The Beatles' classic 1968 animated feature film, Yellow Submarine, has been digitally restored and will be presented on the big screen in select theaters across the United States in May. On May 5 at the famed Ziegfeld Theatre in New York City, Yellow Submarine will start its theatrical campaign with an 8pm screening.
Currently out of print, the film has been restored in 4K digital resolution for the first time by Paul Rutan Jr. and his team of specialists at Triage Motion Picture Services and Eque Inc. Due to the delicate nature of the hand-drawn original artwork, no automated software was used in the digital clean-up of the film's restored photochemical elements. This was all done by hand, frame by frame. The restored film will be released on DVD and Blu-ray on June 5 (June 4 internationally), and the film's songtrack album will be reissued on CD on the same date.
Directed by George Dunning, and written by Lee Minoff, Al Brodax, Jack Mendelsohn and Erich Segal, Yellow Submarine began its voyage to the screen when Brodax, who had previously produced nearly 40 episodes of ABC's animated Beatles TV series, approached The Beatles' manager Brian Epstein with a unique vision for a full-length animated feature.
The film, based upon a song by John Lennon and Paul McCartney, is a fantastic tale brimming with peace, love, and hope, propelled by Beatles songs, including "Eleanor Rigby," "When I'm Sixty-Four," "Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds," "All You Need Is Love," and "It's All Too Much." When the film debuted in 1968, it was instantly recognized as a landmark achievement, revolutionizing a genre by integrating the freestyle approach of the era with innovative animation techniques.
Inspired by the generation's new trends in art, the film resides with the Pop Art styles of Andy Warhol, Martin Sharp, Alan Aldridge and Peter Blake. With art direction and production design by Heinz Edelmann, Yellow Submarine is a classic of animated cinema, featuring the creative work of animation directors Robert Balser and Jack Stokes with a team of animators and technical artists.
"I thought from the very beginning that the film should be a series of interconnected shorts," remembered Edelmann. "The style should vary every five minutes or so to keep the interest going until the end." These styles included melding live-action photography with animation, 3-dimensional sequences and kaleidoscopic "rotoscoping" where film is traced frame by frame into drawings. The entire process took nearly two years, 14 different scripts, 40 animators and 140 technical artists, ultimately producing a groundbreaking triumph of animation.
Yellow Submarine synopsis:
Once upon a time… or maybe twice, there was an unearthly paradise called Pepperland, a place where happiness and music reigned supreme. But all that was threatened when the terrible Blue Meanies declared war and sent in their army led by a menacing Flying Glove to destroy all that was good. Enter John, Paul, George and Ringo to save the day! Armed with little more than their humor, songs, and of course, their yellow submarine, The Beatles tackle the rough seas ahead in an effort to bring down the evil forces of bluedom.
Yellow Submarine's confirmed theatrical screening dates, cities and theaters have been posted at www.facebook.com/YellowSubmarineTheMovie and www.YellowSubmarineTheMovie.com.
