The Awful Fate of Melpomenus Jones (1983) User Reviews

Wow,...what a downer! Well, at least it's very original.

[planktonrules · 4/10 · 11 August 2009]

This film was sponsored by The National Film Board of Canada--a government agency that gives grants to film makers.

THE AWFUL FATE OF MELPOMENUS JONES is certainly original. I can't recall ever having seen anything like it. However, this is a sad case of a film being odd but not necessarily great at the same time.

The film is a weird story about a man named Melpomenus Jones who has a quirky personality. He cannot lie and seems unable to say no. So, when he goes to a friend's house, they ask him if he has anywhere else to go (at which point he says "no") and so they ask him to stay. The problem is that because of his weird personality, this means he never can leave and he stays there for many weeks until he goes mad and dies. Wow...what a downer! There's not a lot more to it than this--just a very strange animated short--one that I really don't think you need to rush out to see.

Canadian Short Story Toon.

[Mozjoukine · 4 February 2006]

Canada's NFB's animation unit has been it's star turn since the days of Norman Mclaren. Not everything they produced has been of the quality of SPECIAL DELIVERY, WALKING, THE STREET or THE MAN WHO PLANTED TREES but this has been a nursery for some of the most gifted drawn film makers - not all of whom have been able to fill the promise of the work they produced under these sheltered conditions.

Potterton made the Buster Keaton short RAILRODDER and his Stephen Leacock adaptation MELPOMENUS JONES is not in the class of the great NFB cartoons.It's amiable enough, it's bright colours contrasting with it's comic-grim story, realized in a style recalling the work of the Polish Lenica