The Awful Fate of Melpomenus Jones

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