From Darkness to Light

An interesting and watchable documentary that I cannot help but feel is taken way too seriously by the film makers. It appears, to me at least, that they regard Lewis' not being able to finish his holocaust comedy/drama as a tragedy almost commensurate with that of Welles not having the final cut on "Magnificent Ambersons" and that the film's producer, Nat Wachsberger, to whom they assign the blame for this iniquity, is such an odious philistine that his face must be blocked from our view. I mean, talk about comedy! The fact is that, based on Lewis' own, unusually honest assessment and the out takes that are shown, Wachsberger did Lewis' reputation a favor by pulling the plug on the bathetic, pretentious embarrassment that is "The Day The Clown Cried". B minus.

"From Darkness to Light" shows us as much of Jerry Lewis' "The Day the Clown Cried" as we are likely to ever see. I'm sure Jerry's movie would be a hard one to sit through but I would like to give it a try. The scenes that directors Eric Friedler and Michael Lurie show are interesting but they also give the impression that "The Day the Clown Cried" would be a pretty hard movie to get through. But then again, maybe not. I didn't grow up watching a lot of Jerry Lewis movies. My parents didn't like him. As I got older, I started watching his movies and I became a fan. Jerry Lewis was a genius when it came to filmmaking. He might have actually been able to pull that movie off. Sadly, we'll never really know.

Bottom line, Jerry Lewis made a good movie. With all the doubt that the idea behind the movie that was created, none of it adds up to the fact that Jerry Lewis made a movie worth watching and worth talking about. My previous review covered why the movie was shelved and had given multiple reasons why due to endless speculations that have come from the mystery on the movie. Now, with this amazing documentary, the mystery has less speculation and more promises behind the reason why it was made. I was not expecting the amount of empathy that Jerry Lewis accepted in his struggles to make this movie. That alone showed his devotion to not only his craft as an Artist but his strong devotion to telling an important story with an equal message.

This is a documentary of the legendary 'lost' Jerry Lewis 1972 film, "The Day The Clown Cried". Jerry plays political prisoner Helmet the clown in a Nazi concentration camp where he is eventually given the task of leading a group of kids to gleefully walk into the gas chamber.

The early section has a lot of present day celebrities and commentators talking about the rumors of the legend. Harry Shearer is one of the few who claims to have seen a copy. Apparently, some film cans of the working copy were secreted away from the bankrupt production house on their way to the trash. This does show some clips of the unfinished film. Some scenes are enlightening on the tone of the film, but it is tough to know if it's actually good or not. I don't think that this can be a comedy and that's the central question.

The big difficulty for the production is a lying producer who didn't get the rights to the story. In one section, Jerry confesses that the film is not good. He does pull it back by saying that it's almost wonderful which is not good enough. It's a dodge. I find myself wanting to call Jerry out on some of his comments. I'm not sure that he has a grasp on what the film needs to achieve. This is also well before Life is Beautiful and I've always felt that Life's broad comedy never worked due to the subject matter. It would have been great to have Jerry finish the movie. It would have been controversial and maybe set him on a different path.

Like its subject, From Darkness to Light is not entirely complete, but it doesn't cut the viewer short on some jaw-dropping revelations. The Day the Clown Cried has always been an odd fascination with me, as is the case with a lot of lost or rare media, and this is as close as we'll ever probably get to seeing the film in its entirety. The documentary stems from a place of affection and respect, Lurie and Friedler giving us a compelling account of how this beloved entertainer tackled the darkest subjects. The duo trace the film's ill-fated progress which led to Lewis abandoning the project, or, did the project abandon him? It's generously illustrated with both behind-the-scenes footage of the film being made as well as raw footage from the film itself, presented mostly chronologically. The real coup here was their ability to get Jerry Lewis himself to sit down and talk at length about the trials and tribulations of making the film and its aftermath that haunted him to the grave. Painting a picture of a compelling story of Hollywood hubris that's by turns moving, shocking and blackly funny, whether or not The Day the Clown Cried will ever receive a release remains to be seen, but we can always hope.