HOLOCAUST

DRAMA

.TllECllllTil'
Scutwotnn's Lrsr, clearly, is
the most famous film about the
Holocaust. The strangest is almost forgotten today-Jerry Levis' The Day the Clown Cried^

TEAR$OF

A Holocaust drama by the auteur of The Nuttg Professor? Remarkably, yes. Filmed mostly in Stockholm in l972,the film stars Lewis, who also directed, as a circus clown imprisoned for satirizing Hitler. After finding himself in a boxcar taking a group ofchildren from a prison camp to Auschwitz, he's forced to distract the tenrified youngsters on their way to the gas chambers. The film will probably never be

released-at least in its entirety. After a dispute over financing between Lewis and the French produceq Nathan Wachsberger, most of the film was seized by the studio, Europa Films. However, Lewis has
assembled a rough cut on video and shown portions of it privately. Some

of those few who have seen it suggest it's the Heaaen's Gate of the Holocaust, with Lewis, despite all efforts and an affecting script, essentially doing his shtick. At last some of this strange DaE may see the light: A French documentary producer has gathered and

wants to use several minutes of

footage from the movie. Meanwhile,

U.S. producer Michael Barclay and

distributor August Enterlainment, who own the rights to the original 1961 script, say they're "on the vetge" of producing it without Lewis. August president Gregory Cascante has talked to William Hurt about the role of the clown.'TVhen I read this scripi, I was crying like a baby," Cascante says. "It's about the importance of children.. .and a superficial man who finds his soul because of

them."

-Frqnk

Louece

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