Running Time: 90 minutes
Release Date: July 17, 1968
Producer: Al Brodax
Director: George Duning
Starring: The voices of: John Clive, Geoffrey Hughes, Paul Angelis, Dick Emery, Lance Percival, and Peter Batten, The Beatles
Availability: Video Cassette, Laserdisc, DVD
The Beatles film project for 1968 was Yellow Submarine. This animated psychedelic adventure brings the Beatles to Pepperland to help thwart the Blue Meanies. It seems the Blue Meanies have taken over, and it's up to the fab four to help Fred return music and happiness to Pepperland. Although Yellow Submarine had very little input from the Beatles, they do contribute several songs, and make a personal appearance at the end of the film.
The British soundrack recording for Yellow Submarine was issued on January 17, 1969 on the Parlophone label. The U.S. version of the Yellow Submarine soundtrack album was released on January 13, 1969 by Capitol Records. The track listing for both albums (pictured above, left) is as follows:
Side 1: Yellow Submarine, Only A Northern Song, All Together Now, Hey Bulldog, It's All Too Much, All You Need Is Love
Side 2: (This side consisted of 7 of George Martin's Instrumental tracks from the film) Pepperland, Sea of Time, Sea of Holes, Sea of Monsters, March of The Meanies, Pepperland Laid Waste, Yellow Submarine in Pepperland
The album Yellow Submarine Songtrack (pictured above, right), was released on September 14, 1999. The disc contains the following remixed and remastered tracks:
Yellow Submarine, Hey Bulldog, Eleanor Rigby, Love You To, All Together Now, Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds, Think For Yourself, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, With A Little Help From My Friends, Baby You're A Rich Man, Only A Northern Song, All You Need Is Love, When I'm Sixty Four, Nowhere Man, It's All Too Much
Paul: "The first thing when we heard people were going to do a cartoon...have a man, who sailed to sea, and went to the land of submarines. Sounds like a pretty good story. Go down under the water, see all these things, meet all the people that live there. But we were into kind of psychedelic stuff with Pepper and those kind of things, so they wanted more of that kind of stuff. So it was up to them, anyway, so we went along with that. And they had all the Sea of Holes and all that stuff, which I think, seeing it now, is pretty good. You know, it's quite interesting, really..."
George: "Yeah, I like the film. I think it's a classic film. I'm not sure why we never did our own voices, but probably the actors probably did it better anyway. You know, 'cause you needed to be more cartoon-like and our voices were pretty cartoon-like anyway, but, you know, the exaggeration that you've got with the other actors voices, I think it suits it...."
Paul: (in an exaggerated Liverpool accent) "Well that's where all that stuff came from, you know, that sort of terrible fake Liverpool accent..."
Ringo: "The thing with that film that still blows me away is that, like the first year it was out, I had all these kids come up to me saying, "Why did you press the button?" You know, 'cause I press that button and get shot out. Kids from all over the bloody world were shoutin at me, "Why did you press the button?!?"
George: "But that film does go for every generation. Every 3, 4 year old goes through Yellow Submarine...
