The Beatles’ Yellow Submarine reviewed – archive, 19 July 1968

19 July 1968: The film looks as if everybody got together, decided which of the band’s songs they were going to use, and wrote it around them

The Yellow Submarine (London Pavilion) is a rather pretentious piece of popular entertainment. Its nominal stars are the Beatles, but – except for a shatteringly effective minute at the end of the film – we never see them, only rather inept cartoon caricatures instead. The backgrounds against which their non-story evolves are, however, brilliantly chic, constituting not an anthology but a veritable roll-call – one might almost say a pillage – of every contemporary artist: Hockney, Lichtenstein, Oldenburg, Blake – you name him, and he’s there. Also present are the European cartoonists –Lenica, Borowczyk, and the lot. Not surprisingly, the nicest moment in the film is when director George Dunning is allowed, or allows himself, to take a hand in the designing, and his smearily waltzing couples in the Lucy in the Sky number are charming.

The film actually looks as if everybody got together, decided which Beatles songs they were going to use, and wrote the film around them. It might have worked in live-action where the charm of their presence would have pulled it off; in cartoon form, it soon begins to pall. Still, it’s nice to hear the songs, and if you want a refresher course in modern graphics, do drop in.