10 Filmmakers Who Blamed Actors For Failed Movies

7. Jerry Lewis Blamed...Himself - The Day The Clown Cried

The Day the Clown Cried is one of the most infamous and sought-after unreleased films in cinema history, a 1972 Holocaust drama written, directed by, and starring Jerry Lewis, who plays a circus clown imprisoned at a Nazi concentration camp and acts as a pied piper-type figure to lure children into the gas chambers.

Lewis took the project extremely seriously, touring real-life concentration camps and losing 35 pounds for the part, and though shooting was completed, the film was never released due to issues securing rights from the creator of the original story, Joan O'Brien.

In the decades that followed, Lewis abandoned his attempts to get the film released and ultimately vowed that it would never be screened in his lifetime. He said of his own efforts as writer, director and actor, "I am embarrassed at the poor work." Talk about falling on your own sword.

Though fans still hope that a copy of the film may one day be screened to the public, a near-half-century later it remains one of Hollywood's most fascinating failures.