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Jerry Lewis’ vision of a clown who is forced to entertain the children imprisoned in a Nazi concentration camp

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Film Threat has a good story on the history of unfinished films. They created a list of ten films that were never completed but have drawn a lot of interest over the years.

Some of the movies had barely begun when they were axed others were stopped sometimes just days before their completion. I have included some of the people involved with the film after the film's title. Most of the time they're actors, but some are producers or animators etc.

They had a couple of rules that determined the choice of the films reviewed:

First, a film cannot be completed belatedly – this cancels such noteworthy unfinished works as Erich Von Stroheim’s “Queen Kelly,” Sergei Eisenstein’s “Que Viva Mexico” and Orson Welles’ “It’s All True” and “Don Quixote.” Those films saw some degree of completion, in one form or another, and found their way into commercial release.

Second, the film would need to have some degree of commercial significance to justify the angst caused in its cancellation. A film like the 1993 indie “Dark Blood,” which was shut down 11 days prior to the end of filming when leading man River Phoenix died from a drug overdose, probably would not have been anticipated in its day or appreciated years after (Phoenix’s star was already waning by this point in his career and the film, by all accounts, was not that special). Thus, it is not present here.

Third, the whereabouts of the surviving footage needs to be considered. There is a difference between a completely lost film, such as Eisenstein’s “Bezhin Meadow,” and a film that was left unfinished but still survives.

Here is the top ten list they chose:

1. The Professor (1919). Charlie Chaplin

2. Creation (1931). Willis O’Brien (stop-motion animation)

3. I, Claudius (1937). Charles Laughton

4. WIlliam Tell (1954). Errol Flynn

5. Something's Got To Give (1962). Marilyn Monroe, Dean Martin, Cyd Charisse, Wally Cox and Phil Silvers

6. Ten Girls Ago (1962). Dion, Buster Keaton, Bert Lahr and Eddie Foy Jr.

7. The Deep (1967). Orson Welles, Jeanne Moreau, Laurence Harvey 

8. Man’s Fate (1969). David Niven, Peter Finch and Liv Ullmann

9. The Day the Clown Cried (1972). Jerry Lewis

10. The Man Who Killed Don Quixote (2000). Terry Gilliam,, Jean Rochefort

Do you know of any or have any favorites you think should have been included?