Yellow Sub Film Questions - beatlegdb.com (2024)

Hi all,

Was hoping if someone could explain this to me.
On the SGT YS 50th it has - YS "Original American Version"
Looking on the web I see there are differences in the US, UK version, and one other Variant.

So my questions are....

1. Which (if any) do we know as the official DVD/Blu ray release?

2. Dose anyone have dvds of these other prints?

Thank you in advance

dentonmmm wrote: ↑Tue Aug 17, 2021 10:39 pmHi all,

Was hoping if someone could explain this to me.
On the SGT YS 50th it has - YS "Original American Version"
Looking on the web I see there are differences in the US, UK version, and one other Variant.

So my questions are....

1. Which (if any) do we know as the official DVD/Blu ray release?

2. Dose anyone have dvds of these other prints?

See Also

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Thank you in advance

The recent releases are the UK cut, however, the U.S. cut was released on VHS/Laserdisc in the 80's.

My YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@KitsuBeatles/
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MrMurphMcgee wrote: ↑Wed Aug 18, 2021 11:21 amThe UK cut includes Hey Bulldog, so the US cut is kind of a historic curiosity and less a core item (IMO of course).

Yep

My YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@KitsuBeatles/
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Saw Paul on November 30th, 2023 at the Mané Garrincha Stadium, Brasília, Brazil!

It's actually quite inaccurate to refer to them as the "US" and "UK" cuts.

The current home video releases largely reflect the status of the film during its initial premiere showing in London. The filmmakers were NOT happy with the state of the film's final reel at that time but they were in a rush to meet the release date. The one notable change between the original version and the home video release is that the song Baby You're a Rich Man has been shoehorned into the main soundtrack (a listen to the mono track will note its absence).

After the initial premiere engagement, work continued at the animation studio and the last reel of the film (beginning with the start of "All You Need Is Love") was reworked. New scenes replaced old within "AYNIL", the Beatles meet Pepper and Beatles to Battle sequences were completely reworked (adding the brief bit of Baby You're a Rich Man and removing Hey Bulldog entirely to improve the pace of the ending). This version (as Kitsu notes, released on home video in the 1980s on VHS, Beta and LD) is the one that was then seen starting in 1969 during the film's general release in Great Britain and its premiere and general showings in the USA. It's the only version of the film that ever aired on television in the US throughout the 1970s and 1980s.

Meanwhile, in the UK, BBC-TV airings of the film seem to have mysteriously reverted to the original final reel containing Hey Bulldog. A happy accident for some, but the film in this state in no way represented the wishes of the filmmakers: the so-called US version is the actual director's cut, if you will.

As to the 1999 and subsequent home video releases using the Hey Bulldog reel, it should be presumed that Apple stepped in here -- deciding it was better to include Hey Bulldog than to need to explain its inclusion on the soundtrack album without its presence in the film. Other factors may well have been involved but those are best left to speculation. The cynic in me notes that the aforementioned shoehorning of "Baby" back in to the soundtrack involved a similar desire to pad out the Songtrack CD release.

Why on earth the finished final reel of the film wasn't properly restored or included on the DVD and BD releases either as a branching option or at the very least an attractive bonus feature is utterly beyond all reason (save for the usual one: financial).

Thanks for the background. It seems the proper thing to do was to release the final cut and then include Bulldog as an extra. I wonder for the initial home video issues if they had access to the Bulldog segment. It may have arrived in Apple's hands after the fact. It appears to be the only complete outtake segment to survive (if I recall correctly).

It certainly simplifies things for streaming to include Bulldog in the current cut but I doubt they thought that far ahead.

Thank you all for giving me this information. That all makes a lot of sense.
Below is what is on IMDB and prompted my question about the different versions incase someone whats to add any info.

*************

"The American version had a brief (less than one second) scene of Old Fred and the Mayor dancing together happily, bringing closure to the initial scenes of the movie. This footage was not included in the redone American version.

The film originally concluded with the words "Released through United Artists" on the bottom-right-hand-corner of the screen. The 1999 release concluded with restoration credits, the Apple Films logo, and the closing United Artists logo. Current video releases remove all UA references, and only the Apple Films logo appears.

The European version contained one extra song, "Hey, Bulldog!", deleted from U.S. prints. This version was re-released to theatres worldwide in 1999 in a digitally restored print with a re-worked soundtrack, plus the "Hey, Bulldog!" number in its original context.
The British release of the movie had a different ending to the American (and subsequent video) release. Apart from different individual scenes, the American ending has a softer and more considerate feel to it, due to the final conversion of the Chief Blue Meanie to Love, Peace and Music; the British version contains no such sentiments.

One version of the movie has a sequence with the song "Baby You're a Rich Man" where the Beatles and their Sgt. Peppers look-alikes are dancing after being released from the "glass ball""

The IMDB stuff is a jumble of misinformation and incoherence. Aside from my earlier posts the only thing of validity added there is that after 1999 the closing Released by United Artists credit was removed (along with the accompanying pastoral sound effects behind it that followed the abbreviated All Together Now). From an animation standpoint, you'll find a similar situation with the 1966 (?) feature The Man Called Flintstone which was originally distributed by Columbia Pictures. That film originally opened with a parody of Columbia's logo replacing the usual figure of Columbia with that of Wilma Flintstone. As the distributor has changed since then, the film has been reedited to remove it. These things happen quite frequently and it's only the fervent fans of a film that recognize such changes. Similarly, Hard Days Night, Help and How I Won the War all originally opened with the 1930s-esque stylized United Artists logo. By the 1970s that logo had been replaced with the newer Transamerica UA logo (familiar from the beginning of Let it Be and initially Yellow Submarine as well). Now that logo, too, is gone.

The bit about the Beatles meeting their Pepper counterparts is of course part and parcel of the differing final reels as is everything else of consequence.

Since we have such knowledgeable people here, I would like to pose a question I've had for some time.

It is my understanding that George Martin completely re-recorded the orchestral tracks which he then included on the Yellow Submarine LP in 1968/9.

This re-recorded version is - as I understand it- used in all subsequent releases, including the DVD.

My question: is the original film soundtrack (of the orchestral tracks) available somewhere? It will probably be in mono, but still interesting to hear any differences.

Txs.