Inspired by The Hunchback of Notre Dame

Victor Hugo’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame has been brought to the screen an extraordinary number of times, including two silents titled Esmeralda (1905 and 1922), Jean Delannoy’s 1957 version starring Anthony Quinn, a BBC TV play (1977), a 1982 made-for-television production starring Anthony Hopkins as Quasimodo and Derek Jacobi as Claude Frollo, and another television adaptation simply titled The Hunchback (1997), starring Mandy Patinkin and Salma Hayek.

The first full-screen production of Hugo’s classic was the silent 1923 film The Hunchback of Notre Dame, starring Lon Chaney as Quasimodo. Director Wallace Worsley faithfully re-creates medieval Paris, in particular the majestic cathedral of Notre Dame. But the one-eyed Chaney, wearing a hairy body suit, a leather harness to prevent him from standing upright, and a seventy-pound hump on his back, is the film’s most memorable spectacle, giving a sensitive performance as the grotesque, misshapen bell ringer. Chaney’s portrayal of the deaf, hideous, but ultimately kind “monster” predicts the pathos of later films centered around an outsider—especially those in the golden age of horror such as Frankenstein (1931) and Dracula (1931). The scene of Quasimodo’s public flogging, followed by Esmeralda’s (Patsy Ruth Miller) offering him water to drink, is particularly moving.

The next exemplary film of The Hunchback of Notre Dame was William Dieterle’s lavish, all-star adaptation of 1939. Shot on location in Paris, with large-scale fifteenth-century sets, the film features grand camera sweeps of Notre Dame Cathedral and captures the swarming crowds and the ominous public square, perfectly setting the medieval stage on which Church and State grapple for dominance.

In the role of Quasimodo is a terrifically made-up and stooped Charles Laughton, who also appeared in another Hugo film adaptation, Les Misérables (1935). The grotesque Laughton cuts a stunning figure as he peers out from the spires of Notre Dame sandwiched between gargoyles. Nineteen-year-old Maureen O‘Hara, in her screen debut, shines as the gypsy Esmeralda, charming the audience along with Quasimodo, Claude Frollo (Cedric Hardwicke), and even King Louis XI (Harry Davenport), who watches, positively enthralled, as she dances. Hardwicke’s Frollo, with his ghastly pallor and ghoulish repugnance, emerges as the story’s true monster, who, surprisingly for the period in which this film was made, threatens Esmeralda with decidedly licentious intent. Supporting these actors are Edmond O’Brien (another film debut) as the poet-playwright Gringoire and Walter Hampden as Frollo’s brother.

The year 1939 is often remembered as the grandest moment in American cinema with the release of such renowned films as Gone with the Wind, The Wizard of Oz, Stagecoach, and Wuthering Heights. Yet even with this stiff competition, Dieterle’s Hunchback garnered Oscar nominations for sound and Alfred Newman’s score.

Exceedingly popular is Disney’s 1996 animated feature The Hunchback of Notre Dame, featuring the vocal talents of Tom Hulce, Kevin Kline, and Demi Moore. Directors Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise, who explored a nearly identical theme in Disney’s Beauty and the Beast (1991), struggle to carry off a production interesting to both children and adults. Hulce (best known for his vir tuosic performance as Mozart in 1984’s Amadeus) lends his voice to Quasimodo, playing him more youthfully than his predecessors. When “Quasi” finds himself pelted with objects at the Feast of Fools celebration, the fiery Esmeralda (Moore) comes to his rescue, forever endearing herself to the hunchback. Kevin Kline portrays the film’s other hero in love with Esmeralda: the punning Phoebus, captain of the Guard. Together they lead a heroic crusade against prejudice and persecution.

Typical of Disney’s safe approach to classics is a chorus of three gargoyles, animated to provide a bit of forced comic relief. And not surprising is the removal of Hugo’s bleak-hearted pessimism from the tale’s conclusion. However, the animation, aided by some computer-generated imaging, is wonderful, particularly the pleasingly dark landscapes and Notre Dame’s intricate architecture. Disney’s Hunchback of Notre Dame was nominated for an Academy Award in the Original Musical or Comedy Score category for its roster of songs by Alan Menken and Stephen Schwartz.