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Up Periscope Yellow: The Making of the Beatles' Yellow Submarine

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If you're curious about the genesis of the movie Yellow Submarine you're well advised to buy both UP PERISCOPE YELLOW and INSIDE THE YELLOW SUBMARINE.

If you've read other reviews here, you'll know UP PERISCOPE YELLOW is a first person account by the producer, Al Brodax; and INSIDE THE YELLOW SUBMARINE (see my review of this excellent book also) by Dr. Bob Hieronumus, Ph.D., is an anthology of keen insight and probing interviews with a number of core artists whose creative genius built and sailed the Sub into our Collective Consciousness forever.

Each book is written from a different perspective. Until more volumes from Al and Dr. Bob (and even we the crew) are forthcoming, these two vital books will serve as comprehensive 'bookends' for your Yellow Submarine reference shelf.

UP PERSICOPE YELLOW recaptures those wild, zany, chaotic, heart-racing days of creative frenzy during the Sub's construction. Moreover, Al Brodax's account begins BEFORE the Sub was even a yellow and orange gleam in any of the crew's eyes. As well as providing a fascinating and hilarious back story of what led to the concept of the movie itself, he accompanies you through the whole process of production from the producer's perspective.

Whether your cinematic interest is animation or live action, this lightning narrative zaps you through high-flying moves, fancy footwork and the 'thinking on your feet' involved in producing a unique feature film; from initial concept to the megastress of rights negotiation, sales, budgets, deadlines, navigating minefields of egos; and out of the chaos, delivering a finished film--even to tweaking the projector controls at the Grand Premiere, with an additionally hilarious account of how to 'imprint' a missing copyright notice on the film emulsion when it's in the projector ready to roll! (You have to read the book to find this one!)

Al's swashbuckling talent with hyperbole lends a 'you are there' breathless excitement and zany hilarity to his recapturing of those 'London '60's Days' on Yellow Submarine.

The book shows a sensitive side, revealing his personal angst, agonies, ecstasies and sorrow involved during the film's production (tragic, early death of a vital and cherished work associate). This will surprise many who believe the stereotype of flinty, unfeeling, humorless producers. Brodax shares his full emotions in this book.

As an aside, we crew were very cramped for desk space at TVC. Fellow animator Tom Halley and I were stationed at animation desks in a small office, which contained a third desk (with phone) that was 'time-shared' by Al Brodax, Abe Goodman and various TVC management personnel. It was a unique perspective as a humble Y.Sub. deckhand-animator,(think: Jack Lemmon's Ensign Pulver in the movie, 'Mister Roberts') occupying a desk beside the officers on the bridge, trying to block out the chaos and concentrate on drawing. It was also a great place to observe firsthand what was involved minute by minute, day by day in the management and production of a classic film. This book gets you even closer, on a wider, 'before, during and after production' timeline.

Another aspect of being a fly at the animation desk on the ceiling syndrome: next door to our small office was an anteroom-more like a broom cupboard, where Jack Stokes and Bob Balser assembled their storyboards, running the sound track with 'workprint' film on a Movieola (editing machine) forward and backward for weeks on end. By the end of production we knew most of the songs forward and backward.

And, by the end of this excellent first-person account by the producer of Yellow Submarine, you'll know what's involved in a production, which itself seemed to be going forward and backward--at the same time--with all the hair-pulling and gnashing of teeth that involved.

A great cinema history book by LIMELIGHT PUBLISHERS; a great write by AL BRODAX; a great read for YOU.

Heinz Edelmann, the designer of the 'The Beatles Yellow Submarine' film, suggested a brief group statement from a core group of co-creators of the film regarding Al Brodax's rendering of Yellow Submarine history in his new book, Up Periscope Yellow. The statement is as follows:

"We do not consider Up Periscope Yellow by Al Brodax to be either a fair or an accurate book. We would also like to protest on behalf of those who cannot defend themselves, like the late George Dunning. As far as the truth can be reconstructed about how the Yellow Submarine film was made, Dr. Bob Hieronimus did it in his book, Inside The Yellow Submarine."

Signers to this statement as of August 26, 2004 are:
Heinz Edelmann, Art Director
Bob Balser, Animation Director
Jack Stokes, Animation Director
Charlie Jenkins, Special Sequences director
Jack Mendelsohn, one of the Screenplay writers
Lee Minoff, original story and one of the Screenplay writers
Roger McGough, uncredited Screenplay writer
Max Wilk, author of the novelized version of Yellow Submarine

In addition, several co-creators sent their own personally worded statements.

Sir George Martin, Musical Director, said: "I am completely sympathetic to the points that [Edelmann] make[s] about 'Yellow Submarine'. My experience on the film happily was not the same as Heinz Edelmann or the marvelous people at TVC. My main liaison was with George Dunning who I found to be inspirational. I am convinced that George's genius was the principal reason for the enormous success of the film, and he made it into the icon that it became."

John Coates, Production Supervisor, and head of TV Cartoons and Norman Kauffman, Assistant to Animation Director, said as a quote from TVC, "Al Brodax's book is part pure fiction, but at 78 his memory is obviously no longer reliable."

Heinz Edelmann, Art Director, added: "Part of this book is pure fiction, and we are not really amused by all of this. It is connected only in the most tenuous sense to the reality of the production."

Bob Balser, Animation Director added: "Hooray! All we can say is that You Are So Right!!! And thank you for defending us all."


Other animators and artists are expected to be added soon.

With the recent DVD release of the renovated and digitally remastered Beatles' animated epic YELLOW SUBMARINE, a whole new generation has come to discover the delights of this 1960's flower power masterpiece. And with the legendary "Hey Bulldog" sequence - deleted from all but the original British prints - reinstated in all its bizarre glory, Beatles fans can at last experience the full version of this psychedelic animated odyssey as it was originally meant to be seen.
As one of the animators on YELLOW SUBMARINE, I would say that the year I spent working on the film was perhaps the single most exciting period of my nearly 50 year career in the animation business; made even more memorable by the fact that I became engaged during production to Diana, my wife of 35 years, who worked on the "LUCY IN THE SKY WITH DIAMONDS" sequence .
And now, over 30 years after the film was first released, two new books (INSIDE THE YELLOW SUBMARINE and UP PERISCOPE YELLOW) have been published; each describing for the first time the whole astonishing behind-the-scenes story of how the film was made. The struggle to produce anything resembling a final script while production surged inexorably on past the writers towards an impossible deadline, the creative arguments, the personality clashes, the budgetary nightmares, the physical kidnapping of the film - with the whole thing being propelled by the sheer exhilaration of knowing that we were all taking part in an astonishing revolution in animated films - all these elements are well recounted in both books.
Whilst INSIDE THE YELLOW SUBMARINE tells the story of the production from the point of view of the directors and the creative team, Al Brodax's new book, UP PERISCOPE YELLOW tells it from the producer's perspective. As might be expected, the accounts differ markedly. Conflict between movie directors and producers is as old as Hollywood itself, but its roots go far back past the Renaissance, when artists and their patrons continually argued over differing visions of art and its monetary worth. Animating frantically below decks, the artists on YELLOW SUBMARINE were seldom party to the ongoing dramas up on the bridge; but our favourite pub, the nearby Dog and Duck, was an extremely efficient rumour mill. All of us were well aware that the odyssey of the YELLOW SUBMARINE, thrilling though it was, was by no means smooth sailing!
It is rare that the story of the making of a film as ground-breaking as YELLOW SUBMARINE has been told from the point of view of both the directors and the producer, so we are extremely fortunate that each side has now published its memoirs - even if it is more than three decades after the event! Al Brodax's UP PERISCOPE YELLOW is exceptionally well written, telling his version in a fast-moving, stream-of-consciousness style which vividly portrays the producer's role as the meat in the sandwich between the hard-nosed studio deal-makers and the creative spirits of the film industry. My main criticism is that it could have been improved with more pictures and, most important of all, an index.
The debate about who said what and who did what on YELLOW SUBMARINE seems set to continue for quite some time. But there is one undeniable fact in all of this - if Al Brodax hadn't stuck his neck out as producer and taken a chance on producing an animated feature all those years ago, the phenomenon that was the YELLOW SUBMARINE would never have set sail on its fantastic voyage. For that we all owe him a vote of thanks.

Up Periscope Yellow is a brilliant, accurate, and highly enlightening labor of love, penned, not by someone who studied Yellow Submarine, but instead by the helmsman who sailed the Sub and then gave this film to the world.

Al Brodax peels away the onion skin that has long obscured the true heart of creation here. In doing so, he reveals discord, passion, guts, sweat, 1960s chemistry, absurd deadlines, stress, more stress, and in Al's words, "pink seas of Pepto- Bismol."

Beyond remarkable, never-before-published anecdotes about life within the tsunami of talent that was and is the Beatles, George Martin, designer / genius Heinz Edelmann, and all the rest, this fast-paced narrative will instantly sweep you into a time machine and back to the British Invasion and the Summer of Love.

And all of this from a producer who knows the power of music, lights and darks, the classics, Pepperland, the real Blue Meanies (Al was wounded at the Battle of the Bulge--that's World War II for you youngsters), freedom, redemption, and dreams of world peace.

Oh yeah, if you're a kid who's into video or film production, this is, in my humble opinion required reading : }

Up Periscope Yellow - The Making of the Beatles Yellow Submarine, is an idiosyncratic first person account written by the most important participant, producer Al Brodax, in bringing this now classic animated film to the screen. For the film historian, film buff, animation lover, professional filmmaker and the ordinary Fab Four fan, this book is a deeply interesting and detailed account not just of the mechanics of how a strangely fascinating film was created and put together but also what it felt like to be alive and in the arena of 1968 animated film production.
Fair disclosure demands that this reviewer identify himself as an uncredited animator on the film, with personal connections to many of the principles involved in it's making.
There is little doubt that 1968 will be regarded as a fateful year in Western history. Baby Boomers coming of age, the Tet Offensive and the falling dominoes to come, the Age of Aquarius with all it's childish delusions. As is usual with matters cultural, a mere handful of films captured the zeitgeist of the age. One might cite Easy Rider. The Graduate. 2001, A Space Odyssey. Perhaps Midnight Cowboy? And, of course, Beatles Yellow Submarine!
So this book, written by the producer and driving force behind one of the most important films of the twentieth century, is an invaluable source for the future. One would hardly know this after reading the reviews that give this five star book merely a star or two. Fact is, the discerning reader of Up Periscope Yellow will quickly realize that the rapid production of Beatles Yellow Submarine was chaotic in the extreme, almost bizarre compared to well established production procedures and practices of the day. It can almost be said that the script for the film was not finished until after the film was released. This for an animated film, normally a form particularly in need of careful preplanning. Moreover, one might argue that the film is as perculiarly singular and distinctively wonderful as it is precisely because it was produced in a maelstrom of conflict, uncertainty, and artistic tension.
A conflict and tension that exists to this very day, finding expression now in some of the reviews found here on Amazon.com. One reviewer, a writer with a vested interest in promoting his own excellent Tower of Babel-like book on the same subject, has given Al Brodax's book two stars, and makes the claim that Mr Brodax's book is filled with inaccuracies. Fine. What book isn't, including his own?
Nor can a refutation of such inacuracies be made here. We readers are always weaving around the words of others, but this perfectly normal phenomena becomes all sorted out by the complaining reviewer's own book and website, and not by Al Brodax's narrative...according to the reviewer. Well, maybe so. Maybe not.
To state the obvious, the reader should ignore the snarling and all the reviewers, ignore the one stars and five. If the subject interests, just buy this book, enjoy the can't-put-it-down narrative as told by a film producer of unusually great talent, read any other books on the same subject one has a mind to, and make up his or her own mind. Is there any other way to get close to historical truth?

I was kind of "iffy" on whether to get this book or not. I have the Heronimous book and that was good and I didn't know if I should get this one or not. But after reading all of the really negative, kind of nasty reviews, I just had to see what the fuss was all about. After reading it (quickly I might add), I ask again, "what is the all of the fuss about and why all of the hostility?!?!?!?!" Mr. Brodax has produced a very well written piece of work. Is it 100% accurate? I have no idea. Nor do I care. I love the movie so much and I am not that interested in the exact details of every statement made. If some are inaccurate, so be it. It doesn't take away from the movie, or the fact that this book is a good read. I DO think that it needs more pictures, etc but I have a feeling that copyright laws may have prevented that. This book is a great account of the making of the film. The extent of the negative energy of some of the reviewers is baffling. In the words of the Fabs themselves, "Let It Be."

Wonderful, stunning book, a great read. Publisher's Weekly was right on, "the author writes with AUTHORITY at a breezy clip" Glorious to sepnd time with the Beatles 'off stage' Paul's home, lunches and just schmoozing with John and George. Enjoying Ringo, his intelligent very dry wit. And the thrilling 'take' on the political bobbing and weaving it took to mount the production in the first instance.
This talented international band of artists and co-writer Erich Segal produced an iconic animated motion picture and must be delighted by Brodax's rendering of its story.

The other New York City writer who damned the book so vehemently could very well be one of the many writers who didn't make the cut. His knowledge seems so 'inside', so detailed, his rage so Homeric.

Get over it! Catch the Triplets of Belleville. Get some sleep.

This author has a contempt for scholarship, and many other things, including the Beatles. He sees them as lethargic, a means to an end, the end being hard cash. Perhaps this sentiment is understandable, as the Beatles made little attempt to hide their contempt for Al Brodax. After producing three, high-rated years of the Beatles cartoon, Brodax exercised a contractual option, overlooked by Brian Epstein, for a cartoon feature. Epstein procrastinated but eventually had to agree to the film's production. Brodax portrays himself as spending a great deal of his time in the best restaurants, drinking among the best of people. But he doesn't have much to tell us about the creative process. Despite the subject matter there are few illustrations. Well-known as a source of misinformation to Beatles historians, Brodax only recently realized that the Beatles activities are among the most well-documented in history. Too late, after leaving a trail of half-truths and fictions in many books and interviews, starting with "Apple to the Core" by Peter McCabe in 1972. Many appear here such as trying to fit Maxwell's Silver Hammer into a 1967 outline. The story Brodax gives (pg 70) of the songs creation occurs in January 1969, a good six months after the film's premiere. Chronology is beyond hopeless in this text with dates that move backward and forward in sequence. Most accounts are from "Inside The Yellow Submarine", a detailed, referenced outline of the production in London, published in 2002. Brodax has copied endless quotes, taped & documented by "Inside" and re-written them to feature himself or his two assistants, Abe Goodman or Mary Ellen Stewart. He also assigns the same boorish speech pattern to everyone. Quotes made many years later (1999) with hindsight are inserted in 1967. Heinz Edelmann's mention of his discussion of Huxley with Lennon becomes Al Brodax & Lennon. Many unattractive remarks come out of the late Abe Goodman's mouth. He isn't here to refute them. Everyone interviewed for "Inside" had nothing but fond memories of Goodman. They were less charitable to Brodax. TVC London had produced the most original of the Beatles tv series (Tomorrow Never Knows & Strawberry Fields) and were chosen to produce the feature. Brodax characterizes George Dunning, brilliant experimental animator, as working when he feels like it. John Coates, Dunning's partner, here dismissed as a payroll manager, went on with TVC to produce animated films (including Raymond Brigg's "The Snowman") for the next 30 years. The reason for Brodax's attitude is that everyone, from the voice actors, to the unit directors (Jack Stokes & Robert Balser) to the designer (Heinz Edelmann) recognised that Brodax had no idea what he was doing and usually ignored his orders. Everyone is at fault except Brodax. Allegedly Jack Mendelsohn doesn't give him a script so he has to do it himself. (the film does in fact feature most of Mendelsohn's attack sequence). Erich Segal seems preoccupied with running & sleeping instead of writing. (He must have overcome that problem). By putting himself down as a writer, Brodax ensures that he will receive residuals. George Dunning & TVC aren't getting started (difficult without a story). Desperate, Brodax tells them to animate some Beatle songs. Abe Goodman can't give him proper progress reports on the budget, supposedly because the UK chart differs from the US chart. The fact that they have no detailed film outline (and consequently no idea where the end will be) isn't considered relevant. Previously Brodax claimed that he supplied a script. Now he claims he was deliberately withholding it, supplying pieces at a time, to stimulate competition. He interprets the two unit directors checking each others storyboards as "competition", disregarding the fact that they're at work on the same film. Among the many stunts attempted (never animated) were adding fresh lyrics to "Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds" so that songwriting royalties could be claimed. This idea was understandably refused by John Lennon, who didn't feel like giving strangers his money. With no planned end in sight TVC went over the budget and Brodax used this to attempt to take TVC London studio itself. In a manuever identical to one you can read about on page 192 of "The Fleischer Story" by Leslie Cabarga, in which Max Fleischer lost his studio forever to Paramount, Brodax stopped the payroll and tried to get everyone on staff to sign contracts with KIng Features. Unfortunately for him no one took him up on it. TVC responded by witholding two reels of the master negative and matching artwork. Having previously denied this account, in a particularly vicious move, Brodax has re-written it to feature TVC's handicapped messenger boy, hiding in the bushes to witness the art being removed. He is discovered and threatened by his employers. He runs to Brodax assistant for protection... What did Brodax do after Yellow Submarine? He tried to repeat his Beatles stunt in the late 80's by initiating "Strawberry Fields Forever" an animated feature with Beatles music to be performed by Michael Jackson. Test footage was actually produced, but when the Beatles' legal staff got wind of the project, it was promptly crushed. This book is valuable for it's insight into a man who obviously can't see that he has done himself no favor by writing it. Too much of the film industry continues to operate this way.

My biggest problem with this book, is how much has been written in quotes. Conversations are spilled out in dialog that doesn't even begin to read like it actually happened - but the quotes lead you to believe it has been transcribed accurately from history, eather than the memory of a 78 year-old from events that occured many years ago. I can understand adding narrative, and even taking some liberties to make it interesting, but it reads so blatantly like it never happened. Especially the conversations with John. I can't even begin to believe for a second that it went down anything even remotely like what is laid out in this book. Which frankly, taints everything I'm reading - it all seems like propaganda, fiction, SCIENCE fiction.
Yes, I suppose there's some enlightening information in here too, scattered among the storyline, and the questionable recollection, but not nearly enough to make this book worth buying. And the amount of pictures, photos, sketches, etc. is almost non-existant. This book doesn't tell history, it's trying to create history. If you can get it for free, than sure, get it - put it on your shelf next to your other Beatle books. But if you're looking to walk away with something new, without leaving a bad taste in your mouth, I'd pass.

Up Periscope Yellow is simply brilliant. A must read for most anybody. Its smashing review from Publishers Weekly is most deserved. In a kind of stream-of-consciousness style, Brodax weaves the story of the making of this classic motion picture. There is high drama (Brits v/s Yanks-suits v/s artists) The sudden proximity in a very condensed period of time of artists from all over the world...England, Spain, Australia, Canada, America. It addresses the anxiety of walking a production tightrope; limited funds, limited time. It's funny, dramatic, most of all authentic. The reader, via the author, gets to know the Beatles off stage, during their many impromptu visits to the studio, at home, at lunch, in the local pub...etc. The book is also a must read for any film student aspiring to become a producer. It's an extraordinary visit behind the creation of the film. Bravo!