Jerry Lewis’ son hopes to find a lost controversial holocaust

The son of Jerry Lewis, Chris Lewis, sought the most controversial movie of his late father – one who never saw the light of day in full.

In 1972, the comedian left Hollywood for Europe to write, directly acting in the “day when the clown cried.” In it, the “Nutty Professor” star plays a circus artist who the Nazis move and cheer at the concentration camp. There, there are befriends with children before leading them to the gas chamber.

The infamous film was tortured by problems and never officially released. Only small clips of the recording made themselves public. The debacle behind the scene was chronically in the documentary 2024. “From Darkness to Light.”

On this day in history, August 20, 2017, legendary comedian Jerry Lewis dies in 91

“I’ve been looking for a movie for the last 30 years,” Chris told Fox News Digital. “It was a 30-year-old search. And we found a few pieces. There is a rough cut that is 30 minutes shy than the final version … I did it one of my personal goals, try to find the elements of the movie, and then see if we can get rights or find out where they are right and try to assemble them.”

Lewis died in 2017 at the age of 91. The late star, who was Jewish, was honored at this year’s Atlanta Jewish Film Festival (Ajff). Chris will be present on Sunday to check “from dark to light”.

Chris said he gave him his father’s blessing to go in search.

“My father gave me all the production materials for the movie, including his scripts to shoot,” he explained. “I archived my father’s life from the 70’s. I was like a flame guard. I read hundreds of documents, and that was fascinating to me. But it seemed that as she had passed for decades, there was a chance for the movie to disappear … but I was determined to find elements of the missing and all together.”

Lewis’ problems began from the beginning. The movie was the first to scrub Joan O’Brien and Charles Denton, New York Times reported. According to the socket, the movie was produced when Lewis found out that O’Brien had never been paid. The right to the story was not provided.

Watch: Star of the 60th Stella Stevens tried to redeem Playboy pictures from Hugh Hefner: Son

In his memoir, Lewis said his producer “skipped the city” without paying rights and other costs. The Times shared that Lewis fought to close the gaps as the checks refused. Lewis said he had personally lost two million dollars. Due to the growing lawsuits and debts, the completed film never made it.

“Either twisted in so many legal battles On three continents that it is absolutely impossible to publish it, “Chris said.” The producer skipped the city with money, never paid a writer for the rights. It was said that Joan O’Brien saw the movie and hated it. That’s not true. I have a letter that proves she was in tears when she saw him. She was just a little disappointed that she no longer used her dialogue. “

“The movie just couldn’t put it together,” Chris split. “There were negatives in France, some in Sweden. It was a French-saturated co-production. The producer only torpedo the whole thing from the first day. And my father could never get any of the big studies to jump in when he was trying to sell his 117-minute final cut of the film. He finally gave up in 1974.”

The Times shared that Lewis had retained partial negativity. He told Chris that the rest could be somewhere in France and Sweden. Then in 2016, a 30-minute sample on the net leaked. Next year, French film critic Jean-Michel Frodon claimed that Vanity Fair saw a reduction in the early 2000s.

The New York Times reported that when the Congress Library in 2015 bought the Lewis archive, Los Angeles Times revealed that curator was a mobile picture of the library, Rob Stone, indicated that the library had all negative negativity that were not published until 2024.

Stone explained that the library had only partial negativity, or 13 cans (almost 90 minutes) unvided cameras without sound. There were also shots behind the scene.

Click here to sign up for a bulletin for fun

Stone also said he was contacted by someone who described himself as a law owner.

Chris hopes “The day the clown cried” They will finally get the audience.

“I always see a glass like half full of half -emptyness,” he said. “I am optimistic that with roughly cut shots that are available, if we find any of the footage shot in France, it would allow us to put together something at least … but unfortunately, when the Europe’s movies came out of work, they filled the garbage of old films that could not be recognized.”

“My father’s final cut may have gone into that trash,” Chris admitted.

In his life, Lewis had mixed feelings about whether the movie should be watched or not. In 2013, while at the Cannes Film Festival, Lewis said “the day when the clown was crying” was “all bad”.

“It was bad because I lost magic,” he said, as he quoted Reuters. “You will never see him, no one will see him, because I am embarrassed by bad work.”

As you read? Click here for more news about fun

But u Documentary, “From Darkness to Light”, who was shot a few months before his death, Lewis described “heart” that he could not complete and publish a movie.

“The second half of the 1960s was not good for his career,” Chris said. “The whole film industry was changing, and the studios were trying to put it in hyper sex comedy … he fought by the end of the 1960s.”

“He saw the original scenario” The day the clown cried, “he said, 10 years earlier in the early 1960s,” Chris split. “And in 1971, when he was introduced to him, he thought it might be the right time in his life to do something like that. It was a very meaningful scenario for him and the topic. And more than that, he was a clown. He realized the clown inside.”

The plot was taboo at the time. But aspects of the story hit near the house.

“My father was born in the Vaudevillian family,” Chris explained. “His parents were Waudeville entertainers. They lived a bohemian way of life. So my father stayed with his grandmother.

“He described his childhood as” tears of loneliness. “So the clown came out of him to be accepted, to be loved.

Click here to get the Fox News app

“And humor [in the film] He was for children, “Chris continued. “The comedy became their way out. It was a warm, unclear blanket my father put around when he could laugh at the children. “

Chris said he tried to talk to his father about the movie over the years. He faced some resistance before Lewis eventually opened.

“People bother him so much about that,” Chris said. “It has become something that he hated in private conversations … but when I told him about he wanted to write his book [‘Jerry Lewis on Being a Person’] And wanting to tell the true stories of how he felt, he thought it was a great idea. He said, “You are the only one who can tell that story.”

“I’ve been his road manager for years … would not answer more than two questions [about the film] And then he would change the topic, “Chris said.” But over the years I have gotten out of it. “

Today, Chris said that he still needs to learn the lessons from his father’s life.

“The laughter is very medicinal,” he said. “I can personally tell you the stories I have heard all over the world about how the humor of my father helped people in the most difficult times in their life. He would say,” I fell and made faces. What are you talking about being important? “I told him,” You have no idea how you touched people. “”

Frank Sinatra, the quarrel of Dean Martin’s Beverly Hills almost left a distinguished millionaire of the dead: the author

“He knew he was loved,” Chris thought. “He knew he wanted to do more. But he was very pleased with what he achieved. He said,” I did everything and I am pleased with what I did. I would not come back and do anything different. “

“From Dark to Light” will be shown on Sunday, March 2, at the Jewish Film Festival in Atlanta. Chris Lewis will also sign his book “Jerry Lewis about being a person.”