The Beatles YELLOW SUBMARINE Screens Midnights This Weekend at The Tivoli

    
“Once upon a time, or maybe twice, there was an unearthly paradise called Pepperland. 80,000 leagues beneath the sea it lay, or lie. I’m not too sure.”

YELLOW SUBMARINE plays this weekend (July 20th and 21st) at The Tivoli at midnight as part of their Reel Late at the Tivoli midnight series.

We all live in a Yellow Submarine and YELLOW SUBMARINE is proof that an animated film doesn’t have to be rendered in a digital environment to look perfect. I saw psychedelic 1968 Beatles exactly 36 years ago at a midnight show at the Varsity Theater in St. Louis in the summer of ’82. YELLOW SUBMARINE tells of the Fab Four’s battles against the deranged Blue Meanies and their Hand Glove, which is hellbent on obliterating the unearthly paradise of Pepperland until the musicians save the day with the powers of peace, love and music. I was surprised to learn (and even more surprised I didn’t already know) that the speaking voices of the animated boys were provided by John Clive, Geoffrey Hughes, Peter Batten, and Paul Angelis. Besides the musical numbers and a brief cameo at the film’s end, the real Beatles had little to do with the film, which was designed to fulfill their contractual obligation to United Artists. I was also surprised to learn that YELLOW SUBMARINE was produced by Al Brodax and George Dunning, the creative team behind the Beatles animated series that had run on Saturday mornings a couple of years earlier, a show the Beatles themselves reportedly did not care for. They were initially unhappy with the idea of Brodax and Dunning doing a feature film however, they changed their minds about YELLOW SUBMARINE when they began seeing completed footage. The “Mod” art design and animation was heavily influenced by illustrator Peter Max and this style popped up in a lot of black-light posters and advertising, most memorably for 7-Up, during this period and went on to influence the works of animators Ralph Bakshi and Terry Gilliam. Despite being a hippy-trippy stoner experience, YELLOW SUBMARINE was heavily merchandised for kids with YELLOW SUBMARINE lunchboxes, jigsaw puzzles, and model kits flooding toy stores in the late ’60s.

The Tivoli’s located at 6350 Delmar Blvd., University City, MO. Admission is a mere $8!

A Facebook invite for the screening can be found HERE

https://www.facebook.com/events/643627679320870/

The Tivoli’s website can be found HERE

http://www.landmarktheatres.com/market/st.louis/tivolitheatre.htm

Here’s the midnight for the next several weeks:

July 27-28: BILL AND TED’S EXCELLENT ADVENTURE

August 3-4: ERASERHEAD

August 10-11: GHOST IN THE SHELL

August 17-18: BUT I’M A CHEERLEADER

August 24-25: CRIMSON PEAK

August 31 – Sept. 1: MAD MAX FURY ROAD

Sept 7-8: SPIRITED AWAY

Sept 14-15: THE WITCH

Reel Late at the Tivoli takes place every Friday and Saturday night and We Are Movie Geeks own Tom Stockman (that’s me!) is there with custom trivia questions about the films and always has DVDs, posters, and other cool stuff to give away. Ticket prices are $8. We hope to see everyone late at night in the coming weeks.