Jerry Lewis’ Notorious Unreleased Holocaust Movie Is Getting a Remake

The Day the Clown Crieda famous and infamous film directed by Jerry Lewis The film, which never saw the light of day, is soon to be remade, though it’s hard to categorize it as such since the original was never released. The comedian and filmmaker donated it to the Library of Congress in 2014, along with some unedited footage and sound reels. There likely won’t be a complete copy of the 1972 film, as Lewis famously denied, though some people have seen a contemporary version. One of them was The SimpsonsHarry Shearer, who (speaks to spy! IndieWire said about the film:

“With most of these kinds of things, you find that the expectation, or the concept, is better than the thing itself. But watching this movie was really inspiring, in terms of
Rarely do you find yourself in the presence of something so perfect. This thing was perfect. This movie is completely wrong, its emotions and humor are completely out of place.
“You can't imagine it better than it really is. 'Oh my God!' is all you can say.”

The notoriously secretive film is now being revived by filmmaker Kia Jam of K. Jam Media, who took over its production costs (producers Tim Zagaros and Christopher Limoli are financing it). He’s now just looking for a filmmaker with thick skin and perhaps a dark sense of humor to helm the remake. The screenplay was actually written by Joan O’Brien and Charles Denton. Lewis, who died in 2017, only tweaked it to his liking. Jam is returning to the original script, which he found emotionally devastating before Lewis tweaked it. Jam says (via Deadline) that the first time he read the script was over a decade ago when a rabbi presented it to him:

Jam continued describing his ordeal in arranging everything and obtaining the rights legally: “I found all the right people, got all the right documents with the help of the rabbi, and started working on financing the film. I've had this film financed once or twice over the years, but I couldn't get a filmmaker of the caliber I needed. You really need a filmmaker to tell your story.“The actors who signed on to do this film would want to make sure they were in good, capable hands. I couldn’t do that.” Asked if he had seen any of Lewis’s film, he continued:

”
I haven't seen the movie, and I really don't want to.
This is not the movie we're going to make. I have nothing but respect for Jerry; I grew up watching his movies and he was clearly a master… There's a lot of misinformation out there about the original movie and what Jerry did and didn't do, how good or bad the movie was, whatever people want to say. Jerry himself has said that he wasn't completely satisfied with the final product.

Talk about understating it.

Why is The Day the Clown Cried so controversial?

The original film is about a circus clown who falls into the hands of the Nazis during World War II. After seeing him mock Hitler, they decide to subject him to a gruesome act: Helmut Durk is put in a concentration camp where he distracts children on their way to their deaths. He is forced to be a sort of bagpiper in the film, which is said to have some very strange comedic moments for something so dark (like it being so cold that Helmut Durk urinates on ice bikes).

Related: Best Jerry Lewis Movies, Ranked by Rating

Given that Lewis was already a comedy icon by the early 1970s, a film of this nature was met with utter bewilderment. Lewis, who came from a Jewish family, decided that the end result would not appeal to anyone in an official film release. His physical comedy skills and filmmaking savvy were brilliant and unique, but they did not fit the subject matter of the film. What is funny, however, are the live comedy performances that Patton Oswalt, David Cross, and Bob Odenkirk used to perform, where they acted out readings from the script (until one of the producers threatened them); You can read Oswalt's hilarious take on the matter here.taken from his book, silver screen villain.