Munro (film)

Munro is a 1960 animated short film. It was directed by Gene Deitch, written by Jules Feiffer, and produced by William L. Snyder. Munro won an Academy Award for Animated Short Film in 1961, the first short composed outside of the United States to be so honored.

The title character is a rebellious little boy who is accidentally drafted into the United States Army. No matter which adult he tells "I'm only four", they all fail to notice his age.

Screenwriter Feiffer, who adapted his own story from his book Passionella and Other Stories, and provided the storyboards, said the tale was a reaction to his time serving in the U.S. Army:

"I came up with the story of Munro because I understood that if you're really in a rage and really want to attack someone in cartoon form, the least effective way is to jump up and down and scream and yell and to be polemical—something a lot of cartoonists have never learned. The best way is to go in the other direction and feign innocence, and bring the reader along in a quiet way. And so Munro tells this savage story but tells it entertainingly and sweetly and builds it up and gets the reader stressed, and as you read it, and particularly when you see the film, you feel your stomach knot up because of the obvious abuse and ignorance of authority. And people connected to their own situations with authority in or out of the Army when no one listens, no one believes you. They know, you don't, and they may even start to convince you, as they do Munro, that they're right and you're wrong."^[1]

Credits

• Director: Gene Deitch^[2]
• Executive Producer: William L. Snyder
• Screenplay: Jules Feiffer (also storyboards)
• Layout artist: Al Kouzel
• Voice actors: Howard Morris, Seth Deitch, Marie Deitch, Jules Feiffer
• Animation & post-production studio: Bratři v triku, Prague
• Production Manager: Zdenka Najmanová
• Animation Director: Václav Bedřich
• Animators: Zdenek Smetana, Mirek Kačena, Milan Klikar, Jindřich Barta, Věra Kudrnová
• Background Painter: Bohumil Šiška
• Music composer and conductor: Štěpán Koníček
• Recording Engineer: Karel Jakeš
• Sound effects: Gene Deitch, Tony Schwartz
• Sound mixer: František Černý
• Camera Operator: Zdenka Hajdová
• Film Editor: Zdenka Navratilová

References

External links

• Munro at the Internet Movie Database
• Munro at allmovie
• Munro at Rotten Tomatoes