Yesterday morning Kay Brown‘s Vimeo compilation of scenes from Jerry Lewis‘s The Day The Clown Cried (’72), which had been edited from a German-broadcast documentary called Der Clown, was taken down. She did so out of legal concerns. Lewis has stated that the unfinished film (which he’s donated to the Library of Congress) can’t be shown until 2025, and yet German broadcast laws somehow allowed last February’s showing of Der Clown. Brown nonetheless feared that Lewis’s attorneys might come down on her like a pile of bricks.

But this morning it’s back up again! Go figure. Watch it as quickly as you can before it gets pulled a second time.

The Day the Clown Cried edit from Kay Brown on Vimeo.

Recapping: Two months ago Brown’s 31-minute video, a condensed version of Lewis’s film, albeit German-dubbed with English subtitles, posted on Vimeo for limited viewing last April.

A friend sent me a link to Brown’s video Wednesday morning. I felt it was too historically important not to re-post.

I wrote the following to renowned Clown disser Harry Shearer yesterday morning: “You’ve seen the whole film and I’ve only seen excerpts, but I was surprised to discover that it doesn’t seem to be half bad in some respects. When it’s finally seen nine years hence the consensus view may well be that TDTCC has problems, but it’s certainly not the horribly miscalculated, embarrassing wipeout that you described to Shawn Levy way back when.

“I’m not saying you were completely wrong, but I was surprised to discover that TDTCC doesn’t seem to be all that bad — manipulative, yes, even grotesquely so, but at the same time it’s relatively ‘well made’ — a grim and smoky creation with a general vibe that feels respectable and somewhat restrained.”