by JOHNSON CUMMINS

As much as I love the film Showgirls, directed by Hollywood’s answer to Ingmar Bergman, Paul Verhoeven (who also directed Starship Troopers!), I felt I was only scratching the surface of the cream of the crap when I recently watched it for the umpteenth time. Could there be anything more ego-driven, more riddled with surgical script work and brutally hammy acting?

Apparently, there is a film in existence that can rival Showgirls. It’s called The Day the Clown Cried, starring, produced and directed by the Nutty Professor himself, Jerry Lewis. Sadly, the film still languishes in Lewis’s vault and, so far, has only been seen by eight people since it was originally shot in 1972.

While addicted to Percodan, the king of comedy pounded the pavement looking for scripts that would provide a vehicle for his more dramatic side, and in the case of The Day the Clown Cried, he found it—and I do mean duh-rama. Here’s the stink: Lewis plays a clown who gets tanked at a bar in Germany in 1941, and is caught doing imitations of der Führer and put into Auschwitz by the Gestapo. The always self-serving Lewis, of course, apparently changed the script to show off the magnitude of his acting ability, pencilling in the final scene where his clown, in make-up fashioned from stove soot and pigeon droppings, entertains Jewish children as they are unwittingly led into the gas chambers. The camera pulls in close as (you guessed it) a single tear wells in his eye and runs down his cheek, with all the pathos of an episode of Alf.

There do exist murky shots taken from the film location that provide the ultimate teaser. They’re of a pilled-up Lewis, decked out in his clown garb—and you’ll swear he’s wearing a pinkie ring. If you stare at them long enough, you can almost hear his nasal trademark scream “Laaddyyyy” echoing across the faux-Auschwitz set.

We can only pray that one day the clown will cry again—or at least, me and the entire population of France can pray.

Some movies that sadly will not suck my dad’s ass as hard as Showgirls and Lewis’s opus will be showing around town this week. Tonight, Thursday, May 4, you can check out the Slaughterhouse Cinema night at Zeke’s Gallery. Expect the unexpected, with short films ranging from the erotic and experimental to the transgressive and Satanic. The fine folks at Slaughterhouse promise “absolutely no crowd-pleasers.”

On Saturday at la Sala Rossa, there’s the Montreal premiere of What is Indie?, directed by Montrealer Dave Cool. Cool tries to answer the film’s titular question by way of talking-head footage of Paul Gott of Ripcordz, Bloodshot Bill, Bad Flirt—and myself, missing the point and talking about getting bad blow jobs (?).

LAAADDDDYYYYYYY! jonathan.cummins@gmail.com

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