Jerry Lewis’ “The Day The Clown Cried” is being revived!
Has there ever been a movie you’ve always wanted to see but there was some sort of obstacle stoping you? Well for many people something on their bucket list has been the Jerry Lewis film, “The Day The Clown Cried.” Well after almost half a century the legendary 1972 Jerry Lewis movie can be seen…sorta. Recently the Library of Congress has received the film along with a collection of all of Jerry Lewis’ work. However there is a bit of a snag; the film in question is not allowed to be screened for another 10 years.
Even with the 10 year wait this is HUGE news for movie fans. Knowledge of this film has been tickling the brains of cinephiles for years. For those who have never heard of this film, in 1972 Jerry Lewis (one of the world’s most famous and iconic comedians) made a movie about the Holocaust. Specifically the film is about an old down-on-his-luck clown in Nazi Germany who after drunkenly mocking Hitler is taken to a concentration camp. After the nazis realize they can use him to keep the jewish children calm while transporting them to Auschwitz. The Clown realizes he’s being used like the Pied Piper and when no help can come he decides to continue to try and entertain them during their last moments of life.
So needless to say this is not the happiest film, however there were actually more financial reasons why this film wasn’t released. For many years Lewis stayed loyal to the film promising that he’d get it out somehow one day. As the years went on, the mystique about the film grew and grew and Lewis became less willing to talk about it. There was even a rumor that if any interviewer asked Jerry Lewis about the film then the interview would immediately be over. Over the years his own opinion of the film seems to have changed back and forth, sometimes declaring it his masterpiece other times acting embarrassed over it. And the few people other than Lewis who have seen it didn’t like it. “The Simpsons” voice actor Harry Shearer was quoted in an article of Spy Magazine saying, “This movie is so drastically wrong, its pathos and its comedy are so wildly misplaced,” so it is possible it can’t live up to the hype. In fact it’s far more likely that it won’t, how could it at this point? But for the true cinephiles out there, there’s nothing that’s going to stop them from seeing this in 10 years, and I’ll be right beside them.
Are you excited for the revival of “The Day the Clown Cried?”
[Source: CinemaBlend]