Current Events > The Day The Clown Cried has been found

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https://www.thenationalnews.com/arts-culture/film-tv/2025/05/29/jerry-lewis-day-the-clown-cried-discovered/

One of cinema's most sought-after lost films has been discovered after having been kept secretly in the collection of a Swedish actor for 45 years.

Comedian Jerry Lewis's controversial holocaust film The Day the Clown Cried, shot in 1972 but never released, was thought to not exist in finished form.

But Hans Crispin, star of the beloved 1980s Swedish TV series Angne & Svullo, claims he stole a complete workprint of the film from the archives of its production studio in 1980 and has been screening it for guests in his apartment ever since.

I have the only copy, Crispin told Swedish state news broadcaster SVT. I stole it from Europafilm in 1980 and copied it to VHS in the attic where we copied other films at night.

I've kept the copy in my bank vault, Crispin added.

Crispin recently screened a full copy to journalists from SVT and Sweden's Icon magazine to prove his claim was true.

You're the 23rd and 24th people I've shown it to, he told Icon and SVT.

The actor also revealed that his initial copy was missing the opening six-minute sequence of the film shot in Paris, which was mailed to him anonymously in 1990, along with a note saying that the sender knew he possessed a copy of the rest of the film.

Now that he has come out into the open, Crispin intends to make his copy available for the world to see, saying: It must be seen!

Crispin added: I think I want to hand it over to the next generation. With today's technique, it can be restored. I want to sell it to a serious producer who either restores it or keeps it locked away, or restores it and shows it to people for studying purposes.

The film tells the story of a German circus clown who is imprisoned in a Nazi concentration camp for mocking Adolf Hitler and is then forced to lure children to their deaths as punishment.

While there were myriad alleged issues during the shoot itself, problems reportedly arose between Lewis and producer Nat Wachsberger once filming stopped, which is considered the main catalyst for the film's shelving.

Lewis was reportedly unsatisfied with the films financing and announced that Wachsberger did not fulfil his financial obligations. Hearing this, Wachsberger threatened to sue Lewis for breach of contract, which resulted in a fallout between the two that caused Lewis to leave with a rough cut of the film, according to a 2018 feature in The New York Times.

Lewis had mixed feelings about the film, showing fragments of his footage to close friends. However, in his 1982 autobiography, Lewis said the picture must be seen.

After watching it, The Simpsons voice actor Harry Shearer said it was a perfect object, adding: This movie is so drastically wrong, its pathos and its comedy are so wildly misplaced, that you could not, in your fantasy of what it might be like, improve on what it really is.

In an interview with The New York Times in 2018, Chris Lewis, the comedian's son, said: It was something that was very close to his heart.

At other times, however, Lewis denounced the film. In 2013, footage of him surfaced on YouTube in which he stated: It was bad, and it was bad because I lost the magic. No one will ever see it, because I'm embarrassed at the poor work.

The world deserves to see a Jerry Lewis Holocaust movie.

I wanna see it!

So the Animaniacs failed to stop the movie from being made after all

Morning bump

Neat if true, but pretty bullshit that the dude just kept it in his private collection for decades.

Antifar posted...

I have the only copy, Crispin told Swedish state news broadcaster SVT. I stole it from Europafilm in 1980 and copied it to VHS in the attic where we copied other films at night.

So which one did you destroy? The one you stole, or the one you made?

Wonder what changed that he choose 2025 to be the year to release the film to public.

I listened to a dude discuss the film in its entirety on YouTube recently since while the film itself is lost media, the final draft of the script is very much found media and thus we know what the film wouldve been like, and all I can say is that it would have been quite a dramatic departure from the comedy that Jerry Lewis was well known for up until that point since the person whom I watched had pointed out that it was quite dark and serious instead of being some tone deaf comedic romp about the Holocaust that critics of the film had assumed it to be.

Schweet.

Antifar posted...

After watching it, The Simpsons voice actor Harry Shearer said it was a perfect object, adding: This movie is so drastically wrong, its pathos and its comedy are so wildly misplaced, that you could not, in your fantasy of what it might be like, improve on what it really is.

Damn, now I kinda want to see it.

ReturnOfDevsman posted...

So which one did you destroy? The one you stole, or the one you made?

I got the impression he "stole" it one day, copied it that night, and then put the original back before anybody noticed it missing. He probably had access to the studio's archive as an actor.

>Comedy
>Murdering of Jewish children

...

Am I misunderstanding something here? Maybe this movie should have stayed lost >_>

When I first heard about this it sounded like a messed up comedy. When I read about it last year it sounded like a legitimately dramatic film.

Crimson_Corsair posted...

>Comedy
>Murdering of Jewish children

...

Am I misunderstanding something here? Maybe this movie should have stayed lost >_>

What, never seen a black comedy? Or South Park, I guess

Actually, saying "a" black comedy makes me think of Chris Rock or something. I mean grim humor.

Crispin quote from the page:

I think I want to hand it over to the next generation. With today's technique, it can be restored. I want to sell it to a serious producer who either restores it or keeps it locked away, or restores it and shows it to people for studying purposes.

so he's only willing to sell it, and only to buyers who either want to keep it locked away or only show it for studying purposes, and it needs work to be restored?

sounds to me like a movie none of us will ever see

Crimson_Corsair posted...

>Comedy
>Murdering of Jewish children

...

Am I misunderstanding something here? Maybe this movie should have stayed lost >_>

I mean it is famously bad

Newave posted...

Crispin quote from the page:

so he's only willing to sell it, and only to buyers who either want to keep it locked away or only show it for studying purposes, and it needs work to be restored?

sounds to me like a movie none of us will ever see

Yeah, if he really wanted more people to see it, he would just release it online.

Crimson_Corsair posted...

>Comedy
>Murdering of Jewish children

...

Am I misunderstanding something here? Maybe this movie should have stayed lost >_>

It's apparently more of a drama with comedy, just wildly uneven about it. It sounds kind of like Jojo Rabbit, but mishandled its use of humor so poorly, that Lewis immediately put it away upon seeing it.

Would this Crispy person have any rights to release or sell it?