The Hero of 'Yellow Submarine'

I had hoped to write more about the fiftieth anniversary of the movie Yellow Submarine, which I first wrote about in July, between then and today, today being the fiftieth anniversary of the animated Beatles movie's American release, but circumstances prevented me from doing so.  Today, though, I am happy to revisit the topic once again in pay tribute to the movie's greatest hero - its art director, Heinz Edelmann.

A lot of talented people worked on the Yellow Submarine movie, including the Beatles TV cartoon director George Dunning, who contributed worthy ideas of his own such as the "Lucy In the Sky With Diamonds" sequence, which traced over old black-and-white film footage from an old musical.  But it was Edelmann set the tone and feel of the movie with his splendid use of color and lines.  Edelmann's style was notable for its liberal use of color and its sweeping, flowing lines in his drawings.  He had begun his career as a freelance illustrator in Germany, developing ads and theater posters. But it was his work with the German youth magazine twen, where he worked from 1961 to 1969, where his talents rally blossomed.  His illustrations captured the spirit of the emerging postwar generation in Western culture, and he was the perfect choice to oversee the development of Yellow Submarine.  His work was as much an illustration of the sixties as it was an illustration of the Beatles at the height of their powers. 

For the longest time, though, Edelmann, who died in 2009, didn't get the credit he deserved - because it went to someone who didn't deserve it. Edelmann's style was so similar to that of American pop artist Peter Max that many people mistakenly believed that Max had been the Yellow Submarine movie's art director.  Max had in fact done some Beatles-related illustrations - including an interpretation of the Rubber Soul song "The Word" (below) - and had apparently been in contact with Yellow Submarine producer Al Brodax about possibly contributing to the animation, but Max in fact had nothing to do with it.

So what?  A mere misunderstanding by the fans, right? Well, what was so bad about that?  This: While Max never said he worked on the Yellow Submarine movie, he never said he didn't, either.  That is, he let people think he worked on the movie.  This infuriated many Beatles fans, and it aroused George Harrison's indignation; Harrison came right out and said that Max had made a career on the mistaken assumption that he was Yellow Submarine's art director.

Fortunately, the historical record has been corrected, and Heinz Edelmann is recognized today and for all time as the artistic genius behind the Yellow Submarine movie.  Max produced a good deal of fine work himself, including a U.S. commemorative stamp for the 1974 Spokane world's fair (Expo '74) that is one of my favorite U.S. postage stamps of the seventies (I'm a stamp collector), and Milton Glaser, another artist of the psychedelic age, also came up with some pretty good illustrations.  But Heinz Edelmann set the standard for the great illustrations of that era, and his creations - including his greatest, the Yellow Submarine movie - are indicative of a bold, daring style that we will never see again.

I hope to say more about this great movie later on.