain) Sub-scribers. Oh.
The original characters are even less complex in terms of motivation and personality, but in such a bonkers world they really couldn’t be any other way, nor should they. The Chief Blue Meanie is like Gonzo the Muppet with the body of a life-size Chia Pet, and the “manners” of the Queen of Hearts: calm and collected and agreeable one moment, screaming like a psychopathic toddler at the slightest provocation the next:
CHIEF BLUE MEANIE: (Completely relaxed as he is carried in by his minions) Pepperland is a tickle of joy on the blue belly of the universe. (Gets out of his carriage, and bears his claws at his lackey, Max) It must be scratched. Right, Max?
MAX: (Saluting with a goofy grin) Yes, Your Blueness!
CHIEF BLUE MEANIE: (With sudden rage) WHAT? (Grabs Max by the ears) We Meanies only take no for an answer! (Drops him back down and looms menacingly over him) Is that understood, Max?
MAX: (Salutes again, still grinning) No, Your Blueness!
CHIEF BLUE MEANIE: (Immediately calms down) That’s better.
Old Fred is a brave and true sailor man, but also kind of a melodramatic twit. Granted, his people and homeland are in danger, but his childish pleading and one-track mind seldom encourage the rest of the cast to take him very seriously:
OLD FRED: (Bangs on Ringo’s front door) Help! Help! Help!
RINGO: (From inside his house) Thanks, I don’t need any.
OLD FRED: (Clasps his hands together, begging) Help! Won’t you please, please help me!
RINGO: (Through his mail slot) Be specific.
OLD FRED: (Flails in front of the door) [incoherent babble] Music! [More incoherent babble] Blue! Blue! [More incoherent babble] The submarine—Explosions! Blue Meanies!
RINGO: (Closes the slot, muttering) What you need is--
OLD FRED: (Continues flailing) “H” for Hurry, “E” for “ergent”, (drops to his knees) “L” for love me . . . and “P” for please help!
But my favorite is one Jeremy Hillary Boob, Ph.D. With a rabbit-like body, pink monkey ears and fluffy tail, the face of clown, and a habit for perpetually speaking in rhyme, Jeremy has an insatiable passion for knowledge and scholarly endeavors. The epitome of the absent-minded professor, he often forgets his own facts, contradicts himself, and fixes broken objects a bit too well, but he’s just so adorable in his enthusiasm as well as his appearance you can never stay mad at him for long:
JEREMY: Medic, pedic, zed oblique. Orphic, morphic, dorfic, Greek. Ad hoc, ad loc and quid pro quo! So little time, ha ha, so much to know!
Having said all that, if there is anyone here who does display any real character development, it’s Ringo. He’s easily the kindest and most sensitive of the quartet, even to the point of making the other three look like jerks. While John, George, and Paul tend to tease him and show a sort of “just along for the ride” kind of attitude throughout, Ringo actually stops and thinks about his place in the world (or lack thereof), and cares about the feelings and well-being of others, even a so-called “Nowhere Man”:
JOHN: (Pointing back at the sub) Okay, men, all aboard. Let’s go somewhere.
RINGO: (Points at Jeremy, who’s crying) What about him?
JOHN: (Wiggles a finger in Ringo’s face) He’s happy enough going round in circles.
RINGO: (Watches Jeremy with sympathy) Oh, poor little fella.
PAUL: (Shrugging) I don’t know. Ringo’s just a sentimentalist.
RINGO: Aw, look at him. Can’t he come with us? (Runs over to Jeremy) Hey, uh, Mr. Boob, you can come with us if you like.
JEREMY: (With surprise and delight) You mean, you’d take a nowhere man?
RINGO: (Takes him by the hand) Yeah, come on. We’ll take you somewhere.
In hindsight, if not for Ringo, there wouldn’t even be a story, never mind the deliverance of a civilization. I might be over analyzing a tiny detail in a movie better known for random madness than logic or drama. But I feel that Ringo in particular is the one Beatle who seems to get anything personal out of the entire adventure. And to their credit, the other three do learn to better appreciate this, and him, by the end.
Being only a casual Beatles listener myself, I can’t say for certain exactly how much the Beatles of Yellow Submarine resemble their real life counterparts. Plus, there are a few jokes and references here and there that only hardcore fans/historians are going to understand. Even so, I do know from personal experience that you don’t have to know anything about the Beatles to have a complete ball with this movie. With its colorful visuals, creative absurdity, and offbeat humor, the idea of Yellow Submarine is not to be challenged by a complex story, but to have a fun and groovy experience while rocking out to some of the Beatles’ greatest hits. It may very well be a product of its time, but its joyful aesthetic, just like their song, “All You Need is Love”, will remain universal.
CREDITS:
All images, audio, and links belong to their respective owners; no copyright infringement is intended.
MAIN THEME:
“The Call” – Briand Morrison and Roxann Berglund
Eighty thousand leagues beneath the sea lays (or lies, the narrator’s not too sure) the beautiful utopia known as Pepperland. In this paradise full of light and color, and under the protection of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, the gentle, peace-loving inhabitants spend their days creating music with which to entertain and bring joy to one another. But the hairy, long-nosed blue meanies decide they are fed up with such cheerful sounds and attack with all their music-hating might, reducing Pepperland to a gray and silent wasteland. At the behest of the elderly Lord Mayor, the only slightly less elderly sailor, Old Fred, takes the titular yellow submarine and travels up to the surface to seek help. He ultimately finds himself in 1960’s England, where he comes across a bored and depressed Ringo Starr wandering the streets of Liverpool. Touched by Old Fred’s story, Ringo takes him to meet his band mates: the charismatic John Lennon, the spiritual George Harrison, and the nonchalant Paul McCartney. And so the Fab Four agree to accompany Old Fred in the magical sub through bizarre and dangerous waters. Armed with nothing but the powers of music, peace, and love, the Beatles must face off against the spitefully insane Chief Blue Meanie and his oddball minions in order to save Pepperland and restore its people to their former happy and harmonious selves.
The film is based on the song of the same name, written by McCartney and Lennon and first released on the Beatles’ 1966 album, Revolver. It was originally intended as a nonsense song for children, but over time has been increasingly believed by adults to carry social and political symbolism. I personally see it as a song best enjoyed with a bunch of friends of any age who couldn’t care less how long it goes on or whether they or anyone else can carry a tune to begin with. And no, you don’t have to be either drunk or high to get the full, delightfully silly effect:
We all live in a yellow submarine
Yellow submarine, yellow submarine
We all live in a yellow submarine
Yellow submarine, yellow submarine
And speaking of trippy states of mind, this is the movie that set the standard for me when it comes to animation that’s a combination of explosively colorful and weird to the point where you start to wonder if the creators weren’t on something themselves. Anime like Mononoke and Catnapped! and obscure pre-90’s movies like Fantastic Planet and Twice Upon a Time spring to mind. Though primarily 2-D animated, Yellow Submarine cranks the eye-candy level up to 11 by utilizing a variety of animations and art styles. Among others, there’s rotoscoping, Andy Warhol-esque Pop art, and cut-out imagery reminiscent of Monty Python’s Flying Circus.
Moreover, though made when the Beatles were at the height of their popularity, Yellow Submarine still looks and feels like a high-quality animated musical with real artistic effort put into it rather than just an hour and a half worth of Beatles songs strung together by a series of random acting scenes. (Magical Mystery Tour, I’m looking at you.) Not only are the song segments fun music videos in their own right, but the classic Beatles tunes peppering the film (pun intended!) blend seamlessly with the narrative and help to move it along. “Eleanor Rigby” is played as the yellow submarine flies over Liverpool, with “all the lonely people” going through the motions of their seemingly unfulfilling day-to-day lives:
Eleanor Rigby, picks up the rice
In the church where a wedding has been
Lives in a dream
Waits at the window, wearing the face
That she keeps in a jar by the door
Who is it for
All the lonely people
Where do they all come from?
All the lonely people
Where do they all belong?
In the much more upbeat “All Together Now”, our heroes have just entered the sub and are now learning, or rather playing with, the controls, and having a grand old time doing it:
All together now
All together now
All together now
All together now
And the crew perform “When I’m Sixty-Four” while traveling through the Sea of Time, after first shrinking down into children, and then literally being buried in piles of their own whitening hair as they age into old men:
“When I get older losing my hair
Many years from now
Will you still be sending me a Valentine
Birthday greetings bottle of wine
If I'd been out till quarter to three
Would you lock the door
Will you still need me, will you still feed me
When I'm sixty-four”
There are also strong elements of Alice in Wonderland, but not just for the obvious reasons, like the weird landscapes and the crazy creatures. The protagonists act not like they’re on not a rescue mission, but rather a self-guided tour: they encounter some curiosity, have an experience with it, and then move on to the next one. As a matter of fact, the Beatles don’t react half as strongly to their adventures as Alice does to hers, and what they see is way freakier than anything Carroll ever came up with. But this actually makes them even funnier to watch because of how utterly dorky they are. Whether they’re stumbling from one fever-dream situation to another—and surviving through nothing but sheer dumb luck—or bantering in their thick British accents about some pseudo-philosophical gibberish like lazy college buddies, sometimes they just make you want to shake your head in a mixture of aggrieved pity and barely-suppressed exasperation, even when their lovably goofy charm makes you laugh:
PAUL: Do you ever get the feeling . . .
JOHN: Yeah?
PAUL: . . . that things aren’t as rosy as they appear to be under the surface?
GEORGE: What’s happening, John?
JOHN: Well, in my humble opinion, we’ve become involved in Einstein’s space-time continuum theory.
GEORGE: Oh, aye.
JOHN: “Relatively” speaking, that is.
GEORGE: Of course. Maybe time’s going on strike.
PAUL: What for?
GEORGE: Shorter hours.
RINGO: I don’t blame it. Must be very tiring being time, mustn’t it?
OTHERS: Why?
RINGO: Well, it’s a 24-hour day, isn’t it?
JOHN: You surprise me, Ringo.
RINGO: Why?
JOHN: Dealing in abstracts.
Not to mention their puns so embarrassingly lame they make Looney Tunes humor look sophisticated:
OLD FRED: (Amazed, as he and Ringo approach a table on which the Frankenstein monster lays sleeping) Frankenstein?
RINGO: Oh, yeah, I used to go out with his sister.
OLD FRED: His sister?
RINGO: Yeah, Phyllis. (Sees a lever and goes to grasp it) Hey. I wonder what would happen if I pull this lever?
OLD FRED: (Waves his hands at him worriedly) You mustn’t do that!
RINGO: (Unperturbed) Can’t help it, I’m a born “Liver-pooler.”
[. . .]
OLD FRED: (After examining the yellow submarine’s motor) By Neptune’s knickerbockers! She’s puttered out.
JOHN: Well, maybe we should call a road service.
PAUL: Can’t. No road.
RINGO: And we’re not “sub-scribers.”
OTHERS: (Groaning and face-palming with visible pain) Sub-scribers. Oh.
The original characters are even less complex in terms of motivation and personality, but in such a bonkers world they really couldn’t be any other way, nor should they. The Chief Blue Meanie is like Gonzo the Muppet with the body of a life-size Chia Pet, and the “manners” of the Queen of Hearts: calm and collected and agreeable one moment, screaming like a psychopathic toddler at the slightest provocation the next:
CHIEF BLUE MEANIE: (Completely relaxed as he is carried in by his minions) Pepperland is a tickle of joy on the blue belly of the universe. (Gets out of his carriage, and bears his claws at his lackey, Max) It must be scratched. Right, Max?
MAX: (Saluting with a goofy grin) Yes, Your Blueness!
CHIEF BLUE MEANIE: (With sudden rage) WHAT? (Grabs Max by the ears) We Meanies only take no for an answer! (Drops him back down and looms menacingly over him) Is that understood, Max?
MAX: (Salutes again, still grinning) No, Your Blueness!
CHIEF BLUE MEANIE: (Immediately calms down) That’s better.
Old Fred is a brave and true sailor man, but also kind of a melodramatic twit. Granted, his people and homeland are in danger, but his childish pleading and one-track mind seldom encourage the rest of the cast to take him very seriously:
OLD FRED: (Bangs on Ringo’s front door) Help! Help! Help!
RINGO: (From inside his house) Thanks, I don’t need any.
OLD FRED: (Clasps his hands together, begging) Help! Won’t you please, please help me!
RINGO: (Through his mail slot) Be specific.
OLD FRED: (Flails in front of the door) [incoherent babble] Music! [More incoherent babble] Blue! Blue! [More incoherent babble] The submarine—Explosions! Blue Meanies!
RINGO: (Closes the slot, muttering) What you need is--
OLD FRED: (Continues flailing) “H” for Hurry, “E” for “ergent”, (drops to his knees) “L” for love me . . . and “P” for please help!
But my favorite is one Jeremy Hillary Boob, Ph.D. With a rabbit-like body, pink monkey ears and fluffy tail, the face of clown, and a habit for perpetually speaking in rhyme, Jeremy has an insatiable passion for knowledge and scholarly endeavors. The epitome of the absent-minded professor, he often forgets his own facts, contradicts himself, and fixes broken objects a bit too well, but he’s just so adorable in his enthusiasm as well as his appearance you can never stay mad at him for long:
JEREMY: Medic, pedic, zed oblique. Orphic, morphic, dorfic, Greek. Ad hoc, ad loc and quid pro quo! So little time, ha ha, so much to know!
Having said all that, if there is anyone here who does display any real character development, it’s Ringo. He’s easily the kindest and most sensitive of the quartet, even to the point of making the other three look like jerks. While John, George, and Paul tend to tease him and show a sort of “just along for the ride” kind of attitude throughout, Ringo actually stops and thinks about his place in the world (or lack thereof), and cares about the feelings and well-being of others, even a so-called “Nowhere Man”:
JOHN: (Pointing back at the sub) Okay, men, all aboard. Let’s go somewhere.
RINGO: (Points at Jeremy, who’s crying) What about him?
JOHN: (Wiggles a finger in Ringo’s face) He’s happy enough going round in circles.
RINGO: (Watches Jeremy with sympathy) Oh, poor little fella.
PAUL: (Shrugging) I don’t know. Ringo’s just a sentimentalist.
RINGO: Aw, look at him. Can’t he come with us? (Runs over to Jeremy) Hey, uh, Mr. Boob, you can come with us if you like.
JEREMY: (With surprise and delight) You mean, you’d take a nowhere man?
RINGO: (Takes him by the hand) Yeah, come on. We’ll take you somewhere.
In hindsight, if not for Ringo, there wouldn’t even be a story, never mind the deliverance of a civilization. I might be over analyzing a tiny detail in a movie better known for random madness than logic or drama. But I feel that Ringo in particular is the one Beatle who seems to get anything personal out of the entire adventure. And to their credit, the other three do learn to better appreciate this, and him, by the end.
Being only a casual Beatles listener myself, I can’t say for certain exactly how much the Beatles of Yellow Submarine resemble their real life counterparts. Plus, there are a few jokes and references here and there that only hardcore fans/historians are going to understand. Even so, I do know from personal experience that you don’t have to know anything about the Beatles to have a complete ball with this movie. With its colorful visuals, creative absurdity, and offbeat humor, the idea of Yellow Submarine is not to be challenged by a complex story, but to have a fun and groovy experience while rocking out to some of the Beatles’ greatest hits. It may very well be a product of its time, but its joyful aesthetic, just like their song, “All You Need is Love”, will remain universal.
CREDITS:
All images, audio, and links belong to their respective owners; no copyright infringement is intended.
MAIN THEME:
“The Call” – Briand Morrison and Roxann Berglund
EPISODE SONGS:
“Beatlesque” - Briand Morrison and Roxann Berglund
“Beatlesque” - Briand Morrison and Roxann Berglund
“Blue Diamond Sky” - Briand Morrison and Roxann Berglund
All other music and sound clips are from Yellow Submarine (production by Apple Films, King Features Syndicate, and TVC London; distributed by United Artists).
OST SONGS (by The Beatles):
“Yellow Submarine”
“Eleanor Rigby”
“All Together Now”
“When I’m Sixty-Four”
Download the full 15-minute episode here!
Yellow Submarine on Wikipedia
Yellow Submarine on The Beatles' Official Website
Yellow Submarine on IMDb
Yellow Submarine on Rotten Tomatoes
Yellow Submarine on Common Sense Media
Yellow Submarine on Tv Tropes
Buy Yellow Submarine on Amazon
Buy Yellow Submarine on Barnes & Noble
Buy Yellow Submarine on Ebay
^^ Back to Movies, Short Films, and Other Works of Cinema
OST SONGS (by The Beatles):
“Yellow Submarine”
“Eleanor Rigby”
“All Together Now”
“When I’m Sixty-Four”
Download the full 15-minute episode here!
Yellow Submarine on Wikipedia
Yellow Submarine on The Beatles' Official Website
Yellow Submarine on IMDb
Yellow Submarine on Rotten Tomatoes
Yellow Submarine on Common Sense Media
Yellow Submarine on Tv Tropes
Buy Yellow Submarine on Amazon
Buy Yellow Submarine on Barnes & Noble
Buy Yellow Submarine on Ebay
^^ Back to Movies, Short Films, and Other Works of Cinema