The Hunchback of Notre Dame ***** (1923, Lon Chaney Sr, Patsy Ruth Miller, Norman Kerry) – Classic Mlovie Review 730

Director Wallace Worsley’s brilliant 1923 silent version of the Victor Hugo classic still thrills and astounds thanks to the marvellous, costly Universal studio production, huge crowd scenes, astonishing production designs and sets, and the rousing telling of a story that just can’t fail on screen.

In a definitive turn, Lon Chaney Sr still amazes in one of his finest and best remembered portrayals, covered in imaginative and convincing makeup as the hunchbacked bell-ringer Quasimodo of Paris’s Notre Dame Cathedral.

Patsy Ruth Miller co-stars as the gypsy dancing girl Esmeralda, whom Quasimodo silently and secretly loves. When the courts sentence Quasimodo to be flogged, she is the only one who has pity on him and will give him water while he is tied up in the square.

There is a lot of screen time for Miller and Norman Kerry as her romantic interest, Phoebus de Chateaupers, the brave captain of the guard. They do well enough, but it’s Chaney Sr’s triumph, with the help of some brilliant character work from Ernest Torrence (Clopin, king of thieves), Tully Marshall (as King Louis XVI), Nigel De Brulier (the Archdeacon) and Raymond Hatton (the poet Gringoire).

Producer Irving Thalberg put around the story that he originated the film, but it was entirely the project of Chaney Sr, who originated the material and prompted the hiring of the cast and director.

Chaney Sr was paid $2,500 a week. Shooting ran from December 1922 to June 1923, so he ended up making about $60,000 plus contract bonuses from the film, the longest shoot of his career. The movie had a huge budget and cost around an estimated $1,250,000, so stars’ salaries obviously weren’t so astronomical in those days.

Though 80-minute versions still circulate, and the TCM print on TV runs 98 minutes, in 2006, Film Preservation Associates copyrighted a 117-minute version with an excellent music score compiled by Donald Hunsberger and performed by the Robert Israel Orchestra, with Robert Israel conducting.

Other versions: 1939 (with Charles Laughton and Maureen O’Hara), 1957, 1982, 1996 and 1997.

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© Derek Winnert 2014 Classic Movie Review 730

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