The Day the Clown Cried (1972)

Director:

Jerry Lewis

Writers:

Joan O'Brien (story) and
Charles Denton (story) ...

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

A circus clown is imprisoned by the Nazis and goes with Jewish children to their deaths.

Plot Keywords:

Clown | Nazi | Unreleased Film | Holocaust | Based On Novel

Cast

Jerry Lewis	...	Helmut Doork
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Peter Ahlm	...	1st New Prisoner
Lars Amble	...	Guard
Harriet Andersson	...	Ada Doork
Jonas Bergström	...	Franz
Claude Bolling
Tomas Bolme	...	Adolf
Curt Broberg	...	Galt
Bo Brundin	...	Ludwig
Johnny Cacao
Anton Diffring	...	Captain Curt Runkel
Pierre Étaix
Victor Fratellini
Serge Gainsbourg
Michel Garland
Ronald F. Hoiseck	...	Uhlmann
Sven Lindberg
Lars Lind	...	2nd New Prisoner
Åke Lindman	...	Stout Prisoner
Michael Mansson	...	Prisoner
Sandy Mansson	...	Prisoner
Armand Mestral
Fredrik Ohlsson	...	Herman
Ulf Palme	...	Johann Keltner
Roberto

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Sound Mix:

Mono

Filming Locations:

Europa Studios, Bromma, Stockholm, Stockholms län, Sweden

Trivia:

Jerry Lewis lost close to 40 pounds to play the role.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in My Brother's Light (2002)

Not as Bad as It Sounds

The Holocaust is a political hot button, and the notion of making any film with both dramatic and comedic elements about it is likely to make people recoil. Yet, "Life is Beautiful" and other films have pulled it off.

Having read the script for "The Day the Clown Cried," I can say it's doable, but the concept would fly over most people's heads. With very little action, it is a deeply introspective script, one which relies on the audience being able to identify with what's going on inside a fatally flawed character rather than the external story. American audiences, in particular, have a difficult time getting beyond the most shallow of understandings of people, preferring action over character development in films, so I don't think it would work here. It would turn on the skill of the performances to bring the nuances of internal characterization to life.

I think I understand what Jerry Lewis was trying to do -- he wanted to show the pain and darkness that underlies the character of comedic entertainers, and yet show that beneath their egos, there is heart, and that in their lives, there is great irony. He's been doing that for 40 years on his telethon, after all. But though I think the performers were eminently more qualified to act in 1972 than those today, the looser style of today's film-making would allow for a more successful film now than then.