Footage of unreleased Jerry Lewis holocaust film The Day the Clown Cried appears online

The full-length version of Lewis' bequeathed film won't be available to view until 2024

Jerry Lewis' The Day the Clown Cried has been embedded in the annals of Hollywood legend since it was made in 1972.

Hardcore film enthusiasts have attempted to source the holocaust drama for several decades now, its "bad taste" content seen by a very exclusive number of people.

ScreenCrush reports that 30 minutes of the unreleased film has now surfaced online.

Known for his comedic performances, Lewis (The Nutty Professor) turned his hand to drama for the project which saw him write and direct a story following a WWorld War I German clown who lures children into gas chambers.

Lewis even took on the role of the chilling character named Helmut Doork.

The compilation of rare footage was stitched together using clips from German documentary Der Clown.

While the entire film still exists, it was revealed last August that it had been acquired by the Library of Congress which renders it unavailable to view until 2024.

One of the few people to have seen the film includes Harry Shearer (The Simpsons, This Is Spinal Tap) who, in an interview with Spy magazine in 1992, branded the film "...drastically wrong."

"[It's] so wildly misplaced that you could not, in your fantasy of what it might be like, improve on what it really is."