Jerry Lewis 'Permanently Shelved' Secret Never-Released Nazi Clown Movie

Funnyman Jerry Lewis was obsessed and embarrassed by one movie until the day he died — his disgraceful, never-released Holocaust flick, The Day the Clown Cried!

Lewis not only wrote, directed and starred in the 1972 film about a clown who criticized the Nazis and ended up entertaining children in a concentration camp — he put his own money up to make it, RadarOnline.com has learned!

But Lewis was completely tone-deaf about the drama, and when it was screened, the cast and crew were aghast at the offensive four-hankie film.

One screenwriter on the project called it "a disaster."

Actor Harry Shearer called it "a perfect object" of awfulness, adding: "It's not funny, and it's not good."

Embarrassed, Lewis permanently shelved the drama.

"There's not a day of my life when I don't think about this movie," he admitted last year.

In 2015, Lewis donated his copy of the film to the Library of Congress. Soon after, it was reported that the film will finally be screened in 2024, but only if you visit the Library’s Packard Campus for Audio Visual Conservation in Culpeper, Virginia.