From darkness to light

A documentary. In 1972 the Jerry Lewis was at the peak of his career. Driven by the ambition to play a dramatic role for a change, he set out to craft a very special movie project for himself, "The Day the Clown Cried". Lewis left the set and never spoke about what happened. The movie was never completed and has become the ultimate Hollywood myth. Now, after years of research, extensive materials have been found, restored and put into their production context. This documentary tells the story as daring as the original project itself, with Lewis playing a German clown in a concentration camp long before any other director had narrated the Holocaust on the big screen in fiction. Featuring exclusive interviews with cast and crew members like Pierre Étaix, Rune Ericson, Martin Scorsese and Jerry Lewis himself. It uncovers the story of one of the most ambitious US- European coproduction projects of its time, the storm surrounding its shooting and the almost unbearable pressure it put on its protagonist, Jerry Lewis.