Wary of Jerry

The headline on this article is "Jerry Lewis has broken a 40-year silence about his 'disaster' of a Holocaust movie." Yes, he's finally started talking about The Day the Clown Cried.

A number of my friends are far more interested in this film than I am. I think I told the story here once about how years ago, I was printing out labels for VHS tapes on my shelf. I had one label left over on a sheet so on a whim, I printed "The Day the Clown Cried," slapped it on a tape I was going to otherwise toss out and put it in my library. A guy I knew came by. We were going to go out to dinner but then he spotted the label, grabbed the tape from the shelf and started screaming, "We are not going anyhere until I see every foot of this movie!" He acted like he would die if I didn't immediately jam it into my VCR and begin playing it for him.

He was crushed when I told him it wasn't real. I think I had to actually play a little of the tape to convince him Jerry's movie wasn't on it.

Anyway, I'm curious about the movie but it's been a long time since Mr. Lewis gave a coherent, fact-based interview about anything. A few years ago for a Laurel and Hardy DVD, he explained that Hardy was a janitor when Laurel discovered him and decided he'd make a good partner. There was zero truth in that and he didn't even have a personal, emotional stake in that interview. Why should we believe him on a topic about which he's so sensitive and defensive? Oh, well. At least he might tell us that the musical of The Nutty Professor is opening on Broadway next month.