Synopsis

The Beatles, at the height of their popularity made this psychedelic animated feature. The magical Pepperland is invaded by the Blue Meanies, who have declared war on all that is good, especially music. At the request of a befuddled emissary from Pepperland, the lads from Liverpool take a ride in their yellow submarine to aid the besieged residents in their battle. Animated film set to Beatles music, loaded with surreal visuals and typical Beatles humour.

George Dunning

George Garnett Dunning (1920-1979) first made his mark at the National Film Board of Canada among the animators grouped around Norman McLaren. He had joined the Board in 1943 after study at the Ontario School of Art and freelance work as an illustrator. His film Cadet Rousselle (1947) pronounced the arrival of a distinctive talent, especially keen to develop new techniques. Further experimentation followed in 1948, during a year spent working for UNESCO in Paris; he painted designs onto glass (a favourite technique), and absorbed advice from the Czech-born animator of L'Idée (1932), Berthold Bartosch. In 1956 he arrived in Britain with the job of managing UPA's new London office. He slowly began to generate his own personal short films, beginning in with The Wardrobe (1958), The Apple (1962), which won a British Film Academy award, The Flying Man (1962) winning the Grand Prix in Annecy, and The Ladder (1967). These films established Dunning alongside Richard Williams and Bob Godfrey as a major new voice in British animation. Dunning's carnival of new techniques in Yellow Submarine and his other films greatly influenced other talents, and extended the horizons of British animation. In 1972 he began to lay plans for a feature based on Shakespeare's The Tempest, which remained sadly unfinished. (Geoff Brown)