Mickey Mouse in Vietnam, By Lee Savage and Milton Glaser

A meaningful 16mm antiwar film from Adam's childhood resurfaces.

Today as I was surfing Boingboing, I came across an amazing thing. A post by Cory Doctrow chronicling a moving antiwar film made years ago by Lee Savage and the designer (and his friend) Milton Glaser. Lee Savage was a painter and an animator and a director, and was always very proud of this film. Lee Savage was my father.

Milton’s people contacted me a few months ago to see if I had any copies of the film, but unfortunately I couldn’t locate any, which makes me doubly glad to see it up on YouTube, as I grew up seeing this film, and was sad at the prospect that it might have been inadvertently lost.

Milton did an interview with Buzzfeed recently about the film where they must have misinterpreted what he said because he seems to imply that Lee Savage died a couple of years after the Vietnam war. In point of fact, Lee Savage died nearly three decades later after a long and unfortunate battle with Alzheimer’s.

What a treat to see it again. Lee was a complicated, loving, generous, maddening, brilliant and difficult man/artist/father. I miss him every day.

Comments (5)

5 thoughts on “Mickey Mouse in Vietnam, By Lee Savage and Milton Glaser

  1. You are such a dramatic writer! In those short paragraphs about your father I literally felt sad that you lost him. You do amazing work and should continue to do so for many more years.

  2. Using Mickey Mouse to symbolize the lives of young soldiers drafted into the war was brilliant. I can think of no better embodiment of childhood innocence, seeing him die with a hole in his head is a compelling image. Your father and Milton were truly talented artists.

  3. Oh man. That is some heavy stuff. The whole time I can see what will happen and it still is hard to take when it happens.

  4. this is great, straight to the point. That’s what war is, fake propaganda, and naïve kids that die too soon and too young

  5. Thanks for sharing this, Adam.

    I had no idea that your father was the person who made this short film..

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