Controversial The Day the Clown Cried (1972)

Was Jerry Lewis right regarding "The Day the Clown Cried?

  • Yes.

    Votes: 2 66.7%

  • No.

    Votes: 1 33.3%

  • I'm not sure

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Total voters
    3
Doctor Omega

Doctor Omega

Member: Rank 10
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The Day the Clown Cried is an unreleased 1972 American drama film directed by and starring Jerry Lewis. It is based on a script of the same name by Joan O'Brien, who had co-written the original script with Charles Denton ten years previously.

The film was met with controversy regarding its premise and content, which features a circus clown who is imprisoned in a Nazi concentration camp.

Lewis has repeatedly insisted that The Day the Clown Cried would never be released because it is an embarrassingly "bad work" that he is ashamed of.

Despite Lewis’s insistence that the film will never be seen, buried within a recent Los Angeles Times article about lost films came the news that what may be the sole copy of the film was acquired by the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., as part of a larger collection of Lewis’s work. (Vanity Fair contributing editor Bruce Handy wrote the definitive article about the unmade film for Spy magazine back in 1992.)

The Holocaust drama stars Lewis as a German clown with the Mel Brooks-ian name of Helmut Doork. When Doork mocked Adolf Hitler, he was punished for his crimes by being given the job of entertaining children before they were sent to the gas chambers.

Unsurprisingly, the film was considered too tasteless to release for years. Lewis himself despised the movie, which was a far cry from his work in films like 1963’s The Nutty Professor, and was convinced it would damage his reputation. In 2013 he told reporters at the Cannes Film Festival, “It was bad, and it was bad because I lost the magic. No one will ever see it, because I’m embarrassed at the poor work.”

Some stills have surfaced too...


 
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High Plains Drifter

High Plains Drifter

The Drifter
VIP
This movie will stay hidden till Jerry Lewis passes away then it will come out. That's how most movies like this happens to find it's way out.

I was able to see the movie Dead Ringer. I'm a Meat Loaf fan. It is a movie that ML to wants to see hidden away. It's not as bad as he thinks, and honestly it's bad, but not as bad as Roadie. LOved the cut scenes that later became videos for the album. It helps explain a lot of stuff going on in the videos..
 
Doctor Omega

Doctor Omega

Member: Rank 10
Further digging has revealed some surprises.....

Firstly, the entire screenplay is here.....

http://www.dailyscript.com/scripts/the_day_the_clown_cried.html



Secondly.....

An August 2015 article in the Los Angeles Times claims that a copy of the film is held by the Library of Congress, but will not be screened for "another ten years". This donation was reportedly done by Lewis himself.
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In June 2016, a half-hour compilation of footage from Der Clown was uploaded to YouTube and Vimeo by editor Kay Brown, and dubbed into German with English subtitles, marking the first time a version of The Day the Clown Cried was made available to the general public
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So, it has, indeed, got out, at least partially. Somehow.

I shall leave it to people's individual viewpoints as to whether one should respect Jerry Lewis' wishes regarding their clicking "play" or not on the video below ....


 
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A

Amyghost

Member: Rank 3
Doctor Omega said:


The Day the Clown Cried is an unreleased 1972 American drama film directed by and starring Jerry Lewis. It is based on a script of the same name by Joan O'Brien, who had co-written the original script with Charles Denton ten years previously.

The film was met with controversy regarding its premise and content, which features a circus clown who is imprisoned in a Nazi concentration camp.





Lewis has repeatedly insisted that The Day the Clown Cried would never be released because it is an embarrassingly "bad work" that he is ashamed of.


Despite Lewis’s insistence that the film will never be seen, buried within a recent Los Angeles Times article about lost films came the news that what may be the sole copy of the film was acquired by the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., as part of a larger collection of Lewis’s work. (Vanity Fair contributing editor Bruce Handy wrote the definitive article about the unmade film for Spy magazine back in 1992.)

The Holocaust drama stars Lewis as a German clown with the Mel Brooks-ian name of Helmut Doork. When Doork mocked Adolf Hitler, he was punished for his crimes by being given the job of entertaining children before they were sent to the gas chambers.

Unsurprisingly, the film was considered too tasteless to release for years. Lewis himself despised the movie, which was a far cry from his work in films like 1963’s The Nutty Professor, and was convinced it would damage his reputation. In 2013 he told reporters at the Cannes Film Festival, “It was bad, and it was bad because I lost the magic. No one will ever see it, because I’m embarrassed at the poor work.”

Some stills have surfaced too...



Is Lewis right?

Should this film remain buried and hidden, under lock and key?
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Actually, after watching that bit of footage, I'd say the film might not be as bad as one would expect. Yeah, difficult to tell from what's essentially a snippet, but there seemed to be enough there to give a fair sense of the film overall. Sure, it's mawkish in spots--it would take a more masterful film maker than Lewis to avoid that, given the material--and I don't think there's anything to indicate that any real profundities would have appeared in the way the story was told, but neither does it look as if Lewis unduly embarrassed himself as either director or performer from what we can see here. Looks like a lot of cliche (epicene Nazi officials, smiling, trustful youngsters, that sort of thing), but again, it would have taken a director of far greater levels of sensitivity and artistry than Lewis' to get around the temptations to indulge in them. I doubt Lewis handled these any worse than many another Hollywood director would have done.

I can guess that one unspoken reason--maybe the chief one--that Lewis disdains the film so virulently, and continues to withold it from viewing is that he well knows his decades-long reputation as being an egotistical and vainglorious artiste; the likelihood is that, no matter what the film's merits or demerits in actuality, he'll probably be savaged publicly should it be shown in his lifetime. Lewis may be arrogant, but I don't think he's stupid, and he probably knows he's set himself up over the years to get the royal lambasting over this from public and press alike. So he wisely refuses to allow any screenings til after he's dead, in order to shield himself from the predictable response.

But I'd see this were it to be shown in my lifetime. I wouldn't expect much, and probably wouldn't get any more than I'd expect from it, but I might get the slight surprise of seeing that perhaps Lewis, in producing this film, was a bit less hubristic than one and all have been ready to condemn him as being for touching a subject this sensitive.
 
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UncleSporkums

Member: Rank 1
I agree and am glad that you took the time to watch and analyze the footage, instead of what the usual armchair critics resort to. Your review is very well thought out. I believe, given the history of the project, that first, the rights issues, and then the expected reactions from the public, which started around the early 90's really began. Personally, I really like what I've seen of it, and at the same time, am satisfied, since most of the major scenes are covered.
 
A

Amyghost

Member: Rank 3
UncleSporkums said:
I agree and am glad that you took the time to watch and analyze the footage, instead of what the usual armchair critics resort to. Your review is very well thought out. I believe, given the history of the project, that first, the rights issues, and then the expected reactions from the public, which started around the early 90's really began. Personally, I really like what I've seen of it, and at the same time, am satisfied, since most of the major scenes are covered.
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Thanks. I honestly am curious to see this. Back when I first heard of it, I pretty much laughingly dissed it myself, but over the years watching Lewis turn in some pretty credible dramatic performances, I began to wonder. It would seem he had the acting chops, the main concern would have been whether he worked the material as a vanity vehicle; Lewis is no master of subtlety, and it's a genuine concern. However, the footage doesn't seem to indicate that he did, any more so at least, than what was unavoidable given that he wrote, directed and starred in it. I think what the film did do was cement in his critic's minds that he was some sort of Chaplin-manque, convinced he was able to do it all and do it superbly. His critics may yet be right to some extent in that regard, but it's possible that this film might show he had the ability to handle sensitive matter more sensitively that anyone has been much prepared to acknowledge.
 
Doctor Omega

Doctor Omega

Member: Rank 10
Jerry Lewis said the following about the film to Entertainment Weekly in 2014, in a must-read interview:

"Who am I preserving it for? No one's ever gonna see it... But the preservation that I believe is that, when I die, I'm in total control of the material now. Nobody can touch it. After I'm gone, who knows what's going to happen? I think I have the legalese necessary to keep it where it is. So I'm pretty sure that it won't be seen."
 
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Doctor Omega

Doctor Omega

Member: Rank 10
To be honest, I think that, with his unyielding stance, Lewis has caused this film to become a bigger thing than it would have been. It could have just come out and, if it was badly received, would have surely been pretty much a forgotten blip on Jerry's c.v.?

But, as it is, with his "nobody will ever see this, if I can help it!" stance, he created curiosity about it that has only snowballed over the years to the point where the legend is bigger than the film ever can be.

I suspect that the whole thing will be available one day, so that people can then put it on their shelves, where it can gather dust and never be really watched much ever again.

A harmless curio piece: not terrible, not brilliant, but simply mediocre and ultimately forgettable.
 
Doctor Omega

Doctor Omega

Member: Rank 10
In response to someone asking the forbidden question. And Jerry Lewis proceeds to answer, despite having warned organizers that if anyone asked about this he would end the show immediately. From January, 2013 at Cinefamily.
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