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List Price: $35.00 | | Publisher: Limelight Editions
Salesrank: 1174592
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| Our Price: $9.50 |
| Used Price: $63.59 |
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| Media: Hardcover |
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Editorial Review:
Al Brodax was the producer and co-author of the ground-breaking animated film, Yellow Submarine. In this book he recalls a frenzied, madcap escapade that came to be reflected in an enduring piece of screen history. In addition to Al and The Beatles, the "cast" included more than a dozen animators, platoons of inkers, background artists, soundmen, cameramen, and various essential expediters. They produced, aside from the film, more than a dozen pregnancies and one or two marriages. This generously illustrated book is a special gift to fans of the Beatles, of Yellow Submarine and of spirited, flavorful writing about movies. (267 pages, 8 inch. x 9.33 inch.)
Up Periscope Yellow: The Making of the Beatles' Yellow Submarine Reviews:
It's a real nowhere book... 
2006-07-09 - 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.
book offers valuable insight to motion picture 
2005-01-02 - I think it is worthwhile to read both books published to date about the motion picture "Yellow Submarine". The other book available reflects highly detailed documentation and interviews with numerous people who worked on the production of the movie. This book, in contrast, offers the firsthand recollections of the movie's executive producer and his staff, the people who got the ball rolling for this movie in the first place. I think there is some value in reading a book like this, written from the viewpoint of recollections more so than research and documentation. The author's personal recollections, right or wrong, even with some apparent chronological flaws, offer an interesting insight which makes for worthwhile reading.
"Yellow Submarine", the motion picture, was, I think, a psychedelic masterpiece, made at a time when the animation business as a whole was at the end of its Silver Age. It represents the Beatles brilliantly. Some people did not think highly of it SIMPLY BECAUSE IT WAS A CARTOON, which reflects a disappointing viewpoint that has always existed toward animation as an art form. I thought Beatles fans were smarter than that but some weren't. It is therefore most welcome now to see these fine books about this motion picture along with the superb DVD release of the movie itself.
Review by Yellow Submarine Animator, Norman Drew 
2004-10-29 - 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.
Stormy Seas
2004-09-13 - 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.
great book
2004-09-04 -
This writer is a Beatles fan. As can be seen by the conflicting reviews of this book the tumultuous production of The Yellow Submarine has left some of the participants still spinning with indignation.
This, after more than 35 years have passed.
Further, it is absurd that artists and writers who helped create that film, talents who surely have long since moved on in life, should be organized into a group of indignant reviewers who do not substantiate their complaints nor lay out their various views individually and specifically. What criticism they do submit, en masse, doesn't rise above the trivial and petulant, suggesting emotion might be at work more than substance. To substantiate claims of lying, the critics simply offer contrary views, alternate memories, and even hearsay. All of this appears to have begun from a critical revue written here by a Robert Hieronimus, who has himself written a book on the same subject (is this temerity or merely self-serving?), a book that includes many quotes from the very people who are now writing further criticisms of Brodax's book here on Amazon.com, as if there is a campaign being conducted, a kind of vendetta, an ugly ganging up. To what end? As a Beatles fan I ask who cares if two people have three opinions on how Fred came to be created? I want to hear all the stories, all the memories. The artist has his view, the writer his, the producer his, and God Hers. What's new?
Up Periscope Yellow is a good book, a personal view of what went down during the making of a flawed but classic film, a film, were I not a Beatles fan, I would even call amateurish: clever in places, crude and inept in other places - far below the quality of contemporary Disney films they so cleverly mocked putting Mickey Mouse hats on the Blue Meanies.
But I love the Beatles and the film is therefore incomparable.
It's said that the cemetery is full of indispensable men, but The Yellow Submarine had five indispensable men, one was obviously Al Brodax, the other four are equally obvious. It can also be said that without those five, nobody would be giving The Yellow Submarine a second viewing - let alone calling it a classic. Up Periscope Yellow gives the view from the perspective of the one indispensable man among the many talents actually making that film, especially interesting for its `inside baseball' view, full of wonderful anecdotes and overflowing with sub plots.
Beatles fans are only enriched by reading it.
