Editor's note, March 9 2001: This review was originally posted in 1997. Yellow Submarine is now available on DVD with multiple soundtracks, as well as the inclusion of the long-deleted "Hey Bulldog" sequence. Yellow Submarine was better without "Hey Bulldog," the film looks even more dated despite restoration, and the added goodies don't add a lot to the film's value, but it's good to know that a film as historically important as Yellow Submarine is available legally once again.
An interesting footnote in the history of animation, Yellow Submarine stands alone as the only non-Disney animated feature film of the 1960s to enjoy a degree of both commercial and critical success. From the vantage point of 1997, the film is less impressive than it probably was in 1968. Nevertheless, it is sufficiently different from the bulk of mainstream animated fare to be worth a rental, or even a purchase. The film hasn't been officially on video since the late 1980s, but can probably be found in several of the more established video chains in your area.
Yellow Submarine has several strong points. Heinz Edelmann's character designs are heavily indebted to both Art Nouveau and Surrealism, resulting in a series of characters more bizarre than anything in cartoons since the freewheeling Fleischer days. The Blue Meanies, in particular, have highly original graphic designs: the Snapping Turtle Turks have abdomens lined with sharklike teeth, the Apple Bonkers recall circus men on stilts, the Glove is an anthropomorphic flying glove, and several Meanies either have reptilian jaws in place of hands or machine guns emerging from their shoes. Yellow Submarine successfully mixes several graphic styles (including rotoscoping) in an eclecticism that seemed inspired by the Beatles' late 1960s albums, and often sharply contrasts muted color schemes (in Liverpool and the occupied Pepperland) with garish psychedelic ones (as in the Sea of Monsters). The film also allows the kind of magical, stream-of-consciousness transformation that has been absent in most commercial animated films since the 1930s; the Submarine itself is capable not only of flying and diving, but of smiling and lighting cigars. In this sense, the film makes a good counterpart to the Bob Clampett short Porky in Wackyland. In addition, the comedy of the film leans more towards verbal British wit than to the slapstick normally present in cartoons. The Beatles speak mainly in one-liners throughout the movie, and the Nowhere Man delivers a series of Dr. Seuss-like poems.
Yellow Submarine's animation is stylized, which may not be to everyone's taste. On the one hand, the very stylization makes a statement against the dominance of Disney. This is a film in which cute, rounded characters do not exist and three-dimensional space is not always implied. On the other hand, upon watching the film again, the stylization is apparently often a cheat. In several scenes in the movie, for example, the Submarine glides along and the rest of the frame is static. The character animation is also inconsistent; toward the middle of the film, the Beatles start to look very odd, especially in closeups, but in the beginning and end of the film the caricatures are better done. Whether or not the stylization seems dated is a matter of opinion, given the current fascination with all things retro. Both the positive and the negative qualities of Yellow Submarine's animation were satirized in the Yellow Submarine Sandwich segment of the Rutles, and in a laughing gas episode of The Simpsons.
The main flaw of the movie is the weak storyline. Just as in the live-action Richard Lester-directed Beatle movies, the story is submerged in favor of high-impact visuals and set pieces. Director George Dunning tosses in a plethora of references to Pop Culture, including the Frankenstein Monster, King Kong, Op Art, Edwardian-era advertising, comic strip characters, etc. While the result is a psychedelic jumble, it makes little sense afterwards and does not contribute to a sense of unity to the film. There is no payoff in the juxtaposition of King Kong in a mansion in Liverpool. It is entirely possible that the goal of the film was to simulate the unpredictability of an LSD trip, in which case we might forgive the odd unexpected pairings. Still, the exceptionally trite storyline (in which music and love win the day) should have been more substantial, given that Yellow Submarine was a full-length feature.
What is left is a series of stunning sequences, some of which could stand on their own as rock videos. The Liverpool segments, the neon flashing fish in the "All Together Now" segment, and the scenes of the Beatles evading the Blue Meanies in Pepperland, are all fascinating pieces of animation. At moments like these, Yellow Submarine still points the way to a Western alternative to Disney-style animation. In fact, Yellow Submarine foreshadowed the use of animation by such rock bands as Pink Floyd, and is arguably the prototypical animated rock video. Oddly enough, there are no scenes in the movie where the cartoon Beatles play rock instruments, and the Beatles themselves were reportedly dissatisfied with the movie.
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