Cheap The Hunchback of Notre Dame (DVD) (Lon Chaney, Patsy Ruth Miller) (Wallace Worsley) Price

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Customer Reviews of The Hunchback of Notre Dame

The Hunchback of Dilettantism
This is a terrible, terrible adaptation of Victor Hugos novel. The novel is one of the great landmarks of Humanist Litterature, while this is simply an uptight morality-play of the somewhat Victorian orientation. Claude Frollo, one of the great villains of litterature, is in this version meek as a lamb (he's a catholic priest for God's sake), while his villainy is rendered to his secular brother, Jehan, thus creating a dualism (good/evil) that is totally foreign to the humanism of the novel. Jehans villainy is consisting of his base lust after Esmaralda, the sexy gipsy girl (bad people are horny, good people are in love). But alas, her sexuality is hampered too, even her familiar, the goat, is missing! Phoebus, who in the novel seduced Esmaralda simply because he was able to, taking advantage of her girlish admiration for his manners and shiny armour, is turned into a coy and rather laughable vaudeville-jeune premier, his intentions are quite honorable and poor Esmaralda want's to go to a nunnery to save his honour. Even worse, Clopin, the leader of the rebellious crowd fighting the decadent aristocracy, is portraied as a sneering creep, thus forcing us to question his heroic ambitions on a somewhat unjust grounding. And Quasimodo? Well, Lon Chaney does his usual routine, twitching under a mass of make-up. This is really just one of his "thousand faces".
Nothing works, apart from the spectacular setpieces of medieval Paris. And old age can't be blamed (in the same period the germans were creating expressionist masterpieces still working) but simply bad storytelling. Watch the 1939-version instead, starring Charles Laughton and Maureen O'Hara, that's a true classic. Or better still: read the novel.

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A CLASSIC OF LOVE AND HORROR!
Sounds like two words that don't go well together, right? Well never has the classic "Beauty and the Beast" tale been more splendidly presented than in this film version of Victor Hugo's novel. As THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME, Lon Chaney is simply unforgettable with his disshevelled hair, stooped shoulders, rounded eye sockets, and a through his grin the ugly tip of the epilectic. Great supporting cast also includes Brandon Hurst (Sir George Carew in DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE), Ernest Torrance, Raymond Hatton, Norman Kerry, and many others. I can never watch this film and not instantly fall in love with Patsy Ruth Miller, a truly beautiful actress whose performance of Esmeralda can still make you likewise of Quasimodo feel for her. Although Chaney's hunchback is somewhat mocking and barbaric at times, he is also sympathetic like Karloff's Frankenstein Monster. In one scene he delivers food for Esmeralda after rescuing her, and turns away, as so she doesn't need to look at his ugly features while she eats. What does Esmeralda do? She consoles Quasimodo, and allows him to sit calmly beside her.

Audio essay by Make-Up Artist, and long-time Lon Chaney archivist Michael F. Blake is also very captivating. It wasn't until 1998 that I was able to see this for the first time, and by then it's 75th anniversary the film was very stunning to be seen in locations that DO look strikingly similar to Paris, although shot truthfully on Universal's back lot. The lavish production values and a cast of many all help make this an enduring classic. Skip the lame Disney production - THIS is the TRUE Hunchback!

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A SILENT MASTERPIECE.
In spite of being dubbed the "Man of a Thousand Faces", what sticks in the viewer's memory isn't Chaney's fairly conventional make-up, but rather the way he used his body - his movements and contortions. Bowed under the 72-pound weight of a rubber hump that made it difficult for him to stand up straight, Chaney adopts a weird ape-like crouch, as though his legs were too rickety to support him, but which allows him to scuttle about in a manner frighteningly part-simian and part-arachnoid. Surprisingly eneptly mounted - considering its lavish budget - i.e. many social, religious and sexual abberations which were central to the Hugo novel are missing - and wretchedly directed by Wallace Worsley with a constant flurry of extras milling about, this famous silent film survives solely through Chaney's remarkable performance. Too many horror fans are disappointed, it seems, when they find out that this Victor Hugo story is essentially a historical romance. However, viewers will nevertheless be impressed by Lon Chaney's excellent portrayal of the tragic Quasimodo. For this 1923 extravaganza, it took Universal a year to prepare the enormous sets, a four-month shooting schedule and an incredible cast of 3500 supporting players and extras. Interestingly enough, there were a number of earlier silent versions - the most notable being THE DARLING OF PARIS (1916) - in which Quasimodo won Esmeralda!