Yellow Submarine

directed by George Dunning
UK 1968

Inspired by Beatlemania, this was the first feature-length animated movie made in Britain for 14 years, and it seemed determined to give a break to all those valiant animators who had been sweating to produce under-budgeted shorts throughout the '60s. Which is doubtless why there's such a wide disparity of graphic styles from sequence to sequence. Some of them, though, still look terrific: director George Dunning's own contribution is the 'Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds' fantasia, with swirling, colour-washed couples counterpointing the song in a totally unexpected way. Speculation: maybe the banality of the over-long 'Love Conquers All' finale has less to do with John Lennon than with Erich (Love Story) Segal, who had a hand in the script.

Excerpt from Time Out Film Guide located HERE

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Theatrical Release: 17 July 1968

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DVD Review: MGM (Special Edition) - Region 2,4 - PAL

DVD Box Cover		CLICK to order from:
Distribution	MGM Region 2,4 - PAL
	The MGM Region 1 NTSC DVD is also out-of-print (and has been for a while) but many are available in auctions:
Runtime	1:26:18 (4% PAL speedup)
Video	1.68:1 Original Aspect Ratio Average Bitrate: 8.13 mb/s PAL 720x576 25.00 f/s
	NOTE: The Vertical axis represents the bits transferred per second. The Horizontal is the time in minutes.
Bitrate
Audio	English DD 5.1 (448 kb/s), German DD 5.1 (448 kb/s), Italian DD 5.1 (448 kb/s), English DD 2.0 mono (some stereo) (192 kb/s), Commentary Track DD 2.0 (192 kb/s), Music Only Track DD 5.1 (448 kb/s) Two Soundbite samples (in MP3) - HERE and HERE
Subtitles	English, English for the Hearing Impaired, German, German for the Hearing Impaired, French, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Swedish, Finnish, Norwegian, Danish, Portuguese and Polish
Features	Release Information: Studio: MGM Aspect Ratio: Widescreen letterboxed - 1.68:1 Edition Details: • Vintage featurette: The Mod Odyssey (7:38) • Music-only track highlighting the film's score • Three storyboarded sequences - including two not used in the final film:• Sea of Monsters (4:21) • Battle of the Monsters (Interactive) • Pepperland (Interactive) • Original pencil drawings • Behind-the-scenes photo gallery • Interviews with crew and vocal talents: Paul Angelis (voice) (1:39), John Clive (voice) (2:04), Davi • Collectible booklet • Original Theatrical Trailer (3:37) DVD Release Date: 14. Sept. 1999 Amaray keep case Chapters 36

Comments

Film:
Yellow Submarine is a psychedelic animated musical featuring The Beatles and their songs. Even though a lot of the film is either disjointed or draggy it has gained wide acceptance both commercially and critically. The highly colorful visuals are just incomparable as the music it features. Many of this films musical sequences showed up as music videos for the songs some decades later.

Video:
The letterboxed 1.68:1 image suffers from edge enhancement and lack of resolution throughout, some of which might be attributed to the way it was originally animated. The image is also not anamorphic, thus further reducing the sharpness and detail.

There have been several complaints about the framing of the feature which sometimes does indeed appear a little tight on the top and bottom. I suspect the opening credits, framed at around 1.45:1 are presented in full animation ratio. I have the opinion that animated films are best served in full animation ratio, but others prefer them matted to replicate the theatrical exhibition which I suspect this edition does.

On the bright side, the video image is quite vibrant in color which suits the film well, and yet there is very little visible chroma noise or pixelation in the stark red or blue areas this film contains. Grain shows up occasionally but never distracts.

When MGM re-master this title sometime in the future it should: a) be presented anamorphic and/or in full animation aspect ratio, b) contain less edge enhancement and c) be mastered in higher resolution. Up to then this disc will do, but it could have been better.

Audio:
For the 1999 international re-release of the film the original mono soundtrack was completely remixed to a full bodied surround soundtrack. This DVD has a 5.1 option as well as a 2 channel mono option, but there's a flaw: The mono soundtrack abruptly shifts to stereo at 24:43 and stays that way until 40:38 (although the first sound effect to confirm this does not come until 41:12). That's not all the trouble with the mono track. It has been mastered quite high and tends to distort. In any event the 5.1 soundtrack is quite entertaining but quite heavy on the bass unfortunately rendering some of it a little muddy. The songs have all been remastered too, and while some of the re-masters have odd EQ (Like "It's All Too Much"), some of the songs (Like "All You Need is Love") have never sounded as good!

Supplements:
For an MGM special edition this package is quite generous. The featurette, Mod Odyssey has some historical value but is otherwise a little thin. The interviews offer some insight on the production but are also a little short. I figure the commentary track has the most interesting information on offer. The theatrical trailer is also here in rather poor shape. For this film, having a music only option is important and it is in good quality as well. Overall very nice, if not extensive.

Packaging:
Ordinary looking packaging apart from the fact that the keep case is yellow, a nice gimmick.

The standard stuff:
The menus are animated and easy to follow. There are dubs in German and Italian, presented in 5.1 presumably prepared for the 1999 reissue. The subtitles included cover western and northern Europe, but for a region 2 release it should also have included subtitles for eastern Europe whichs has been ignored. I would not draw any marks off, however, for it.

- Finnur E.

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