Best movie of this year hands down!

Sadly Over-hyped

Good story, Not enough for a whole film

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

This early adaptation of The Hunchback of Notre Dame shares much in common with Universal's later film, The Phantom of the Opera: the sets are great and Lon Chaney is great, but everything else is subpar, including the pedestrian direction of Wallace Worsely.Lon Chaney never gave a bad performance and his performance as Quasimodo was one of his finest moments, both as an actor and as a make-up artist. His is the only fully realized performance in the film and unfortunately, he gets little screen time in comparison to the bloodless love affair between Esmeralda and Phoebus, played by Patsy Ruth Miller and Norman Kerry. Miller does pretty well, though Kerry is pallid and underwhelming, just as he was opposite Chaney in Phantom and The Unknown.I'm not too sure why this is often classified as a horror picture, though it does have its creepy moments, such as Quasimodo stalking Esmeralda at night, intent on kidnapping her for his lecherous master.Overall, this is an alright movie, but nothing compared to the 1939 version, which has more depth and feels more iconic.

Victor Hugo's classic "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" receives a grand send-up from Universal Pictures, and superstar Lon Chaney (as Quasimodo). As you might expect, the story is significantly altered from the original. Sex, politics, and religion were then, as well as now, subjects to be treated delicately. The world at large is still waiting for a production that will leave the corpses of Quasimodo and Esmeralda rotting blissfully in Notre Dame. The studio spent a lot of money on this production, and it shows.For decades, Universal literature claimed this film made Mr. Chaney a superstar. Their pride is understandable, but Chaney had already achieved that position. He was a hot property throughout the 1920s. Chaney was responsible for pulling viewers into the cinema for several high-level productions; before his "Hunchback" even reared its ugly head, he was sitting comfortably with Douglas Fairbanks and Rudolph Valentino inside the annual "Quigley Poll" of "Box Office Stars" (at #9 for the year 1922).Universal added some of the best supporting actors in Hollywood, beautiful Patsy Ruth Miller (as Esmeralda), director Wallace Worsley of Chaney's "The Penalty" (1920) to the mix, and spent a fortune on the sets. The result was a crow-pleasing epic. Though retaining its grandeur, this version of "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" really does not approach the overall artistic quality of production you can see in other silent films of the era, however. It's enjoyable for those who appreciate the genre, but this "Hunchback" can be seen more as a documentation of lavish setting, and for Chaney's towering titular performance.******** The Hunchback of Notre Dame (9/2/23) Wallace Worsley ~ Lon Chaney, Patsy Ruth Miller, Norman Kerry, Ernest Torrance

The first of the oft filmed Victor Hugo classic featuring Lon Chaney as Quasimodo is filled with early epic quality and some heavy duty overacting in supporting roles not to mention the frightful state of the print which unfairly detracts from the films overall quality.Lon Chaney is an impressive bell ringer but aside from a few acrobatic moments amid the gargoyle seems restricted in his oppressive costume and make-up. Along with Phantom of the Opera this may be Chaney's most famous role but I feel not one of his greatest performances. Ernest Torrence as Clotin, King of the Beggars is far more effective and memorable than Chaney's posings .William Worsley's direction offers little as the rest of the cast overacts and the film's tempo wavers and becomes disjointed (blame here may once again also be affixed to the horrendous shape of the print). When it comes to the big crowd scenes Worsley is no Griffith in building a fever pitch. Shying away from graphic violence and the unbridled rebellion DW puts together in Orphans of the Storm made two years earlier and dealing with the same locale. Worsley offers some neat overheads of Quasimodo's gargoyle eye view of things but some of his "massive crowd" scenes are sparse such as the scene of the impending execution of Esmeralda. It look's like the blood lusting rabble of Paris slept in that day as stragglers can be seen meandering up to the scaffold in what is normally a shoulder to shoulder SRO event. Historically significant The Hunchback of Notre Dame deserves attention but when put into context by comparison with the other epic of that year (Orphans) you wonder what the hullabaloo was all about in the first place.

Visually, Wallace Worsley's adaptation of 'Notre Dame de Paris' is stunning: the lavish sets are atmospheric; the costumes, while not always historically accurate, are attractive; and the film is lively and well-shot, with (on the whole) an excellent cast. It could have been a superb early Hollywood epic. Unfortunately, the script was maimed by censorship, which set the tone for subsequent US attempts to film Hugo's spectacular novel of 15C Paris. *Some spoilers follow, as I wish to compare the book and the film.*The title itself reflects part of the problem. Despite Victor Hugo's disapproval, since 1832, many popular English-language translations of 'Notre Dame de Paris' have appeared under the 'Hunchback' title, promoting the supporting character of Quasimodo to the leading role. The NAMPI 'Thirteen Points', which prefigured the Hays Code, further fuelled this change of narrative focus. They prohibited the depiction of the clergy in ways that might provoke hostility or loss of respect: a huge obstacle in adapting this novel, which centres upon Claude Frollo, a brilliant young priest who destroys himself and all he loves because he can no longer cope with his vow of celibacy. Other characters were also problematic for the censors: Esméralda's long-lost mother is a penitent former prostitute; the teenaged student Jehan is a drunkard and frequenter of brothels; Phœbus is a rake who takes Esméralda to a sleazy 'house of assignation' and almost succeeds in seducing her – indeed, she plasters herself over him more or less begging him to take her! How could the book be sanitised for filming under NAMPI rules?The script retains Claude Frollo's identity as Archdeacon, but makes him remain the sweet, saintly adoptive father of the deformed foundling Quasimodo. It transfers his passion for Esméralda and his alchemy to his secular brother, Jehan – a spoilt and dissolute undergraduate in the book, but here a middle-aged villain, in league with the king of the underworld, Clopin. Without the psychological conflict over religious vows, the 'thwarted desire' plot loses meaning and intensity. It becomes just another story in which a man ruthlessly pursues a girl who loves someone else. It also wastes the talents of the British actor Nigel de Brulier, whose ascetically handsome features make him one of the best film-Claudes in looks. He could have played Hugo's Claude magnificently, judging by his performance as the prophet Jokanaan, tormented by another provocative teenaged dancer in Alla Nazimova's film of Oscar Wilde's 'Salomé'. Instead, all he has to do is look pious in a cassock. Film-Jehan (Brandon Hurst) is merely a moustache-twirling melodrama villain, or would be, if he had a moustache!The moustache, however, in one of Hugo's more egregious anachronisms, belongs to Phœbus de Châteaupers (Norman Kerry), whom the script cleans up to be a conventional romantic lead (a decision copied by Disney in 1996). Yes, he tries to seduce Esméralda (the delightful Patsy Ruth Miller – young, carefree and charming), but here she resists, and he is won over by her virtue. The film also invents a Cinderella-type scene where she goes to a ball, dressed up as a lady, and captures his heart from his aristocratic fiancée Fleur-de-Lys. And of course, despite the various trials and tribulations, they will be rewarded with a happy ending. Pierre Gringoire's role is minimised to that of occasional comic relief: a pity, as he is great fun when he is on screen. Pâquette/Sister Gudule, Esméralda's mother, makes her only Hollywood appearance in this adaptation, in sanitised form, played by Gladys Brockwell. In flashback, we see her as a wealthy lady (presumably a widow) in a grand house, not as the impoverished young prostitute of the novel. Her death is placed earlier than in the novel and in somewhat different circumstances. The script bungles the drama of the belated recognition and reconciliation between mother and daughter: here, Pâquette recognises her child, then dies – but Esméralda apparently remains none the wiser. Poignant though this is, it seems an odd anti-climax: did this plot-element seem too melodramatic even for 1920s audiences?These days, the reputation of the film rests chiefly on being a star-vehicle for Lon Chaney as Quasimodo – much overrated, I thought. His make-up was certainly elaborate by the standards of the time – indeed, too extravagant to be convincing. Quasimodo is a twenty-year-old boy with severe disabilities: he is not a human-ape hybrid, which is what Chaney (wearing an alarming amount of false body-hair during the flogging scene) appears to be playing. In a cinematic reversal of evolution, he is more like an ancestor of King Kong: just swap the Gothic towers of Notre Dame for the Art Deco lines of the Empire State Building. The ending, too, prefigures that of the great ape film: the heroic 'monster' is killed off so that the physically attractive young lovers can be reconciled. It's certainly not Victor Hugo! Indeed, having Quasimodo expire in the arms of his adoptive father, Claude, so far overturns the tragic climax of the novel that it belongs in an entirely alternative universe.Without the distortions of narrative and character imposed by censorship, the talents assembled here could have made a wonderful film. Sadly, the NAMPI restrictions left it picturesque but stunted and deformed – much like Quasimodo himself.