Summary
- The infamous unreleased 1972 film
The Day the Clown Cried
may finally be getting a full movie version after producers acquire the original script. - Film producer Kia Jam is reviving the controversial film but removing Jerry Lewis’ input to try and create a more straightforward but still disturbing movie.
- The original film, featuring a comedy legend leading children into gas chambers during the Holocaust, was deemed unsuitable for release and disavowed by its director.
The Day the Clown Cried, a famed and notorious film by Jerry Lewis which has never seen the light of day, is getting a ‘remake’ soon, though it’s hard to classify it as such when the original film was never released. The famous comedian and filmmaker donated it to the Library of Congress in 2014, along with some unedited footage and sound reels. A complete cut of the 1972 movie likely doesn’t exist, as Lewis famously disavowed it, though some people saw a contemporary rough cut. One of them was The Simpsons‘ Harry Shearer, who (speaking to Spy! magazine, via IndieWire) said of the film:
“With most of these kinds of things, you find that the anticipation, or the concept, is better than the thing itself. But seeing this film was really awe-inspiring, in that
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.”
The notoriously secretive film is being revived by film producer Kia Jam of K. Jam Media, who has handled the costs (producers Tim Zajaros and Christopher Lemole are financing it) to get it produced. Now he’s just seeking a filmmaker with thick skin and perhaps a dark sense of humor who can helm the remake. The script was actually written by Joan O’Brien and Charles Denton. Lewis, who passed away in 2017, only adjusted it to his liking. Kia Jam is returning to the original script, which he found emotionally devastating before Lewis adjusted it. Jam says (via Deadline) the first time he ever read the script was over a decade ago when a rabbi showed it to him:
The first 20 or so pages are a little clunky and felt very dated. Then, I got into the story, I was so taken by the script. When it was done, I was sobbing. I ended up just going home. I couldn’t really do anything for the rest of the day.
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Jam continued describing his ordeal getting everything in order and legally obtaining the rights: “I found all the right people, got all the right documents with the rabbi’s help, and started to work on financing the picture. I had it financed once or twice over the years, but was unable to bring on the caliber of filmmaker that this needs. You really need a master craftsman to tell his story. The actors that sign on to be in this movie are going to want to know they’re in very good, capable hands. I was unable to do that.” When asked if he had ever seen any part of Lewis’ film, he went on to say the following:
”
I haven’t seen the movie, and I really don’t have a desire to.
That’s not the movie we’re going to make. I have nothing but respect for Jerry; I grew up watching his movies and he clearly was the master… There’s a lot of misinformation out there in terms of the original movie and what Jerry did and didn’t do, and how the movie was good, or it was bad, whatever people want to say. Jerry himself has said that he wasn’t terribly pleased with the final product.”
Talk about an understatement.
I just kind of wanted to distance myself from it. The script that I own, the original one that was written by the writers back decades ago is, by far, the most powerful script I’ve ever read.
Why Is The Day the Clown Cried So Controversial?
The original film told the story of a circus clown who gets captured by Nazis during World War II. After seeing he was making fun of Hitler, they decide to subject him to an atrocious line of work: Helmut Doork is put in a concentration camp where he distracts children as they head to their deaths. He is forced to be a kind of Pied Piper in the film, which is said to have extremely odd comedic moments for something so dark (like it being so cold that Helmut Doork urinates icicycles).
Considering Lewis was already a comedy icon by the early ’70s, a film of this nature was met with absolute befuddlement. Lewis, who came from a Jewish household, decided the final result wasn’t going to appeal to anyone in an official film release. His physical comedy skills and filmmaking acumen were ingenious and unique, but it didn’t click with the film’s subject. What does sound funny, however, were the live comedy shows that Patton Oswalt, David Cross, and Bob Odenkirk used to put on where they acted out readings of the script (until a producer threatened them); check out Oswalt’s hilarious account of this here, taken from his book, Silver Screen Fiend.
The Day the Clown Cried
isn’t available to see anywhere, but to get a glimpse of Jerry Lewis’ famous unreleased drama, you can check out the documentary
From Darkness to Light
, which explores the subject and will surely get distributed after premiering at the Venice Film Festival.
