More of the Dutch "Day the Clown Cried" documentary surfaces online

The YouTube poster named “Unclesporkums” has decided to share with us another small chunk of the Dutch TV docu about the making of Jerry Lewis’s infamous unfinished film The Day The Clown Cried. This chunk, like the last one uploaded a few months ago, is concerned solely with the opening part of the film, wherein Jerry’s character works at a circus.

The clip is mostly notable for the fact that it includes nearly as much footage of the brilliant French comedian/clown/filmmaker Pierre Etaix as it does of Jerry. Etaix’s works were recently freed from copyright limbo and have acquired the great artist a bigger cult following (especially in the U.S., where the films had barely played upon first release). Etaix played a clown in Lewis’ mythologically crazy Holocaust-clown pic and is seen here being interviewed in French about his comedic alter-ego “Yoyo.” (Here is my review of the Criterion box set of Etaix's work.)

I’m assuming that there is either 10 or 40 more minutes of this documentary (depending on whether it runs 30 or 60 minutes in total). Hopefully “unclesporkums” will gift us with the rest in the months to come. In the meantime you can learn how Jerry directs actors to punctuate their lines with hand gestures. And, of course, marvel at how the film got financed in the first place.

And if you didn’t see the previous chunk of the docu, here it is with newly added English subtitles (click through to YouTube on the lower right, then press the wheel icon and put on Annotations):

For your holiday (or anytime) viewing: the comedy special "AD/BC: a Rock Opera"

The guiding principal of the Funhouse for the past two decades has been: if I find something amazing, I've got to share it. Thus, as my Xmas present to readers of this blog (and for whatever reading you do here, I thank ye kindly), I want to spotlight a brilliant creation courtesy of some of the shining lights of British TV comedy.

The program is AD/BC: a Rock Opera (2004), and it's an absolutely spot-on parody of the rock operas of the early Seventies. It's the story of the Nativity, as told by rock composer “Tim Wynde,” played by the great Matt Berry. Berry and Richard Ayoade wrote the music and lyrics, and Ayoade directed. For their pedigree, I merely have to note that both were in the supporting cast of The Mighty Boosh and later were stars of The IT Crowd. Ayoade recently directed the critically lauded Submarine, and Berry is currently starring in the great sitcom Toast of London.

Berry has made a habit of playing hammy, pretentious characters, and that serves him well here as the Lloyd Webber-like composer who also plays the innkeeper. The show is not only a letter-perfect parody of the corny “hipness” of the rock operas, but Ayoade has also wonderfully captured the visual tropes that appeared in the film versions of these works (there are wonderful recreations of the camera language and edits from Jewison's JC Superstar and David Greene's Godspell catalog of would-be “cool” effects).

[Full disclosure: As a student at Catholic school I was forced to memorize songs from Godspell, so I felt tormented by that show; I actually do enjoy the wildly-dated-even-when-it-was-new excesses of JC Superstar, but take great delight in the precision with which the tenets of both shows are gutted here.]

The cast is simply sublime: Berry as the innkeeper, Julia Davis (Hunderby, Nighty Night, Jam) as his wife, Julian Barratt (of the Boosh) as the villainous “Tony Iscariot,” Ayoade as Joseph, Matt Lucas (Little Britain) as God, and, among the chorus, Noel Fielding and Rich Fulcher of the “Boosh” and Graham Linehan (creator of Father Ted and IT Crowd).

It is fun, it is super satire, and it is incredibly silly. What more can you ask for in comic entertainment?