The Beatles Thought the ‘Yellow Submarine’ Movie Was a ‘Pain in the A**,’ but They Barely Had Anything to Do With It
In 1968, The Beatles released Yellow Submarine, their fourth film. While they enjoyed the process of making their first movie, A Hard Day’s Night, working on Help! hadn’t been as enjoyable, and Magical Mystery Tour had been a disaster. They did not want to work on a new film, but their contract with United Artists required it. They saw the film as an annoyance, but they hardly had any involvement with it.
The Beatles found ‘Yellow Submarine’ frustrating
The Beatles had a three-film contract with United Artists, meaning they had to produce a third film even if they didn’t feel like it. As a result, they put out an animated movie, fulfilling their deal without having to act on screen. They didn’t even voice their characters. The band appeared, unanimated, in one scene to fulfill their contractual obligation. Otherwise, actors voiced them.
While they wrote an accompanying album for the film, it was a half-hearted effort as well. Songs The Beatles didn’t like went onto the Yellow Submarine album.
“It was put into the Yellow Submarine album because the Yellow Submarine people desperately wanted new material,” producer George Martin told Rolling Stone. “The boys didn’t dig the film at all because they weren’t involved with it to begin with. It was a pain in the a**. They said, ‘We really don’t need this in the album, let’s just give them that one.'”
At least 1 member of the band liked the movie
Even though The Beatles hadn’t necessarily wanted to work with United Artists on another movie, they resented their lack of involvement. John Lennon believed that the company had stolen their ideas without crediting them. He described them as “gross animals.”
“They lifted all the ideas for the movie out of our heads and didn’t give us any credit,” he said in the book All We Are Saying: The Last Major Interview With John Lennon and Yoko Ono by David Sheff. “We had nothing to do with that movie, and we sort of resented them.”
At least one Beatle was happy with the arrangement, though. George Harrison felt checked out of the band at this point, and a project he didn’t need to be involved in was welcome.
“Actually, the thing that I like most about the movie was we didn’t really have to do anything to it,” he said in an interview with VH1. “They just took the music, we met with them, and they talked about basically what they were going to do.”
‘Yellow Submarine’ received positive reviews despite what The Beatles thought of it
While The Beatles found the film frustrating and put songs they didn’t love on the soundtrack, it received positive reviews. Both audiences and critics appreciated the story, animation, and soundtrack. Even Lennon, who hadn’t liked it before its release, couldn’t criticize the completed film. He also liked the way the songs sounded, even if they hadn’t required much effort.
“But I liked the movie, the artwork,” he said. “They wanted another song, so I knocked off ‘Hey Bulldog.’ It’s a good-sounding record that means nothing.”
