‘Liverpool can be a lonely place on a Saturday night, and this is only Thursday morning...’
Well. My latest cinematic adventure was to watch all the films that feature The Beatles. There are four in all not including documentaries. A Hard Day’s Night and Help! are very much sculpted in the image of their director Richard Lester. His quick cuts and surrealist aesthetic are responsible for the way The Beatles film canon is perceived. After that came the excretable Magical Mystery Tour – possibly the worst thing that fab four put their names to. And lastly, it’s Yellow Submarine. A film that combines lots of disparate elements from the previous three films into one satisfying whole…
There is a plot. Some nonsense about a music hating group called the Blue Meanies wanting to ban music. It really doesn’t matter, however. Come for the songs (most of which are enhanced greatly by the animated sequences that accompany them) and stay for the trippy, imaginative and psychedelic animation. Similarities to Terry Gilliam’s animation work for Monty Python are clear, but Yellow Submarine actually predates the first series of Python so it’s difficult to know who influenced who.
As for the band themselves, they had little to do with the creative process behind this film other than a short appearance at the end, and to be honest, the project benefits from this. Whilst they are clearly world beating musicians, their cinematic instincts are not particularly sharp and director George Dunning just a great job in bringing Lee Minoff’s strange and compelling script to life.
If you don’t like The Beatles or have an appreciation for animation (what is wrong with you?!) then steer clear of Yellow Submarine. For casual fans, I would say this is the best of all The Beatles movies, and the most accessible. I loved it. All aboard!