‘Munro’: A satirical war film by the animator of ‘Tom and Jerry’
If 2022 has proven anything, it’s that war films will never get old. Netflix’s All Quiet on the Western Front became one of the standout cinematic gems of the year, picking up multiple Oscar nominations in the process. While fans of the genre usually have a lot of knowledge about its extensive history, this particular work by Tom and Jerry animator Gene Deitch usually doesn’t come up in most conversations.
I am, of course, talking about Deitch’s 1960 animated gem Munro which tells the bizarre story of the four-year-old titular character who is drafted into the United States military. Despite his constant protests about his age, Munro’s superiors in the army never forget to remind him that his objections to military training are due to inadequacies in his character.
Deitch’s legacy is inextricably linked to Tom and Jerry, especially because many considered his shorts to be some of the worst in the show’s history. While Deitch’s surrealism has been appreciated by some fans in retrospect, the shorts were dismissed as failures at the time because of the deviation in the animation style and negative reactions from audiences.
It’s a shame that Tom and Jerry has become such an integral part of Deitch’s biography because his work outside the show was often spectacular. Munro is one such example, showcasing Deitch’s brilliant ability to complement his political sensibilities by crafting a short that is both narratively interesting and visually original.
During a conversation with Jules Feiffer, Deitch opened up about the origin of Munro. According to the filmmaker, his time in the US military inspired him to attack the morally corrupt institution, but he needed to find a unique way of actually making an impact. That’s why he decided to make a deceptively sweet film about the pernicious machinations of war.
Deitch explained: “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.”
The director added: “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.”
Munro ended up winning an Oscar for Best Animated Short, something that Deitch never even anticipated. To this day, it remains one of the most interesting indictments of the US military-industrial complex where soldiers are routinely dehumanised and weaponised to serve the interests of the corporate elite.
Watch the film below.
