Roberto Benigni Archives

Jerry Lewis Concentration Camp

One of the most famous movies-that-you-cannot-watch is The Day the Clown Cried, a 1972 movie that Jerry Lewis co-wrote, directed, and starred in. The controversial film about an imprisoned circus clown at a World War II concentration camp has achieved legendary status both for being an obviously bad idea and for being shelved by Lewis. But a new BBC documentary The Story of The Day the Clown Cried provides some never-before-seen images from the lost movie about the fictional clown Helmut Doork along with some insight into why Lewis did not want anyone to see the movie.

If you just think about how a movie about a clown at a concentration camp possibly could go wrong, you may not need to know much more about The Day the Clown Cried. But for everyone curious about how a film got made that ends with Lewis’s clown leading children into the gas chamber at Auschwitz, the BBC documentary, presented by Jewish comedian David Schneider, is revealing.

To make the 28-minute documentary, Schneider used footage of Jerry Lewis discussing the film and also sought out other people connected to the making of the movie. Check out the complete The Story of The Day the Clown Cried below.

In 2015, Lewis donated The Day the Clown Cried to the Library of Congress with an agreement that the movie will not be shown for at least ten years. So, if you are curious, you may get to see the movie in 2025 (although the movie itself was never completely finished due to financial and production problems).

Until then, you will have to satisfy your urge to see a comedian in a Holocaust movie by watching Roberto Benigni in Life is Beautiful (1997).

What was Jerry Lewis thinking? Leave your two cents in the comments. Photo via YouTube.

“Life is Beautiful” With Matthew Ryan

Gary Lewis and Jerry Lewis Together

Movie Lovers Should Join The Important Cinema Club (Podcast Review)

Copying Jerry Lewis in “The Errand Boy”

To Rome with Love (Short Review)

(Some related Chimesfreedom posts.)

Most reviews of Woody Allen’s latest film, To Rome with Love (2012), at some point feel the need to say the latest is not as good as Allen’s success from last year, Midnight in Paris. While it is true that the new film lacks the storyline of its predecessor, To Rome with Love is a light-hearted romp set amidst the beauty of Rome that has many funny moments and is a good summer movie.

In Woody Allen: A Documentary (2011), Allen shows a pile of scrap paper he carries around where he writes notes for ideas to movies. He explains that when it is time to write a new film, he throws the notes down and looks through them. I can imagine him doing that before he made To Rome with Love, finding four stories he liked but that on their own could not sustain a full-length film. Then, I imagine, he hit upon the idea to throw the four tales together into one movie and create To Rome with Love. And Allen being the talented director and writer that he is, he creates a fun and entertaining movie.

To Rome with Love features four stories with separate characters connected only in that they all are in Rome. One story follows an average worker played by Roberto Benigni who suddenly finds himself famous for no reason. In another story, a character played by Allen hears the father of his daughter’s boyfriend singing in the shower and decides to make him famous. In a third tale, a newly married Italian couple become separated in the big city and the husband ends up having to pretend that a prostitute (Penélope Cruz) is his wife. In the fourth story, a character played by Alec Baldwin goes looking for his past and ends up in a story where a young man (Jesse Eisenberg) considers cheating on his girlfriend (Greta Gerwig) with her friend (Ellen Page).

I will not ruin any of the stories, but different people will enjoy different stories more than the others. While I found them all interesting, I could not help thinking that the Baldwin-Eisenberg-Gerwig-Page tale is the one story that might have had a chance to be developed into the centerpiece of film on its own.

Conclusion? If you are looking for a summer romantic comedy with some laughs and wit, check out Woody Allen’s To Rome with Love. As all the critics will remind you, do not expect Midnight in Paris. But do not let that comparison stop you from seeing an entertaining funny film.

Other Reviews Because Why Should You Trust Me?: Rotten Tomatoes reflects shattered Midnight in Paris expectations from many critics and viewers, showing a 45% Critics Rating and a 50% Audience Rating. Mike Scott at the New Orleans Times-Picayune agrees with the low rating and calls the film, “shrug-worthy.” Gary Wolcutt at the Tri-City Herald, though, says the movie works “brilliantly” and gives it 4 1/2 stars. Finally, although the full review is not online for non-subscribers, David Denby of The New Yorker disagrees with many other critics and praises To Rome with Love as “a stronger film” than Midnight in Paris.