‘I am ashamed of my bad work’: this legendary failed film is released for the first time after 50 (!) years

In film history, there are countless examples of films that never made their way to the big screen, but were instead locked in the proverbial poison closet: most recently, comic book giant DC made headlines after deciding to pull out the already-filmed superhero movie ‘Batgirl’ to bring. cannot be seen in cinemas for economic reasons. It’s unclear if we’ll ever see him.

This also applied for a long time to the “The day the clown cried“, which has acquired an almost mythical status over the decades, precisely because almost no one has ever seen it. The film stars legendary comedian Jerry Lewis (who also directed and wrote the screenplay) as a clown who is sent to a concentration camp after mocking Adolf Hitler. There he is believed to use his skills to lure Jewish children into the gas chamber…

It doesn’t take much imagination to imagine that such a bold premise could easily be baffled. But the problems already started during the production phase: There were repeated arguments between Lewis and producer Nat Wachsberger because the latter allegedly failed to meet his financial obligations – Lewis wrote in his memoirs that he had to pay part of the costs himself after the Wachsberger’s issued checks had all bounced. Lewis lost two million dollars and quit work on The Day The Clown Cried early on, so to this day only an incomplete version of the film exists.

No one was ever allowed to see the movie, but someone saw it anyway

Lewis ordered that no one should see the images. In his 1982 autobiography, the star of “The King Of Comedy” said: “I was bad and it was because I lost the magic. No one will [den Film] ever see, because I am ashamed of my bad work.

One person is said to have seen a rough cut of the film in 1979: actor and Simpsons spokesman Harry Shearer, who spoke in an interview with the talked about his viewing experience. “The film is a perfect object. He is so drastically wrong, his pathos and comedy are so wildly misplaced, that the idea of ​​what he could be cannot ultimately be better than what he actually is. ‘Oh my God’ – that’s really all you can say.”

This quote further fueled the myth of ‘The Day The Clown Cried’, and many film fans would do anything to be among the lucky few who were able to form their own opinions about the legendary Holocaust drama. In 2014 they could at least breathe a cautious sigh of relief: Lewis donated a copy of the film to the Library of Congress on the condition that it not be shown before 2024. So this year!

Lewis will not live to see how audiences react to The Day The Clown Cried when it is actually shown publicly in the coming months: he died in 2017 at the age of 91. It is not yet known when, where and in what form the film will celebrate its postponed premiere. But you can safely assume that it will be an event.