The Movie
Award winning actors Jango Edwards, Johnny Melville and Micky Hoogen feature in Ad Bol's deeply moving film PARADE OF FOOLS!
PARADE OF FOOLS is a tragi-comedy about Raphael King (played by Jango Edwards), an aging forgotten clown, who works the clubs in Philadelphia as a stand-up. Once a household name in the 80s as RAFF, part of a successful comedy duo RIFF & RAFF now he has to beg for work to make a buck. Raphael's mind and body is heavily scarred; he relies on pills and booze to keep him on stage and can barely make enough to get by.
Out of the blue he is suddenly confronted by his former manager Janice at a comedy club with a lucrative offer to persuade his old partner - Sid Rifkin (played by Johnny Melville) - to perform together again on the networks. This in a reunion of the Parade of Fools in New York; the festival that made them famous. Since Raphael ran off with Sid’s wife, Marta, some years before and prompted their break-up, he knows the odds are stacked against him. But he decides to try realizing it could be his last chance for reclaimed glory.
Sid Rifkin meanwhile hasn’t performed on stage since the split. He remains a teaching recluse in the Columbia University Drama Dept. where his job is also on the line.
Raphael arrives in New York but Sid throws him out and even the carrot of a highly-paid comeback won't make Sid work with his partner again. The pain of Marta's betrayal is still too much.
But Raphael has a trump card up his sleeve: he decides to find Sid's estranged daughter Analisa, who is living an artist lifestyle in the East Village. Raphael finds her in the Lodge Club gyrating in leather and PVC before her own punk band. Raphael cons his way backstage, where Analisa gets him thrown out - the guy who ruined her childhood, by busting up her parents' marriage!
Raphael tracks Analisa to her apartment to try again where to his chagrin he finds her mother Marta, now a sad and dying woman with only months left to live.
Raphael is so touched by Marta's condition, he does an about-turn and resolves to get Sid, Marta and Analisa all back together before Marta passes away. It is this decision of unlikely repentance which leads him into new territories of compassion as he commits himself to make up for his misdemeanors of the past...
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