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Fails the Bechdel test

The Day the Clown Cried

1972. Directed by Jerry Lewis, written by Jerry Lewis and Joan O'Brien and Charles Denton.

The Bechdel test

Bechdel score

1 / 3

Fails

  1. Yes 1. At least two women
    The film has at least two women characters.
  2. No 2. Who talk to each other
    Our parser found no scene where two women talk to each other.
  3. No 3. About something besides a man
    Not reached: the film fails an earlier rule.

Second opinion

Not rated bechdeltest.com readers haven't rated this film.

Poster for The Day the Clown Cried

The film

Helmut Doork, a once great and famous clown, is fired from the circus. Getting drunk at a local bar, he pokes fun at Hitler in front of some Gestapo agents, who arrest and send him to a prison camp. Helmut angers his fellow prisoners by refusing to perform for them, wanting to preserve his legend. As times passes, Jews are brought into the camp, with fraternizing between them and the other prisoners strictly prohibited. Eventually, Helmut is forced by the others to perform or be beaten. His act bombs and he leaves the barracks depressed, trying the routine out again alone in the prison yard. He hears laughter and sees a group of Jewish children watching him through a fence. Happy to be appreciated again, he makes a makeshift clown suit and begins to regularly perform. His audience grows, but a new prison Commandant orders Helmut to stop. When he refuses and continues to perform, he's beaten and thrown in solitary confinement. But the Nazis soon come up with a use for Helmut, keeping the children quiet as they are loaded into a boxcar to be sent to another camp. Helmut complies, but is accidentally locked in with the children and arrives the next day at Auschwitz.

Genres
Drama
Elsewhere
View on IMDb

Starring, by lines spoken

  • Women
  • Men
  • Not in the cast list
  • Bigger name, more lines
  1. Helmut 273 lines, man
  2. Keltner 95 lines, man
  3. Guard 64 lines, man
  4. Scharff 56 lines, man
  5. Galt 55 lines, man
  6. Bestler 38 lines, man
  7. Reicher 23 lines, man
  8. Uhlmann 18 lines, man
  9. Franz 17 lines, man
  10. Ludwig 16 lines, man
Full cast, 14 people
  • Jerry Lewis as Helmut Doork
  • Harriet Andersson as Ada Doork
  • Anton Diffring as Captain Curt Runkel
  • Ulf Palme as Johann Keltner
  • Pierre Étaix as Gustav
  • Tomas Bolme as Adolf
  • Jonas Bergström as Franz
  • Bo Brundin as Ludwig
  • Lars Amble as Guard
  • Nils Eklund as Bartender
  • Heinz Hopf as Gestapo Officer #1
  • Carl Billquist as Gestapo Officer #2
  • Peter Ahlm as 1st New Prisoner
  • Claude Bolling as Circus Band Conductor

Who talks, scene by scene

Lines of dialogue in every 2 scenes, start to finish. Women above the line, men below. 5% of lines come from characters we couldn't match to the cast list and aren't shown.

Women

Men

Scene 1 Scene 78

Hover, tap or tab to a bar to see those scenes: where they happen and who's talking.

Show the numbers
ScenesWomen's linesMen's lines
1 to 200
3 to 400
5 to 600
7 to 800
9 to 1009
11 to 1202
13 to 14108
15 to 1603
17 to 18014
19 to 20442
21 to 22015
23 to 24036
25 to 26084
27 to 28013
29 to 3004
31 to 3202
33 to 3400
35 to 36059
37 to 3800
39 to 4008
41 to 42072
43 to 44059
45 to 4601
47 to 48042
49 to 50028
51 to 52034
53 to 54332
55 to 56026
57 to 5807
59 to 60123
61 to 62939
63 to 64313
65 to 6607
67 to 68727
69 to 70022
71 to 72011
73 to 74029
75 to 76016
77 to 7801

The evidence

  • Straight from the script
  • Counted from the script and the credits

Tap an exhibit to open it.

Exhibit A: every 100 lines

Out of every 100 lines with a known speaker, 4 are women's.

37 lines from women, 788 from men.

  • Women
  • Men

Exhibit B: who's in it

1 women and 12 men in the cast. 1 women and 10 men from it get lines.

Characters

With lines

  • Women
  • Men

Exhibit C: who gets heard

The first woman speaks at line 18 of 873. The longest stretch with no woman speaking runs 497 lines.

Every line of dialogue, first to last

  • First line by a woman
  • Longest stretch with no woman speaking

Words spoken

Women speak 4% of the words (333), men 96% (8,779).

Exhibit D: the test the other way

Two named men talk to each other about something besides a woman. It passes the reverse test.

Conversations between two named characters

Exhibit E: behind the camera

1 of the 5 people in these jobs is a woman. Across the whole crew, 17% of the people whose gender is listed are women.

Directed by
Jerry Lewis (man)
Written by
Jerry Lewis (man)
Story by
Joan O'Brien (gender not listed), Charles Denton (man)
Edited by
Wic Kjellin (woman)

The crew, department by department

  • Writing

    0 women, 2 men, 1 not listed

  • Production

    0 women, 0 men, 2 not listed

  • Other crew

    0 women, 1 men

  • Directing

    0 women, 1 men

  • Editing

    1 women, 0 men

  • Sound

    0 women, 1 men

  • Women
  • Men
  • Gender not listed on TMDB

Exhibit F: how old the stars were

Women: 40 on average. Men: 40 on average. The top-billed cast, at the film's release.

Women

Harriet Andersson 40

Men

Jonas Bergström 26, Tomas Bolme 27, Lars Amble 32, Bo Brundin 35, Pierre Étaix 43, Nils Eklund 45, Jerry Lewis 46, Ulf Palme 51, Anton Diffring 55

About this analysis

Our parser read the script: 78 scenes and 873 lines of dialogue. How the test works

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