The Day the Clown Cried

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Movie
Original title The Day the Clown Cried
Le jour où le clown pleura
Country of production Sweden
France
original language English
Publishing year 1972 (shooting time), no world premiere
Rod
Director Jerry Lewis
script Joan O'Brien
Charles Denton
Jerry Lewis
production Nat Wachsberger (France)
Jack S. Kotschack (Sweden)
music no
camera Rune Ericson
cut Wic Kjellin (planned)
occupation

The Day the Clown Cried (in German: On the day the clown was crying ) is the international title of a French-Swedish film co-production that was made as Le jour où le clown pleura in Stockholm and Paris film studios. Jerry Lewis played the title role and also directed. With this ambitious production he made an “attempt to succeed as a director in 1972 with very serious material about the existence of a clown in a concentration camp during World War II”. This cinematic experiment, "which presented a completely different, thoughtful and quiet Lewis" failed, however. The film was never shown publicly because Lewis was very dissatisfied with the filmed material and the author did not subsequently release the rights to the film.

action

Germany at the beginning of the Second World War : Helmut Doork is a worn-out clown who once worked all over the world and toured America and Europe with the Ringling Brothers Circus . After Doork caused an accident at a gig, his biggest competitor Gustav ensures that Helmut descends in the hierarchy. He tells his wife Ada Doork his suffering, but she encourages him to fight. When Helmut returned to the circus, he overheard a conversation between the director and Gustav. He is assured that he will be number 1 from now on and that Doork will be fired. Thereupon the deeply sobered and depressed Doork goes into a pub and gets drunk without restraint. In this state the tongue loosens, and Doork scolds the regime and makes fun of Adolf Hitler . He immediately falls into the clutches of the Gestapo , which subjects him to severe interrogation. Doork's loose mouth finally brings him several years in prison, which he is supposed to serve as a political prisoner in a concentration camp .

In the camp, Doork shows off his former reputation and finds a good friend in the good-natured fellow inmate Johann Keltner - like him a "political" man. Doork's greatest adversary is Camp Leader Bestler, a tough SS officer with an ice-cold look and steel-blue eyes. Bestler forbids Doork to continue to entertain the Jewish children who had arrived at the concentration camp and who were ultimately a grateful audience at the camp fence, which separates the political prisoners from the Jewish children. Since the children laughing at him and his jokes are a matter close to the heart of the former clown, Doork does not adhere to the strict order and is beaten down with a club and badly mistreated when a camp supervisor observes him making further jokes. Keltner, who comes to Doork's aid, has to pay for this courage with his life and is beaten to death. Doork ends up in solitary confinement.

Commander Bestler quickly realizes the use he can draw from Doork's abilities. He promises him that he will survive the detention well and that he will forward his case to the appropriate authorities for submission if he continues to calm the children and "look after" them on the way to the gas chambers . So he, the entertainer, gets to Auschwitz alongside the children. When numerous children are about to be murdered again, a girl looks at him with knowing eyes, and it is clear to both of them where “the last journey” will lead. Doork takes the girl by the hand and walks with her on the path to death.

History of the development of the project

In 1971 the Belgian producer Nathan "Nat" Wachsberger approached Lewis and offered him this film material, the financing of which was secured by his company and the Swedish Europa Studios. Several US comedians, including Milton Berle and Dick Van Dyke , had previously declined to participate in this film project. In February 1972, after signing the film contract, Lewis visited the former concentration camps in Bergen-Belsen , Auschwitz and Dachau to prepare for the roles .

Production notes and funding issues

The 116-day filming of The Day the Clown Cried began in Sweden in April 1972 and continued until the summer of that year.

The exterior shots with the large area of ​​a concentration camp were made in Sweden. The design of the extensive film structures comes from Mago , a Jew who fled Germany to Sweden in 1939 . The French decorations were created by Max Douy . The circus recordings were made at the Cirque d'hiver in Paris.

Jeanne Moreau was originally intended for the role of Ada Doork ; She and Lewis met in Paris for preliminary talks. Jean-Jacques Brilleix was one of the assistant directors.

In the ZDF - VIP swing on June 30, 1972, Margret Dünser reported on the shooting and interviewed the director Lewis.

As so often in his international career, Anton Diffring plays an extremely unsympathetic Nazi officer.

The film, produced by the Swedes Jack S. Kotschak and Wachsberger, obviously ran into financial difficulties in its late shooting phase. In the NDR documentary “ The Clown ” by German-Australian filmmaker Eric Friedler , the background to this “film phantom” is examined in detail. It said that ten days before the end of filming, the producers suddenly showed up on the set, which made it clear to everyone involved that there were huge problems. According to the report by Pierre Étaix , who was involved as an actor in The Day the Clown Cried , Wachsberger is said to have told Lewis that he would no longer finance the rest of this costly film. Lewis then turned the film on with his own money in order to be able to finish it. Suddenly he disappeared with the three film roles to Los Angeles, allegedly, as it is called in “The Clown” and Lewis is said to have told the crew to have them developed on site. However, initially nothing was heard from the completion.

1973 announced Lewis as a guest of the talk show Dick Cavetts that he would The Day the Clown Cried as part of the International Film Festival of Cannes for the first time present to the public. However, that did not happen. It turned out that the producer Wachsberger, contrary to claims to the contrary, did not have the film rights to the material at all and therefore could not guarantee a public screening. He did not inform his Swedish co-producer Kotschack or Lewis about these circumstances. Since - according to the cameraman Rune Ericson - the screenwriter Joan O'Brien , who as the story supplier owned the rights to the material, was neither paid for by Wachsberger nor satisfied with the cinematic end result (she supposedly called it "a disaster") she refused necessary approval for the world premiere, which had become finally impossible.

reception

Since the film was never shown in public, there are no reviews. Only a few comments on the film excerpts that have been accessible so far are available. Nevertheless, The Day the Clown Cried is one of the most discussed productions in film history due to the history of its creation and its mysterious disappearance from the public eye. The film was for many decades as missing , and Lewis himself has very reluctant even then only very taciturn commented on his production in 2015 and. When asked about this during a press conference at the Cannes Film Festival in 2013, he said: “Nobody will ever see this film. I am ashamed of the film. He's bad, bad, bad. "

Only in Friedler 's documentary The Clown , broadcast late in the evening on February 3, 2016 on ARD , the filmmaker gave comprehensive information about The Day the Clown Cried , as did six Swedish actors who were involved in the project at the time, who also reenacted several sequences of scenes here.

According to Lewis' statements, he was extremely dissatisfied with the result of his work even when he finished filming or viewing the film roles in the USA: “I was deeply ashamed ... my work was bad ... both as a writer, as a director, as an actor and as Producer ... nothing was good. "At home in Los Angeles he looked at the exposed material, but he didn't think it was good:" It would have been almost wonderful ... but only almost ... "and:" Jews who are gassed, where should they be? " because the comedy? ”From the very late realization of the comedian that this material was not suitable for a comedy, he stated in The Clown in front of the camera:“… the whole thing just completely confused me… and then such a film one To show an audience left completely confused? … I couldn't explain the whole madness anymore… For me it was just bad work… The love I had once developed for the whole project had turned into the opposite… Suddenly everything seemed terrible. This film will haunt me to the end of my days. "

When, two and a half decades later, Roberto Benigni implemented a thematically similar subject in Italy with Life is Beautiful , it was an overwhelming success. This film won a total of three Academy Awards . Lewis' reaction to this in 2015: “Benigni stole the idea from me but he did well. He didn't act properly, but it's a wonderful movie. "

epilogue

Jerry Lewis, as he revealed in an interview published in the Los Angeles Times on August 16, 2015 , has given the footage to the Library of Congress for preservation , but has a performance ban until June 2024. In February 2020, Chris Lewis, a son of Jerry Lewis, gave the Deutsche Kinemathek in Berlin production and other documents for the film from his father's estate.

TV documentary

  • Der Clown (D 2016), documentation by Eric Friedler (script and direction)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Kay Less : The large personal dictionary of the film . The actors, directors, cameramen, producers, composers, screenwriters, film architects, outfitters, costume designers, editors, sound engineers, make-up artists and special effects designers of the 20th century. Volume 5: L - N. Rudolf Lettinger - Lloyd Nolan. Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-89602-340-3 , p. 19.
  2. ↑ The clown on tagesschau.de
  3. ↑ The Day the Clown Cried on juedische-allgemeine.de
  4. ↑ The Day the Clown Cried on welt.de/Kultur
  5. ↑ Article in the Los Angeles Times
  6. ^ Documents on Jerry Lewis' Holocaust film in Berlin. In: www.juedische-allgemeine.de. February 22, 2020, accessed February 23, 2020 .