# "Day the Clown Cried" footage finally available **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [August 11, 2013, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/day-the-clown-cried-footage-finally-available/665974 "2013-08-11T22:29:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![installLSC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/54ee81/32.png) [@installLSC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/installLSC)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2013, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/day-the-clown-cried-footage-finally-available/665974/1 "2013-08-11T22:29:29Z")
“The Day The Clown Cried”, the infamous Jerry Lewis film about a clown sent to Auschwitz, finally has footage available…sort of. It’s actually behind the scenes footage from the making of the film, from a Belgian special about Lewis. It’s almost certainly going to be pulled soon, so [enjoy it while you can.](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJai18eys0M) ---
**Author:** ![jasg](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f0a364/32.png) [@jasg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jasg)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2013, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/day-the-clown-cried-footage-finally-available/665974/2 "2013-08-11T23:15:21Z")
Thanks ---
**Author:** ![Hermione](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/cdc98d/32.png) [@Hermione](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hermione)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2013, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/day-the-clown-cried-footage-finally-available/665974/3 "2013-08-11T23:30:29Z")
What I don’t get is…why was this film considered such a travesty that it never saw the light of day, when _Life Is Beautiful_, which had a very similar premise, was so celebrated? ---
**Author:** ![Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/earl_snake-hips_tucker/32/3269_2.png) [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2013, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/day-the-clown-cried-footage-finally-available/665974/4 "2013-08-11T23:42:01Z")
Supposedly, Lewis does privately screen it for guests occasionally. The word from those that have allegedly seen it is that it’s pretty bad. (Sorry, no sources at hand.) ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2013, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/day-the-clown-cried-footage-finally-available/665974/5 "2013-08-11T23:58:44Z")
> [@Hermione](#): > > What I don’t get is…why was this film considered such a travesty that it never saw the light of day, when _Life Is Beautiful_, which had a very similar premise, was so celebrated? I do remember that in Life is Beautiful The wife and the kid of the clown survives, his sacrifice helped him “win” by hiding to the kid all the injustices the jailers did to them. In The Day the Clown Died, All the kids and the clown die in the gas chamber, a mega downer of a movie. ---
**Author:** ![Doug\_K](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b5ac83/32.png) [@Doug\_K](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doug_K)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2013, 12:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/day-the-clown-cried-footage-finally-available/665974/6 "2013-08-12T00:34:09Z")
> [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](#): > > Supposedly, Lewis does privately screen it for guests occasionally. The word from those that have allegedly seen it is that it’s pretty bad. (Sorry, no sources at hand.) From the [Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Day_the_Clown_Cried://) article: > [@](#): > > Later that year at Cannes while promoting Max Rose, Lewis was asked about The Day the Clown Cried and said, “It was bad work. You’ll never see it and neither will anyone else.” ---
**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2013, 4:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/day-the-clown-cried-footage-finally-available/665974/7 "2013-08-12T04:07:46Z")
For those that are curious, here is a relatively recent clip of Jerry talking about why he won’t release it. To sum up: It’s bad and he was embarrassed and he’s relived he had the power to stop it being seen. [Here it is. It’s an Iphone recording. Turn the volume up.](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LEMSgRytNZ0&list=FLMrjkUGm8E47H5b6rm92xCQ&index=3) ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2013, 4:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/day-the-clown-cried-footage-finally-available/665974/8 "2013-08-12T04:30:50Z")
> [@Hermione](#): > > What I don’t get is…why was this film considered such a travesty that it never saw the light of day, when _Life Is Beautiful_, which had a very similar premise, was so celebrated? I always heard it was copyright problems. They didn’t properly get the rights from the original author before making it, and they have been unable to come to a satisfactory arrangement afterwards. Possibly they didn’t try too hard. [http://www.jerrylewiscomedy.com/film\_clown\_cried.htm](http://www.jerrylewiscomedy.com/film_clown_cried.htm) ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2013, 12:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/day-the-clown-cried-footage-finally-available/665974/9 "2013-08-12T12:51:00Z")
> [@Hermione](#): > > What I don’t get is…why was this film considered such a travesty that it never saw the light of day, when _Life Is Beautiful_, which had a very similar premise, was so celebrated? Because the concept requires a lot of skill to make it work. Author Adam-Troy Castro has said: “I have read the screenplay, which is available on-line. It is the kind of story that a brilliant director could render brilliant, a haphazard director could render an embarrassing misfire, and the absolutely wrong actor and director could render loathsome.” I don’t think anyone has ever thought Jerry Lewis was a brilliant director. The bit with lighting the cigarette was nicely done, though the makeup was too close to Emitt Kelly’s. ---
**Author:** ![Hail\_Ants](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/dc4da7/32.png) [@Hail\_Ants](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hail_Ants)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2013, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/day-the-clown-cried-footage-finally-available/665974/10 "2013-08-12T23:18:34Z")
> [@Hermione](#): > > What I don’t get is…why was this film considered such a travesty that it never saw the light of day, when _Life Is Beautiful_, which had a very similar premise, was so celebrated? The devil is in the details. For one thing, the original scriptwriters portrayed the Lewis clown character as being a selfish jerk who eventually redeems himself thru his actions. Lewis completely rewrote it and made him a likable, bumbling ‘Emmet Kelly’ character. But even bigger than that, when dealing with such an incredibly delicate, important and horrific subject it’s a very tricky thing to balance serious dramatic pathos with any kind of comedic element without it coming off as cheesy, schmaltzy melodrama or worse, as I think is the case here, completely inappropriate black comedy that was actually meant to be happiness imposed thru desperation in the face of unimaginable evil. Harry Shearer is one of the few celebrities to have seen Lewis’ rough cut and he said, “The best way to describe it is driving down to Tijuana and seeing a very intricate, professionally done black & gold velvet painting on a fence of a scene at Auschwitz.” IOW someone put a lot of effort into something that was obviously & ridiculously so totally wrong from the start that it’s almost mesmerizing to see it there actually in front of you! ---
**Author:** ![lawoot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/35a633/32.png) [@lawoot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lawoot)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2013, 5:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/day-the-clown-cried-footage-finally-available/665974/11 "2013-08-13T05:24:24Z")
Here’s a pretty good (but short) blog post about it, from Mark Evanier’s News From ME: > [@](#): > > As I hear the story, Jerry’s film was underfinanced from the start thanks to producers who didn’t have the money they said they had. A week or three before shooting would have been finished, funds ran out. Jerry briefly tried to keep filming using his own money but his legal advisors stopped him. The ownership of the work was in question and he might well have poured a fortune into it, completed the picture and been unable to do anything with it. Filming shut down and for a time he hoped the attorneys could straighten things out so he could take the picture to some other studio and get the balance of the work financed and then have the whole thing distributed. None of that was possible. Joan O’Brien, who’d written the novel on which the movie was based, wanted the whole thing buried. The people who saw completed scenes thought they were dreadful. And the legal situation never did get resolved. > > At some point, Jerry realized he had to give up on it. He couldn’t get its ownership cleared up and even if he could, no one wanted the film. Too many articles had appeared about what a monstrosity it was. And eventually, he and a few other actors had aged enough that even if he did go back and shoot the additional scenes he felt were necessary, they wouldn’t match. [full article here.](http://www.newsfromme.com/2013/08/11/todays-bonus-video-link-104/) ---
**Author:** ![temp\_user](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/9de053/32.png) [@temp\_user](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/temp_user)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2013, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/day-the-clown-cried-footage-finally-available/665974/12 "2013-08-16T16:56:34Z")
I think Jerry finds himself between the devil and the deep blue sea with this film - a movie that a lot of people would like to see, but yet a movie a lot of people have presupposed as ill-conceived and poorly executed. He just can’t win, so really the only card he can play is to keep it under wraps. It’s my understanding Jerry does not have possession of the negatives, only a video tape copy - do the cinephiles here agree with that? ---
**Author:** ![installLSC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/54ee81/32.png) [@installLSC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/installLSC)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2013, 1:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/day-the-clown-cried-footage-finally-available/665974/13 "2013-08-21T01:42:23Z")
“Entertainment Weekly” just posted some questions Jerry answered about “Day The Clown Cried” four years ago. [See here.](http://insidemovies.ew.com/2013/08/19/jerry-lewis-day-clown-died/) No I don’t understand why it took them so long either. ---
**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2014, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/day-the-clown-cried-footage-finally-available/665974/14 "2014-01-04T02:03:47Z")
:bump: [Some more footage has surfaced.](http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2014/01/02/the_day_the_clown_cried_watch_last_behind_the_scenes_footage_from_jerry.html) ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2014, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/day-the-clown-cried-footage-finally-available/665974/15 "2014-01-04T02:45:43Z")
It got referenced in a Batman cartoon, so we know it’s thoroughly permeated the popular culture. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2014, 7:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/day-the-clown-cried-footage-finally-available/665974/16 "2014-01-04T07:29:26Z")
Reportedly, one of the reasons the original script writer fought release of the film is because Lewis changed the script to make the main character more sympathetic. Originally, he was supposed to have been arrogant blowhard named “Karl Schmidt” that eventually redeems himself by the end of the film, But Lewis made him a lovable innocent named, believe it or not, “Helmut Doork”. In a movie that has children rounded up, beaten and eventually gassed, he goes for a gag name for the main character. ---
**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2015, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/day-the-clown-cried-footage-finally-available/665974/17 "2015-08-06T17:49:13Z")
**:bump:** [He’s given it to the Library of Congress with the rule they can not screen it for 10 years. However, in 10 years, we’ll finally be likely to see it.](http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplaylist/jerry-lewis-the-day-the-clown-cried-added-to-the-library-of-congress-but-with-a-10-year-screening-embargo-20150806) ---
**Author:** ![installLSC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/54ee81/32.png) [@installLSC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/installLSC)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2015, 4:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/day-the-clown-cried-footage-finally-available/665974/18 "2015-08-11T04:34:41Z")
This brings up a lot of questions. First off, according to Shawn Levy’s excellent bio of Jerry “King of Comedy”, the film wasn’t released because Jerry failed to pay his studio–who in turn hadn’t paid off the scriptwriters fully and thus had no rights to film it anyway. Has everybody been paid off, or do donations have different rights fees? And why wait ten years? ---
**Author:** ![RandMcnally](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b782af/32.png) [@RandMcnally](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RandMcnally)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2015, 12:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/day-the-clown-cried-footage-finally-available/665974/19 "2015-08-11T12:10:46Z")
> [@installLSC](#): > > And why wait ten years? Maybe he assumes he’ll be dead by then? ---
**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2015, 12:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/day-the-clown-cried-footage-finally-available/665974/20 "2015-08-12T00:56:26Z")
> [@RandMcnally](#): > > Maybe he assumes he’ll be dead by then? I thought that 10 years ago, but this time it has to be true. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/day-the-clown-cried-footage-finally-available/665974.md?page=2)