This month, Old Academy Anew explores a 1965 movie based on the play of the same title, A Thousand Clowns. There was a long period in the past century when most films were transmutations of stage plays. Some suffered for it; others enhanced the experience. We still try to make the jump from stage to screen, and we still haven’t gotten it quite right yet. This year is also giving us a lot to think about clowns, but we ain’t going there. Not that kind of column.
The thing Hollywood hasn’t grasped is that not every medium translates properly into another. It happened in 1965 with A Thousand Clowns, and it will keep happening until they accept that fact.
Stage plays adaptations. Book adaptations. Video game adaptations. We have “Original Screenplay” and “Screenplay Adaptation” awards for a sad reason. Plus, in the last five years, 75% of everything coming out of Hollywood is a rehash of a known IP. Creativity ain’t a commodity anymore. What follows is inspection, introspection, and dissection, sprinkled with mild to severe cussing. You have been warned.
REVERSALISM
Our movie starts with its protagonist screaming at his neighbors like a fukken looney; we greet a couple of empty streets to emphasize his lunacy. Some random pier is our next setting. Here we learn the protagonist’s name: Murray (Jason Robards), thanks to his kid nephew Nick (Barry Gordon). One minute into the movie, and we already know Murray is quirky and jobless. Nephew wonders what it would take for Uncle to be serious for a moment.
Uncle asks for the hour. It’s barely past 7:00 a.m., and we’re treated to empty streets again. He solemnly declares, “In a moment you’re going to see a horrible thing.” Nick does a verbal eye-roll, asking, “What’s that?” “People going to work,” sighs Murray. A shrill marching band unleashes the opening credits. Hundreds flood the previously desolate streets, rushing to earn a living.
The cacophony of percussion and winds chases us through desperate “getting to work” visuals. It turns into a jazzy ditty, taking us back to Murray and Nick in search of an eagle. They accomplish such an endeavor with a junkman under the Williamsburg Bridge.
A Thousand Clowns takes us on a four-plus-mile trek around NYC as we discover things about our protagonists. It gives you a lot of info in a few minutes, but if you know the landmarks, you appreciate the cardio these dudes are doing.
Nick gets his uncle to slow down because they need to talk. Our boy happens to be in one of those “smart kids’ schools.” An essay brought to light several “red flags” according to people who (allegedly) know about kids; thus, the Child Welfare Crew is about to visit them for an investigation.
This is only news to Murray because that asshole doesn’t open official mail. Nick, the adult in this duo, wants to get their story straight. Murray takes Nick to the Statue of Liberty. After that visit, read the “help wanted” ads, which seem to be part of their routine. But this time, the paper is three days old. Murray’s answer to the un-freshness of the job opportunities? “All the really important jobs stay forever.”
If you’re old enough to remember physical newspapers, you’ll understand the subtext here. There’s no point in wasting my time with a diagram if your information has always come from a screen. The reading of ads is interspersed with our guys gallivanting about NYC, aided by strident music as rotund background noise.
You might have noticed it’s a weekday and wonder why the smart kid ain’t at school. Well, child decided to skip class to be there when the Government shows up, so the alleged adult doesn’t screw things up. Before the city escapism ends, these two have a heartbreaking and profound conversation. Nope. We can’t call it a conversation. A child asking you to grow the fuck up because a life of shenanigans endangers his mental future ain’t that. It’s an entreaty that only a kid forced to be stable in the household can muster.
We get to the hard truths I’m exposing here through whimsical means, but that doesn’t make them less complicated. A Thousand Clowns ain’t afraid to hurt—even if at first you think it’s only tickling you.
They finally go home. Awaiting them is the Child Welfare Crew, which happens to be a man and a woman. By the end of the confrontation, we conclude the government duo isn’t just a pair but a couple.
RELUCTANCY
A mixture of charisma and skullduggery scores Murray a day with Government Lady, sending her exasperated partner to cuckold hell. That day of sightseeing turns into a night of grown-up entanglement. Nevertheless, this isn’t “Oh, Government Lady’s special and sparked something in Murray.” Nope, this is a pattern, and accordingly, Nick makes himself scarce for the night, so the adults can get properly acquainted. Now, now. Our boy Nick ain’t sleeping in the street; he bunks with an old neighbor: there’s a roof, a meal, and a bed.
The next morning is awkward for the aforementioned entangled adults. On mere appearances, we can conclude Mister Government ain’t rocking Government Lady’s world– if you know what I mean. Quirky, creative, and frankly unhinged-adjacent Murray clearly folded her like a paper airplane and threw her around the room. Wink, wink. In true Disney Princess fashion, the L word is sputtered, and we get another around-the-Big-Apple montage, although framed by a much tamed and romantic soundtrack.
All is fine and dandy until they return to their love nest; she’d decided not only to stay but to start “fixing” the apartment. Murray’s face becomes a magnificent study in WTF and what-I-got-myself-into?
If A Thousand Clowns teaches us a single thing, it’s that people might genital their way to the top, but apparently not to child custody.
Amid Government Lady’s redecoration plans… Wait, I need to stop calling her that. Let me check. Sandra (Barbara Harris). Amid Sandra’s redecoration plans, the doorbell rings, announcing a visitor. Murray asks her if she doesn’t want to, you know, hide. She shrugs, saying there’s no reason for that. Still, she scampers to the closet upon hearing her coworker slash former love interest at the door.
After discovering his former lady in the closet, Señor Government tells Murray, “You’re not a person. You’re an experience.” I think Murray should take that as an insult, but he obviously doesn’t. He just chuckles and says, “I might need to remember that.” Anyhoo, the Enforcer ain’t there to recover his woman, but to inform our protagonist they’re taking Nick away. The Authorities have been following Nick’s case for months; yesterday’s visit simply confirmed all the red flags waving around the kid.
We learn this is happening on a Tuesday, and the Law-Sanctioned Kid Snatchers are coming Friday. We got us a ticking clock, y’all! Jilted Government Man leaves womanless, but not without giving us his assessment of Murray’s mental dissonance. All coming from a man who does a job to protect children, fully aware of his inability to relate to said creatures.
The road from “what you wanna do” to “what you should do” is a complicated one; in A Thousand Clowns, it’s obstructed by a strident marching band and ends at a decrepit, closed Chinese restaurant.
Sandra comes out of the closet and assures Murray of her knowledge of the system, promising to help him. Murray’s almost okay with letting the kid go, but starts reflecting on the kind of people who might get him. A heartbreaking diatribe ensues. Nick has been old for a while now, before even getting the chance to be a kid. He already makes lists. What if he falls into a family of list-makers? Murray just wants Nick to realize he was born a human being, not a chair.
INADAPTABILITY
From the perspective of a decent human being, some people should not have children around, much less raise them. Still, you hear awful stories about kids in the system, and foster units only there for the cash. In the back of our minds, we know Murray is a good uncle, from a distance. Nonetheless, we question if Nick’s premature grown-up behavior is a consequence of Murray’s habits, or said habits are a counterbalance to an inclination to extreme seriousness in Nick’s DNA.
Words on essays and a couple of psychological/ behavioral tests don’t show a full picture. Plenty of awful people (from scammers to serial killers) come from “visually” normal families. We don’t know what the fuck is truly happening behind closed doors.
Murray left his previous job as writer for a children’s TV show because he’d lost the enthusiasm to keep going. Now, he’s forced to find a source of stable income for a child’s sake. Life is a bitch, ain’t it?
A Thousand Clowns wages a war against conformism using a clown car full of creativity against uniformity. Whether it wins or not hinges on the viewer’s lack of coulrophobia.
We have several things here. A man thrust into parenthood, not completely qualified for the role. Doing his best in a half-assed way, but far from awful. If we squint really hard, we might see the whole thing as an early life lesson; something Nick might learn in his late twenties under “normal” circumstances. Lots of kids get way worse deals on a daily basis.
Also, a woman who studied to become a social worker but is stifled by masculine preconceptions of female roles. Interestingly, this one happens in a post-WW2 USA. Didn’t women have to show up while the men were away? How is it that when the men came back, women were supposed to go back to the kitchen? That never made sense to me.
Can this movie be made in 2025? Certainly not by the mofos who wrote most of the movies in the last five years. The film catalog from said luster tell us all ways they’ll find to fuck the story. There’s nothing odd about Nick beyond the fact that he’s basically the adult in his household; in 2025, he’d have a rainbow of diagnoses with a myriad labels/triggers to boot. A character during the 2020s is not a human being but a battered travel case plastered with trauma stickers.
The “lack of diversity” in A Thousand Clowns would be considered treason and dealt with accordingly. Obviously.
Remember the clowns I mentioned at the beginning? The ones we weren’t going to talk about? Those will find a way to sneak into a remake of A Thousand Clowns in 2025. Especially because, “You can’t have too many eagles.” And eagles aren’t for the sky in some melons but to smear the land.
8 out of 10 thanks to all the fucking marching bands.
Cheers.
A Thousand Clowns is currently available to stream for free on Roku.