When Can You Watch Jerry Lewis’ Banned Film ‘The Day the Clown Cried’?

Lauren Novak March 22, 12:00 pm

THE DAY THE CLOWN CRIED, Jerry Lewis, 1972 (unreleased) — Everett Collection

What To Know

Jerry Lewis’ infamous 1972 film The Day the Clown Cried remains unreleased, with only partial production materials accessible.
Most audiences can only learn about the film through the 2024 documentary.

For decades, The Day the Clown Cried has been one of Hollywood’s most infamous lost movies. Jerry Lewis directed and starred in the 1972 film, which followed a circus clown in a Nazi concentration camp, and since its creation, he spent years publicly distancing himself from the project. Lewis repeatedly said he was embarrassed by the film and did not want it released, which only added to the mystery surrounding it. For years, it was deemed a lost film with no hope of anyone ever seeing it.

So, can you watch it now? Sort of, but not in the way most people hope.

The Library of Congress announced on September 3, 2024, that material from The Day the Clown Cried had opened for research use after a 10-year restriction expired. But the key detail is this: the Library does not have the complete film. What it holds is an incomplete portion of pre-print material, including about 90 minutes of silent raw production footage, roughly 106 minutes of audio, and about three hours of behind-the-scenes footage and notes.

That means there is still no official, finished version available for the public to stream, rent, or buy. The Library of Congress materials are available only onsite for research use, and only by appointment, through its Moving Image Research Center or Recorded Sound Research Center in Washington, D.C. In other words, this is not a public theatrical rerelease or a long-awaited home video debut. It is closer to an archival viewing situation for researchers and serious film historians.

That distinction matters because many headlines over the years made it sound as if the movie itself were finally about to be unveiled. What actually became accessible in 2024 was fragmentary material, not a completed cut.

There was another twist in 2025, when Swedish reports claimed that actor Hans Crispin possessed a complete workprint of the film and later sold it to an unnamed buyer, while still leaving the film unavailable for public viewing.

What audiences can see more easily is the 2024 documentary From Darkness to Light, which revisits the long, troubled history of the film and includes some footage and discussion of what survived. That is the closest most viewers will get right now to watching The Day the Clown Cried.