Comes from a German documentary. If you don’t know, this is the Jerry Lewis masterwork that has been hidden for decades.
It’s about a clown, Helmut Doork, that winds up in a WWII concentration camp. He infamously ends the film by leading Jewish children to their deaths in the “showers” Pied Piper style and dying with them. It was never released and only a handful of people have seen the footage Lewis has kept in his vault.
Watch it while you can.
Supposedly the library of congress has this now, and it is not to be released until 2024? It looks pretty crappy, but does arouse some morbid curiosity about how it could ever get made.
Helmut Doork! Jerry Lewis est un génie superbe! Comment hilarant!
The last few minutes of this footage is amazing.
I watched the documentary a few months ago. It was a troubled production, if I remember correctly, the producer killed the project at the end. Also, Jerry Lewis could not get the license of the book rights, so he could not finish it on his own. Jerry was dissatisfied with the movie, he thought it was not funny, just depressing all the way and he ackknowledged what Roberto Begnini did in his film. I think that was what he was looking for, this balance between tragedy and comedy… (la vita e bella).
You know, I’m realizing now that I got so caught up in the legendary unavailability of the film that, now it’s partially online, it still entails watching a Jerry Lewis movie.