The Day the Clown Cried

"You are rarely in the presence of a perfect object. This was a perfect object. This movie is so drastically wrong, its pathos and its comedy are so wildly misplaced, that you could not, in your fantasy of what it might be like, improve on what it really is. 'Oh my God!' -- that's all you can say."

-- Justyn Dillingham (aubade8...), September 15th, 2003.

HELMUT
I don't know!!

REICHER
(clenching his teeth)
I DON'T KNOW -- SIR!

HELMUT
I don't know -- Sir!

REICHER
Why are you not responsible?
Why? Why? Why? Why?

On each attack of the word “Why”, Reicher creeps up closer and closer to Helmut, really intimidating him ... and the sound of his voice echos and becomes monotonous and ominous ...

(Cue Track: Pre-Preduction recording for working on the set ... reverberation chamber effects for actual principal photography ... actor will have to LIP SYNC his own pre-recorded word: “Why” in loop form.)"

SPY: Can you compare it with anything else Lewis has done?
SHEARER: The only thing in Jerry's oeuvre that really is like it is a wonderful thing that he
did early in the telethon. It was a dramatic tape of an LA actor who hosted the Popeye show,
and Jerry shot it. The guy plays Muscular Dystrophy. It's a staged reading: (scary voice)
"I am Muscular Dystrophy, and I hate people, especially children. I love to make their
limbs shrivel up!" They showed this for several years before cooler heads prevailed.
In it's sense of misplaced dramaturgy it was the closest I ever came to seeing
anything that would be a real precursor to the clown movie.

My dream, my DREAM of DREAMS, and my one truest wish* is that this movie will be made available in some way. Even a talking heads docu interspersed with generous clips while film historians wax poetic on its wtfness...I would be so fulfilled.

*Besides the ability to independently raise one eyebrow.

Gershy that quote fucking rules.

SHEARER: The closest I can come to describing the effect is if you flew down to Tijuana andsuddenly saw a painting on black velvet of Auschwitz. You'd just think, 'My God, wait a minute!

Patton Oswalt used to stage readings of the script with a bunch of comics at Largo in L.A., until he and the club were threatened with legal action from Jerry's people when they presumably read a blurb the L.A. Weekly ran on it.

(it was amazing, by the way)

Okay, I am righteously pissed I never saw that. Please, someone tell me that was at least taped once.

http://www.artatlarge.com/pages/ggein/gg_pgs/GG_21.htm

http://www.artatlarge.com/pages/ggein/gg_img/GG_21.jpg

Gidget Gein???

oh ha it's a Mar1lyn Man5on person

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/1f/Whichwaytothefront.jpg

vtf

pretty sure I vouldn't

I saw WWttF once on late-night TV.

Yo.

http://insidemovies.ew.com/2013/08/11/the-day-the-clown-cried-video-jerry-lewis/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJai18eys0M

Bonus Jane Birkin and Serge Gainsbourg at about 2:10.

The strange thing is, his children’s entertainment routine in this behind-the-scenes video isn’t bad. The bit with the candle and the cigarette (hey, kids do love cigarettes!) has a comical grace about it.

because jerry lewis was never known for being entertaining and comical.

Morbs to interview Jerry for Criterion rerelease.

the thing is 1) yeah the clown bit at the top is just great - the timing, the angles, everything about it is tremendous, however 2) it's exactly what Harry Shearer said - note the pinkie ring.

there's a clip floating around from a fairly recent jerry lewis appearance where someone asked him about the movie and whether it would ever be released, and instead of flipping out he gave this really honest and direct response, along the lines of "no, it won't, because it could have been a good movie but i didn't know what i was doing so i just fucked it up." it was actually really moving.

yeah - I've been I can't say obsessed by but ~thinkin' about~ this movie ever since I first heard of it, decades ago now - it was before the Spy article, that was kind of a watershed: so much information in there about what was basically a "so do you know there's this Holocaust movie Jerry Lewis apparently made" deal beforehand. Jerry's answer was great; previously, if anybody asks him about it at all, he completely humiliates them, every time, reliably. And he usually sounded bitter and angry and defensive, all the usual many layers of defense mechanism you usually hear when he's talking about something where he's holding back. But this time, for whatever reason, he was at ease, and funny, and introspective, and honest - for the first time anywhere, as far as I know. It's a remarkable bit of public self-searching on a question that'd previously seemed a huge sore spot; when he mugs after "you wanna know why?" it's kind of a huge relief. He's ok with this big failure now. This answer has really made me hope the film itself never surfaces in any form. The story as it stands is better.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LEMSgRytNZ0

SHOOTING over Helmut's shoulder down at the children as they
file past him. Each one hesitates a beat before him and
looks up at him.

Their faces are wondering, but trusting. They smile
tentatively. Only the little girl with the doll hangs back,
waiting for something rather than fearful of entering. When
all of the other children have gone in, she goes up to Helmut
and wordlessly holds out her hand in a silent request to
enter with him. In her eyes is the absolute certainty that
he will.

CLOSE SHOT - HELMUT - LITTLE GIRL'S POV

He looks down at her hand for a long beat.

MED. SHOT - HELMUT, LITTLE GIRL

The little girl waits for Helmut, but he doesn't take her
hand. Shyly, she begins to withdraw it. Suddenly, Helmut
reaches out and grabs her hand, clutching it desperately as
he needs her innocence to control the panic that is tearing
at him. Holding on to her to steady himself, they walk
together into the room, the CAMERA PANNING with them.

CUT TO:

INT. CHAMBER - DAY

ANGLE to the door as Helmut and little girl enter. Suddenly,
the door slams shut behind them. Helmut whirls to it
instinctively, as if to shove it open or cry out for help,
but he does neither.

CLOSE SHOT - HELMUT

His face is pressed against the steel door. He fights the
panic within him. Then, he quickly wipes his eyes and turns
back towards the children. Slowly he takes three chunks of
stale bread from his coat pocket and begins juggling them,
at the same time waggling his head from side to side, slowly
at first, then more gaily. From deep inside him comes a
tiny, tiny laugh. The CAMERA PULLS BACK SLOWLY to reveal
the children in the f.g. Suddenly, Helmut tosses the pieces
of bread high, high into the air and stretches out his arms
to encompass all the children. As they gather around him,
they take up his soft laugh, timidly at first, then more
assuredly until the chamber resounds with gentle laughter.

Morbs to interview Jerry for Criterion rerelease.

IT WAS NEVER RELEASED

also if you wanna see a JL WWII film where he wears a pinkie ring and a peace symbol, there's the above-cited Which Way to the Front?.

I will stick w/ the good stuff. It seems to me this is salivated over mostly by Jerry haters.

it's not really haters - it's that this is a fascinating story. there are plenty of failed efforts but the combo of lewis's self-importance (some of which isn't without merit, some of which is just arrogance) and the insanity of the idea and where this is at in history and the backstory of where he's at and why he's doing it etc etc: it's just a good story, and that you can't actually see the film makes it pretty irresistible

That screen grab alone for the YouTube Ned just posted looks like the black velvet painting Shearer compares the film to.

http://youtu.be/4JGUKtc9Bjc

That screen grab alone for the YouTube Ned just posted looks like the black velvet painting Shearer compares the film to.

well, except that the clowning Lewis is doing in that segment is A+++, just perfect. It's pretty decontextualized so you have to know "in this film, this guy will shortly be in a concentration camp" for it to be anything but a good clown act.

Kind of weird that Harry Shearer also is one of the "only" people to have seen the Bohemian Grove rituals and also does a "it's no big deal" rap about it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtNCAdkQlcY

seen and talked openly about it, that is

ppl born after 1970 are only used to dealing w/ ironic clowns, right? Homey, Krusty, etc.

(apologies for dumbed-down use of 'ironic')

What's A Bigger Cliche: "I Hate Mimes!" Or "I'm Scared Of Clowns!"

i started that thread 9 years ago! jesus christmas where does the time go...

Among the 6 or 7 roles Jerry plays in The Family Jewels is a creepy, misanthropic clown.

So the newly surfaced footage......isn't it the only footage that has ever been seen of this?

pretty close. there was a documentary that had a tiny tiny bit of footage but it was all behind-the-scenes - this is the first moving-image stuff to surface from the actual film footage afaik

Well THIS is good stuff.

http://insidemovies.ew.com/2013/08/19/jerry-lewis-day-clown-died/

Yes.

None of the answers are a great surprise, in fact someone could have written that as a script!

(forgive me, I watched Frost/Nixon last night)

I have to think this is like Smile and one day it will just exist out there in the world, weirdly

i dunno if JL could release it even if he wanted to -- IIRC he doesn't own the rights to the novel it's based on anymore.

He'd better burn what he's got

(those answers to EW, of course, contradict what Lewis said this year, that it's embarrassingly bad)

Jerry Lewis IS Walt Whitman in Heaves of Grass

More!

http://gawker.com/heres-a-peek-at-the-holocaust-clown-film-jerry-lewis-i-1103950199/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v96fv67ak0o

Patton Oswalt has a story

http://www.vulture.com/2014/12/patton-oswalt-the-day-the-clown-didnt-cry-jerry-lewis.html

Omg. Restored my faith in something.

walked out to the empty lawn in the back of the theater and was confronted by the single douchiest-looking adult male I’d ever seen. All of the worst aspects of (1) a jock, (2) a shrill NPR listener, (3) a wannabe alpha-male, and (4) a movie producer, which, it turned out, he was. Or at least he said he was.

But if we hope for that which we see not, then do we with patience wait for it. (Romans 8:25)

Stone also let the group in on secrets, like the Jerry Lewis collection he had just acquired on behalf of the library.

Did he really have the film negative of "The Day the Clown Cried," an unreleased Holocaust comedy that Lewis regretted making? Yes, Stone said, but the library agreed to not show the film for at least 10 years.

.. which is exactly how old this thread is already.

every time this makes the news, i get depressed. mentioned in paragraph 21 of a story about film preservation, and yet that's all anyone pulls out of it.

the library of congress did NOT get the clown. as jerry explains at around 40 minutes into this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGmyHivWyN8

not a fan of colbert or syrian refugees. loves tina fey though! likes trump too.

Here's something: some new photos from the set.

http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-35220719

.. And a 30 minute documentary also.

bearded jerry!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03dj9kr

bearded jerry!

Don't tell me you've never seen...

https://41.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lxtu3qNf141qhpc9fo1_1280.jpg

haha no what is that

http://iv1.lisimg.com/image/1090337/580full-which-way-to-the-front%3F-poster.jpg

31 minutes of it on Vimeo.

https://vimeo.com/160821734/c055c9bee4

there is no way this thing is as terrible as people say it is.

Just watched this. It's compelling. Hopefully JL will get wind that people aren't laughing at it and release the full thing. The most curious thing here are a bunch of recreations of scenes by old men that look to have been filmed far more recently than the film on a blank black stage. No idea what to make of that.

Lewis called it "bad bad bad" within the last year... I saw him speak extensively two months ago in a Q&A, and he's just as secure in his opinions about quality as he ever has been. I doubt it'll be officially distributed in his lifetime.

Why couldn't he have maintained this level of clear-headed quality control wrt Hardly Working

Yeah I missed the news that we have to wait 10 more years to see it. On the upside, a reason to live.

I don't remember Hardly Working being terrible, and Smorgasbord/Cracking Up is better than that.

no movie can possibly be as bad as people say "the day the clown cried" is.

i'm confident that jerry is right about this one. given the premise and the treatment i don't really see how anyone actually wants to view it.

it's probably a deeply flawed and misguided film, but worst film ever? no, i've certainly seen worse films, films so bad that my mind has blocked out any specific details about them.

the thing is you have to solve for different ideas of terrible. this is terrible like Billy Crystal doing blackface at the Oscars. Except that in Lewis's case, he thinks he's saving lives by shooting scenes in a "death camp" where everybody's well-fed and maybe their faces are a little dirty but it's a huge deal when a guard shoots even one of them. It's just like one huge misstep. Jerry's a good filmmaker, so this was never going to be a Plan 9 From Outer Space. It's bad because it's wrong-headed in its every impulse.

The edit above on Vimeo is remarkable, much more actual footage than we'd ever, ever seen. Genuinely didn't think I'd ever see this day!

so far all the footage i've seen from this makes it looks interesting, nuanced, artistic, thoughtful, contemplative, etc. not exactly the tonedeaf disaster that paraphrased headlines make it out to be.

You saw that 10 questions thing where Jerry acknowledged that it was neither the the worst film ever, or an unfinished masterpiece?

well, any talk of the film is implicitly counter to auteur theory, as the auteur in question doesn't intend to release it in his lifetime.

that is not the auteur theory

The old guys doing the scenes are, i think, cast members of the film 40+ years later?

You can see Old Jerry on-camera in the German documentary footage here:

https://vimeo.com/160821734/154551473

so far all the footage i've seen from this makes it looks interesting, nuanced, artistic, thoughtful, contemplative, etc. not exactly the tonedeaf disaster that paraphrased headlines make it out to be.

Clown Trutherism begins here

My curator friend had a chance to see this at the LoC, but opted for some rare silent film instead. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Three years to go now until The Day The Clown Cried can finally be seen (June 2024), but only if you're in Northern Virginia.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbZIyXNRxos

!

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/jerry-lewis-holocaust-clown-cried-venice-documentary-film-1235955289/

From Darkness to Light, a documentary from directors Michael Lurie and Eric Friedler about Lewis’ project, features never-before-seen footage of the legendary lost film and will screen in Venice’s Classics section devoted to documentaries about cinema.

C'mon I can't be the only one still interested.

I bet this film is nowhere near as offensive as Life is Beautiful.

I will watch this!

C'mon I can't be the only one still interested.

Since the film was never actually finished, a documentary using existing footage is probably the best venue to experience this.

From Darkness to Light, a doc about it, is on TCM from now through 12/23. I really, really wanna see it, but don't have TCM.

i watched it, good doc v thorough.. goes into the production problems & does have a lot of footage from what was shot

I don't have it either, ah well.

There's a TCM hub included with my Max subscription but it's just movies; I did a search for the documentary and it didn't come up.

Watch TCM has it through 12/23; must remember to catch this.