‘The Hunchback of Notre Dame’ Still Rings the Bell

[peekaboo]

Victor Hugo’s tale still resonates with audiences, and film versions from 1923 and 1939 would make for a captivating double feature

Charles Laughton and Maureen O’Hara in William Dieterle’s 1939 take

Photo: Getty Images

Victor Hugo’s 1831 novel “Notre-Dame de Paris,” better known in English as “The Hunchback of Notre Dame,” has enjoyed a long relationship with the big screen. The French, aptly enough, got there first, in 1905, and by the end of the 20th century even Disney had put its stamp on the property, in animated form naturally. But two full-length Hollywood features have more or less obscured all other accounts. The latter, RKO’s 1939 black-and-white sound version starring Charles Laughton in the titular role of Quasimodo, is perhaps the more famous. But its predecessor, a spectacular 1923 silent production from Universal with Lon Chaney in the lead, is no less distinguished and in many respects considerably more frightening. Now that picture has made it to Blu-ray, in a revelatory 4K restoration distributed by Kino Lorber conveniently timed for Halloween. 

In truth, there is nothing spectral or occult-oriented about either Hugo’s novel or its cinematic iterations. Class conflict and romance are their primary concerns, though modern readers and viewers may well regard the depictions of disability in a more sympathetic light than earlier generations have. Yet thanks to its late-Medieval setting (the events occur in 15th-century Paris during the reign of Louis XI), violence, pervasive religious elements, and a predilection for nocturnal action, the story has found particular resonance at this time of year. 

Both films contain tropes we reflexively associate with onscreen Halloween entertainment: the heavy makeup of cinematic disfigurement, damsels screaming in distress (the Gypsy Esmeralda in this case), and malevolent men seeking to dominate women in one way or another. But there are also marked differences in these two movies that go well beyond title cards versus spoken dialogue.

Most prominently, they end differently. In the Laughton version (directed by the versatile German-born William Dieterle ), Quasimodo throws the villainous Frollo (a nuanced Cedric Hardwicke ) from atop the cathedral and lives to see Esmeralda (a flinty Maureen O’Hara making her U.S. film debut) ride off to happiness with the poet Gringoire ( Edmond O’Brien in his first movie). In the Chaney picture (directed by the little-remembered but skillful Wallace Worsley ), the Hunchback is stabbed and dies, though only after similarly killing the same villain, here named Jehan ( Brandon Hurst ), while Esmeralda (a girlish Patsy Ruth Miller ) winds up with the popinjay soldier Phoebus. (In the book, Quasimodo’s fate is left ambiguous.)

Plenty of screen adaptations take substantial liberties with their literary inspirations, but it’s worth noting that in Hugo’s novel evil is personified by a man of the cloth, the cathedral’s troubled archdeacon. The studios, though, couldn’t risk alienating sensitive audiences with such blasphemy, so in both versions the chief cleric was left pure and the villainy ascribed to his brother—close, but not too close, to holiness. Less pertinent but no less interesting are the myriad references to immigration and personal freedom in RKO’s iteration, a less-than-subtle acknowledgment that by 1939 America had come into ideological conflict with an increasingly dictatorial Europe. 

Lon Chaney in Wallace Worsley’s 1923 film

Photo: Universal Pictures/Getty Images

Regarding the central portrayals, Chaney’s Quasimodo is more animalistic than Laughton’s, with matted fur-like hair on his chest, knuckles and eyebrows, but both actors plumb the character’s humanity with their eyes and what little facial mobility their respective (suitably frightening) prosthetics allow. Chaney, who died at age 47 in 1930, was known as much for the physicality of his performances—famously appearing as a cripple or amputee in various films—as for his elaborate makeup, which he took pride in conceiving and applying himself. The portly Laughton was his opposite, a frequently immobile actor who made the most of small gestures and was best known for his orotund voice and precise diction. (Chaney, alas, made only one sound picture.) Which is simply to say that both portrayals stand supreme in their own way—the first as a prime example of an actor playing to his strengths; the second as a triumph against the odds. 

No 35mm prints of Chaney’s “Hunchback” survive, so a 16mm print was used for this restoration. Yet the results, complete with appropriate tinting for the nocturnal sequences, lend the film startling clarity and yield an abundance of fine detail. The crowd scenes shot from a height of 100 feet are especially breathtaking. Occasionally, white scratches resembling rain mar the print, but such flaws are fleeting. The 1939 “Hunchback” was treated to a 2K restoration by Warner Bros. in 2015, and it’s unlikely the film looked this pristine even at its premiere. 

Watching both these classic screen accounts of Hugo’s novel, one realizes that rather than exist in competition, the twin tellings actually complement each other—as well as attest to the durability of the book that inspired them. That each has been restored immaculately for home video should increase the chances that those unfamiliar with them will risk a viewing. And with Halloween upon us, why not make it a double feature?