The Day the Clown Cried

The Day the Clown Cried is an unreleased 1972 Swedish-French drama film directed by and starring Jerry Lewis. It is based on an original screenplay by Joan O'Brien and Charles Denton, from a story idea by Joan O'Brien, with additional material from Jerry Lewis. The film was met with controversy regarding its premise and content, which features a circus clown who is imprisoned in a Nazi concentration camp. Lewis repeatedly insisted that The Day the Clown Cried would never be released because it is an embarrassingly "bad work" of which he was ashamed. Despite his statements in interviews he had arranged so the film will never be screened, there are reports he donated a copy of the film to the Library of Congress in 2015, under the stipulation that it wouldn't be screened before June 2024.