The 1972 movie, about a performer who leads children to the gas chamber in Auschwitz, has never seen the light of day, becoming an object of cult fascination.
At last, a glimpse of The Day the Clown Cried.
Jerry Lewis has sworn repeatedly over the years that he would never let the 1972 movie about a clown who led Jewish children to their deaths during the Holocaust, which he directed and starred in, see the light of day.
In the film, Lewis plays a down-on-his-luck German circus clown named Helmut Doork, arrested after drunkenly mocking Adolf Hitler and placed in a concentration camp awaiting trial. He later boards a train headed to Auschwitz packed with Jewish children, and, once there, is forced to perform for them, Pied Piper-style, as they are led to the gas chambers. Helmut joins them in the gas chamber in the film's final scene.
The unseen film, its premise seemingly ripe for epic failure, has grown into a cult-obsession for cinephiles over the years. Those few who have seen it say it is as bad as it sounds: "You're stunned," says comedian and The Simpsons voice-actor Harry Shearer, who has seen the full film, of the movie's awfulness.
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