Watched: November 6 2025
Director: George Dunning, Dennis Abey
Starring: John, Paul, George and Ringo. But also played by John Clive, Geoffrey Hughes, Peter Batten and Paul Angelis. Featuring Dick Emery and Lance Percival.
Year: 1968
Runtime: 1h 30min
It’s a tale as old as time: Blue Meanies in high heels attack a peaceful Peppernation with the aid of their sentient (evil) glove. Only Admiral Fred makes it out to get Help! (see what we did there?), in a (you guessed it) Yellow Submarine™.
Fred ends up in Liverpool where he picks up Ringo, John, George and Paul. Together, they must travel back to Pepperland to save the land through music. Along the way, they encounter several creatures and experience many adventures. They also pick up The Nowhere Man, aka. Jeremy Hillary Boob, Ph. D. – a creature of many talents and infinite rhymes.
Yellow Submarine is silly, surreal and weird. In many ways a mix of genius and stupidity, it is very enjoyable, and the pun game is excellent. We’re clearly not the target audience though – while we both enjoy The Beatles, we’re more casual fans and were born too late to experience full on Beatlemania. Also, psychedelic drugs were no longer en vogue by the time we were old enough to start experimenting, so we feel like we might never fully grasp the significance of this feature the way its contemporary audience would have experienced it.
Still, we loved the creatures, the Nowhere Man, the animation style, and the general vibe. We might mostly recommend it to fans of the band though. Or fans of mind-altering drugs. Perhaps preferably fans of both.
What we learned: When in doubt, try a few buttons.
MVP: Drugs… And the soundtrack.
Next time: Army of Shadows (1969)
1000 Films Blog 