"The Day the Clown Cried" finally may have a release date

Holdek said:
Didn't the French really like his movies? Not that that explains anything, really, but...
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Well, it can't have been entirely healthy for the guy to be singled out as a paragon of contemporary auteurship and placed alongside Charlie Chaplin and Jacques Tati! But yeah, I've never been quite sure about the French love for Jerry Lewis.

Glancing at box office receipts, his movies that were general release in both markets don't seem to have been disproportionately more successful in France versus the US. And if you look at more recent articles that purport to confirm this ongoing affection, the "man on the street" quotes all seem to come from people at, like, Jerry Lewis film festivals - not exactly a representative sample! But I'm not sure I'm comfortable writing it off exclusively as a Cahierist fad, either, given the way in which French popular cinema has from its inception been more closely allied to the literary and academic establishment than seems to be the case almost anywhere else. It's really baffling to me.
Steamboat_Bill said:
Yes, it was, and it's a large part of why Jerry Lewis didn't want it released.
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Jerry Lewis is very much his own punchline by now, isn't he? It's almost sad to look back and see how genuinely charming some of the early Martin and Lewis routines were, in light of this.
 
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buster_kitten said:
Glancing at box office receipts, his movies that were general release in both markets don't seem to have been disproportionately more successful in France versus the US. And if you look at more recent articles that purport to confirm this ongoing affection, the "man on the street" quotes all seem to come from people at, like, Jerry Lewis film festivals - not exactly a representative sample! But I'm not sure I'm comfortable writing it off exclusively as a Cahierist fad, either, given the way in which French popular cinema has from its inception been more closely allied to the literary and academic establishment than seems to be the case almost anywhere else. It's really baffling to me.
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They gave him the Medal of Honor, so make of that what you will.
 
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Steamboat_Bill said:
They gave him the Medal of Honor, so make of that what you will.
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"Jerry Lewis gets Legion of Honor medal"

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My mom likes Jerry Lewis. (She's not French, either). I just don't get it. :\
 
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Henry Bemis said:
In a post-Producers/post-Danger 5/post-"Hitler as punchline" world, this movie really has be something to live up to the decades of secrecy and embarassment.
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Seems to be that way. We're definitely gonna be scrutinizing this.

Henry Bemis said:
"With most of these kinds of things, you find that the anticipation, or the concept, is better than the thing itself. But seeing this film was really awe-inspiring, in that you are rarely in the presence of a perfect object. This was a perfect object. 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. "Oh My God!" — that's all you can say."

- Harry Shearer, one of the lucky few (or cursed) to see the film
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I recall Shearer was on Howard Stern talking about it as well, also bringing up Roberto Benigni's "Life is Beautiful" for a similar premise (of course that film won an Oscar).
 
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On one hand I'm curious to watch it, but then I worried it'll be one of those, "oh fuck, why did I just watch that?" type thing. I mean, who the fuck comes up with this kind of thing?
 
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Apparently, even if the film is safely ensconsed in the Library of Congress, no one can see it until the rights are acquired from the writers or their estates, if I read Wikipedia correctly.

Per the article:
Wachsberger not only ran out of money before completing the film, but his option to produce the film expired before filming began. He had paid O'Brien the initial $5,000 fee, but failed to send her the additional $50,000 due her prior to production. Lewis eventually ended up paying production costs with his own money to finish shooting the film, but the parties involved in its production were never able to come to terms that would allow the film to be released. O'Brien was shown a rough cut of the film in an attempt to acquire the necessary rights to release the film, but after viewing the product decided that it was not fit for release and, therefore, did not enter into an agreement with the producers or Lewis for the unauthorized, derivative work.

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This '10 year provision' would appear to be based solely on Lewis's request to hold back his contribution for ten years, but, as the underlying rights were never acquired by Lewis or the original financiers, the film cannot be screened, published, copied or shown in any form until and unless such rights are acquired.
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Henry Bemis said:
Apparently, even if the film is safely ensconsed in the Library of Congress, no one can see it until the rights are acquired from the writers or their estates, if I read Wikipedia correctly.

Per the article:
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Or until someone obtains illicit access and then puts up a torrent of it.
 
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