The Bootleg Files: Strawberry Fields

BOOTLEG FILES 902: “Strawberry Fields” (unfinished animated feature from the 1980s).

LAST SEEN: On YouTube and Internet Archive.

AMERICAN HOME VIDEO: None.

REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS: Unfinished production with music rights clearance issues.

CHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE: Not likely.

During the 1960s, producer Al Brodax experienced back-to-back career peaks thanks to the decade’s most influential band – he was the driving force behind the animated television series “The Beatles” and the 1968 animated feature “Yellow Submarine.” In the mid-1980s, Brodax tried to score yet another Beatles-fueled triumph with an animated feature film called “Strawberry Fields.” Unfortunately, the project fell apart well ahead of its completion and the surviving footage went unseen until last year when the unauthorized upload of a work-in-progress reel appeared on the Internet.

“Strawberry Fields” was going to duplicate Brodax’s earlier works by using Beatles songs laced through its storyline; the original masters were going to be provided by ITC Productions, but the surviving Beatles were not slated to have any direct involvement. Vestron Video agreed to finance the project in return for cable television and home video rights – it is not clear if the production was also being positioned for a theatrical release.

Perhaps the most ambitious element of the project was going to be the use of 3D computer-generated animation created by the Computer Graphics Laboratory of the New York Institute of Technology. That entity previously tried to create the first computer-generated animated film with “The Works,” but the project was cancelled after generating only 10 minutes of footage.

Incredibly, everything that could have possibly gone wrong with “Strawberry Fields” occurred. The 3D computer generated animation was strangely inadequate in creating human figures, so Brodax contracted Lion’s Den Studios to create traditional hand-drawn animation to be used in conjunction with the computer-generated work. Although the leadership at Computer Graphics Laboratory objected to having the hand-drawn animation, Brodax entrusted Lion’s Den Studios with the development of the Beatles-inspired lead characters Jude (a would-be private eye) and Michelle (a hard-boiled femme fatale trying to steal Maxwell’s silver hammer), plus the villainous Walrus, a large snake called Oo Bla Dee Oo Bla Da, the gun-toting Eggmen, and the dyspeptic Mean Mr. Mustard.

But as work began, Brodax discovered that ITC did not have the rights to the Beatles masters. To rectify that problem, several major music stars were recruited to record covers of the Beatles classics – this included Michael Jackson doing “Come Together,” Cyndi Lauper offering “Across the Universe,” Crosby, Stills & Nash doing their version of “Blackbird” and Cheap Trick rolling up for the “Magical Mystery Tour.”

The new music licensing for “Strawberry Fields” coupled with two animation studios working together created budget overruns, and soon the production’s costs soared to $11 million (which was quite substantial in the late 1980s for an independent film). It also didn’t help that there was no completed script for this film before production started. Vestron started to have doubts about the commercial viability of this endeavor and was unhappy with the quality of the computer-generated work as the project dragged on. Production was halted in 1992 and the footage was never publicly screened.

“This beautiful project was aborted when it was about one-third finished,” said Al Lowenheim, former president of Lion’s Den Media, in a 2019 interview with the San Diego Union-Tribune.

On March 11, 2024, an online denizen going by the name Ziggy Cashmere uploaded a half-hour demo reel of work-in-progress footage from “Strawberry Fields” to YouTube and the Internet Archive. The footage was dated from July 1989 and included a mix of hand-drawn animated scenes and computer-generated animation that was from earlier Computer Graphics Laboratory works. The absence of computer-generated footage from “Strawberry Fields” in this reel was due to the limits of the late-1980s technology. Tom Sito, author of “Moving Innovation: A History of Computer Animation,” told the San Diego Union-Tribune that a researcher “did some calculations and projected that, using the technology they then had, their feature film would take seven years just to render.”

So, what can we make of the footage that emerged from this jettisoned endeavor? It is a mixed bag. The Walrus is a dreary and ugly blue-skinned villain – one scene has him sticking a fork into an octopus and trying to swallow it whole, with the doomed creature wrapping a tentacle around the Walrus’ tusk to prevent it from being consumed. There is much less grotesque footage of the Walrus entrusting the Blackbird with what looks to be a metal nail file – that segment has some visually impressive moments as the bird flies through brilliantly hued skies.

There is some fun to be found as Jude and Michelle seek help from the Taxman, who turns from a bespectacled pen-pusher into a green monster. Jude and Michelle also have a car chase with gun-firing miscreants that goes on for too long and never generates any excitement.

From a musical standpoint, the most interesting footage involves the Michael Jackson version of “Come Together” that takes place in a North African-inspired setting where a cycloptic bipedal bear pulls a rickshaw designed to look like a yellow cab as the character Flattop gyrates to Jackson’s singing; Jude and Michelle look on with little to do.

As for the computer-generated animation, it might have been cutting edge back in the 1980s but it looks primitive by today’s standards. Mixing the two animation styles was a mistake – “Strawberry Fields” could have worked as a hand-drawn animated production, but the switching between formats did not put the computer-generated work at an advantage and made the production feel terribly uneven. There are a few quick scenes with the 2D and 3D animation mixed together, but quite frankly it looks crummy.

Ultimately, the Beatles songs are not used very well, and the covers weren’t all that special. If the film was completed, it would have joined “All This and World War II” and the star-studded “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” in the micro-genre of misguided movies based on Beatles tunes.

For animation fans and Beatles trivia buffs, “Strawberry Fields” is a curio that deserves to be seen. But in retrospect, Al Brodax should have taken a cue from Eleanor Rigby and left this concept in a jar by the door.

IMPORTANT NOTICE: While this weekly column acknowledges the presence of rare film and television productions through the so-called collector-to-collector market, this should not be seen as encouraging or condoning the unauthorized duplication and distribution of copyright-protected material, either through DVDs or Blu-ray discs or through postings on Internet video sites.

Listen to Phil Hall’s award-winning podcast “The Online Movie Show with Phil Hall” on SoundCloud and his radio show “Nutmeg Chatter” on WAPJ-FM in Torrington, Connecticut, with a new episode every Sunday. His new book “100 Years of Wall Street Crooks” is now in release through Bicep Books.