Lost Films

[Jeff Wilson]

With all the talk about Ambersons and the hunt for the missing footage, I thought people might be interested in the story of another somewhat lost film, Jerry Lewis' The Day the Clown Cried. If you've never heard of this project, it was an early 1970s film starring and directed by Jerry, about a clown named Helmut Doork at Auschwitz. The film was finished but never released and is owned by Lewis. Amazingly, there is a web site with the script and articles about the film (link below). Proof that the web has nearly everything one could ever imagine, I think.

Personally, I find Jerry Lewis mindbogglingly awful in almost every way, but the story of the film is bizarre and fascinating.

http://www.subcin.com/clowncried.html

[jaime marzol]

lewis is hard to sit through. not until after i read a bogdanovich interview in PIECES OF TIME, was i able to overlook lewis and appreciate the production values of some of his films. the one where he plays an idiot houseboy (imagine that) in a house full of women, has some of the best craftsmanship an american studio could offer an artist. worth watching on a creative level alone. the set is incredible.

it's interesting that lewis prefered to mic the sets rather than work with a boom-man. he said filming went much faster that way, scene set-ups are a breeze. if you have a film where a large portion of it takes place in one room, mic-ing the sets is a great idea.

he still sucks though.

any one read that dean martin book that scorsese was going to make a film out of but never did?

[LA]

Thanks for that link, Jeff. I'd heard of the project, but didn't know many of the details. It is a bizarre story.

Re: Jerry's badness, For years I kept hearing that Lewis was a genius, then watching his films and assuming I was missing something. Of course, he has his moments, but why some of the Cahiers critics (Godard in particular I think) rated him above Chaplin is beyond me.

[jaime marzol]

the french love lewis, and think he's a genius because all the qualities they see in the american tourists walking down their streets; borish, garish, idiotic, lewis embodies and personifies. this is why they think he's a genius. so only if you are french will you find genius in jerry lewis.

my first wife was french. she hated everybody, the english, the germans, the americans. she was like a new world nazi. a nazi with manners, but still a nazi.

[Cole]

Yes, it must be some French thing. This is from an article about the celebrated French film director Jean-Luc Godard:

“His favorite directors include Orson Welles, Alfred Hitchcock and, like every true Frenchman, Jerry Lewis, "a great director and a great character actor. Brilliant. A huge clown…..’”

[dmolson]

If you think of others who are comedians held in great favour in France, one can only wonder what Lewis has in common. Tati seemed brilliant at his best times; Chaplin at his peak was beyond genius, then like all mortals had his mediocre moments -- but nothing as moronic as Lewis at his usual. Perhaps its not merely a french thing, I knew a Czech woman who also fell apart when the Busboy was on -- virtually through the whole thing. For nearly half an hour I also laughed uncontrollably, just because of her reaction. Then I came to a different realization and that was the end of that date.
I think Blake Edwards' Clouseau is a perfect American slant on Lewis, but at least with a little depth and a lot more story. Of course Sellers was another on-and-off again genius, even if he did slag OW.

[jaime marzol]

Dan:
i never thought of that, but the pink panther movies do relate to jerry lewis. though lewis, lou costello, and shemp howard, when they do 'their thing' are unwwatchable for me.

it's funny that lewis, the moronic movie clown, in real life, had the personality of a toad, just like lou costello. i saw an interview with one of lewis' sons, and he said the character lewis played in King Of Comedy, that is the person he knows, not the happy go lucky clown from the movies. chaplin was also a toad. what is it with all these clowns being turds in realk life?

[Harvey Chartrand]

Hey, let's start a thread on toads and turds!

[Cole]

Harvey - no one's stopping you.

[jaime marzol]

cole, cool avatar. i tried to make one for dolson, and me, but i could not shrink the image, it just reframed it, so my avatar would have been orson's nose, and dolson's was orson's forehead.

what's wrong with harvey? he has such a hard time just getting into the swing of things.

[Cole]

Jaime – I just kiped it off the internet. What I’d really like to use is a shot of Joe Grandi with his eyes bulging out of his head, but I can’t find an image of one out there and I don’t have the tools to make one myself.

As for Harvey, I think he’s from Ottawa. Must be some Canadian thing.

[Welles Fan]

LOL, cole-I was looking for the same image! I did a search on T.O.R. and Akim Tamiroff, too. Guess that shot was never immortalized on still equipment?

Jaime-the best (and free) program I have found for viewing, cropping, converting and resizing images is Irfanview.

[jaime marzol]

wellesfan, cole, i can capture whatever stills you want and e-mail it, no problem at all. let me know. the bulging eyes, uncle joe licking his lips, pancho licking his lips. and no one wants to be macliammoir in othello.

wellesfan, thanks, will check out the software.

[Cole]

Welles Fan – I had a feeling I wasn’t the only one who thought up that idea!

Jaime – I think Mac would be good as Iago with his face pressed up against the cage, but maybe we don’t have any Mac-types on this board, if you know what I mean . Another good choice would be Grisby (“a little tarrrrrget practice”). There are some good close-ups of him in L.F.S. I can make screen captures with my “power dvd” program, and maybe with the program Welles Fan indicated I could shrink an image down to the appropriate size, but I don’t have a personal web page where I could put the damn thing.

[jaime marzol]

cole, grisby, with that sweaty, rubbery face would be great. (we do have a mac-type on the board. i forgot before i shot my mouth off). mac looking through bars would be cool.

i think you can put in in a yahoo profile and host it from there but i'm not sure about this.