The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939) - Laughton is peerless in Dieterle's true classic

♥♥♥♥♥

 

The popular image of the beastly dark man and the fair, beautiful woman is central on this dark and compelling poster for William Dieterle's The Hunchback of Notre Dame

The disfigured hunchback bell ringer of Paris' Notre Dame Cathedral, Quasimodo is crowned the King of Fools at the city's carnival, but the city's fierce Chief Justice condemns a beautiful gypsy by the name Esmeralda, whom Quasimodo has fallen in love with, to death.

 

The Hunchback of Notre Dame is written by Sonya Levien (Quo Vadis (1951)) and Bruno Frank (A Royal Scandal (1945)), adapting the same-titled 1831 novel by Victor Hugo (Les Misérables (1862)), and directed by great German filmmaker William Dieterle (Der Mensch am Wege (1923)).

Charles Laughton (Young Bess (1953)) creates one of the most pitiful characters of cinema history with his Quasimodo here and is fantastic in the very vivid and still today deeply riveting film. Maureen O'Hara (McLintock! (1963)) is hard to accept as a gypsy, but this can't put much squeeze on the film, which also has other fine performances: Cedric Hardwicke (Sunday Showcase (1960, TV-series)) as Frollo and Walter Hampden (5 Fingers (1952)) as the Archdeacon. 

There's also grand effects, brutality and grandeur. SPOILER In the end Quasimodo takes his personal revenge on the unjust world, and - incredibly - gets away with it. There is both mystery and depth to this undying classic.

 

Watch a trailer for the film here

 

Cost: 1.826 mil. $

Box office: 3.195 mil. $

= Big flop (returned 1.74 times its cost)

[The Hunchback of Notre Dame premiered 31 August (Cannes Film Festival) and runs 116 minutes. Changes were made to Hugo's plot to make sure the film would comply with the strict Hays Code censorship of the time. Laughton brought O'Hara with him on the plane to America, costing an already cast actress her role as Esmeralda. He then alienated Claude Rains from taking part in the film and also struck up enmity with his makeup artist. Shooting took place from July - October 1939 in Los Angeles, California. The film made 1.549 mil. $ in North America and 1.646 mil. $ internationally. Despite this making the film a 'big flop' by the box office standards of Film Excess, it reportedly did leave a profit of 100k $. It was nominated for 2 Oscars: Best Sound, Recording, lost to When Tomorrow Comes, and Best Music, Scoring (Alfred Newman (A Certain Smile (1958))), lost to Richard Hageman, W. Franke Harling, John Leipold and Leo Shuken for Stagecoach. Dieterle returned with Dr. Ehrlich's Magic Bullet (1940). Laughton returned in They Knew What They Wanted (1940). The Hunchback of Notre Dame is fresh at 94 % with a 8.60/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of The Hunchback of Notre Dame?