A Thousand Clowns

A Thousand Clowns is a 1965 film adaptation from a 1962 play by Herb Gardner, and directed by Fred Coe. It tells the story of an eccentric comedy writer who is forced to conform to society to retain legal custody of his nephew.

Unemployed television writer Murray Burns Jason Robards lives in a cluttered New York City studio apartment with his 12yearold nephew, Nick Barry Gordon. Murray has been unemployed for five months after quitting his previous job writing jokes for a childrens television show called Chuckles the Chipmunk. Nick, the illegitimate son of Murrays sister, was left with Murray seven years earlier.When Nick writes a school essay on the benefits of unemployment insurance, his school requests that New York State send social workers to investigate his living conditions. Investigators for the Child Welfare Board, Sandra Markowitz Barbara Harris, and her superior and boyfriend Albert Amundson William Daniels, threaten Murray with removal of the child from his custody unless he can prove he is a capable guardian. ........

Source: Wikipedia