About the Project
THE LAST TELETHON is an homage to everything Jerry Lewis borrowing heavily from his “percocet” period of hosting the annual Labor Day telethon—only in this go-around, rather than raising money for MDA, Jerry’s trying to get the cash together to reshoot his “lost,” never-seen, legendary motion picture, The Day the Clown Cried, a Holocaust drama about a washed-up German circus clown who is thrown into a concentration camp, where he finds his “true audience” – the imprisoned Jewish children. The film was so awful it was never released.
In his 1985 autobiography, Jerry Lewis in Person, the great comedian still entertained thoughts of returning to Europe for pick-up shots in order to re-edit the rough cut of the film. “One way or another, I’ll get it done. The picture must be seen, and if by nobody else, at least by every kid in the world who’s only heard there was such a thing as the Holocaust.”
In “THE LAST TELETHON” Mark Amato plays the harried comic/master of ceremonies as Jerry tries to pull out all the stops in classic Jerry style to get the phones ringing with pledges. With Lewis reprising his leading role as Helmut Doork, audiences have the rare privilege of watching actual scenes from the original screenplay re-enacted in all of their 1971 glory.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkAm6ckbLqI
Production Team
