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New & sealed clamshell- Beatles, The - Yellow Submarine VHS,
1968 color Time 1 hour 30 minutes
Format: Animated, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, NTSC
Rated: G (General Audience)
Number of tapes: 1
Home Enterainment
Rated G
Digital Video
Language: English
animated valentine to the Beatles offers
viewers the rare chance to see a work that's been substantially improved by its
technical facelift, not just supersized with extra footage. Recognizing that
its song-studded soundtrack alone makes Yellow Submarine a
video annuity, United Artists has lavished a frame-by-frame refurbishment of
the original feature, while replacing its original monaural audio tracks with a
meticulously reconstructed stereo mix that actually refines legendary original
album versions.
What emerges is a vivid time capsule of the
late '60s and a minor milestone in animation. The music represents the
quartet's zenith--Rubber Soul, Revolver, and Sgt.
Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. The story line, cobbled together by
producer Al Brodax and a committee of writers, is a broad, feather-light
allegory set in idyllic Pepperland, where the gentle citizens are threatened by
the nasty, music-hating Blue Meanies and their surreal arsenal of henchmen,
with the Beatles enlisted to thwart the bad guys. Visually, designer Heinz
Edelmann mixes the biomorphic squiggles, day-glo palette, and Beardsley-esque
portraits of Peter Max with rotoscoped still photographs and film; Edelmann's
animated collages also nod to Andy Warhol and Magritte in properly psychedelic
fashion, which works wonderfully with such terrific songs.