Even though it’s never officially seen the light of day, Jerry Lewis’s 1972 film “The Day the Clown Cried” has taken on this strange, legendary status in film circles. It’s the kind of movie people whisper about, more myth than reality.
There are a bunch of reasons why it’s never been released—some legal, some creative, and others just plain uncomfortable. Co-writer Joan O’Brien ended up blocking its distribution after a fight over rights, and eventually Lewis himself took the reels and kept them locked away.
But here’s the twist: this morning, word got out that a complete workprint of the film has popped up—in Sweden, of all places. From what I’ve heard, this version has everything that’s ever been rumored to exist, even scenes that were thought to be lost forever. Apparently, it came from someone who used to work at Europafilm and quietly held onto it since the ’80s or ’90s.
For now, it’s still in private hands, and in Sweden, no less. But this marks the first time we’ve had confirmation that a full copy exists outside the U.S. Whether it’ll ever be shown? Still anyone’s guess.
Back in 2015, Lewis donated a copy to the Library of Congress with the strict condition that it couldn’t be screened publicly for at least ten years. That deadline hits in 2025, but even then, there are still likely to be copyright headaches and estate permissions standing in the way.
The film itself is, well, complicated. It centers on a German clown who ends up in a Nazi concentration camp and is forced to entertain Jewish children on their way to the gas chambers. Yeah. That’s the premise. Lewis was never comfortable with the film, and he made it pretty clear over the years that he regretted the whole thing. He even said flat-out that it was a mistake and would never be shown.
In 2024, someone at the Library of Congress actually got permission to watch about five hours of raw footage. Most of it was silent, kind of a mess, and definitely not a finished film. That lines up with what Lewis had been saying all along—that despite some rough cuts floating around, the movie was never really completed.