The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923) on Netflix
NR19231h 53mDramaHorrorRomance
In 1482 Paris, Jehan orders Quasimodo, the bell-ringer of Notre Dame, to abduct the Roma dancer Esmeralda. Captain Phoebus stops him, and Esmeralda aids Quasimodo at his public lashing.
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Plot summary
Quasimodo is the deaf, half-blind and hunchbacked bell-ringer of Notre Dame Cathedral in 1482 Paris. He answers to Jehan, whose brother Dom Claude is the cathedral's archdeacon. Jehan sets him on Esmeralda, a Roma dancer adopted by Clopin, the head of the city's beggars. Captain Phoebus pulls her free, and Jehan leaves Quasimodo behind and runs. Sentenced to a public lashing, Quasimodo receives aid from both Esmeralda and Dom Claude.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Lon Chaney acquired the rights to produce The Hunchback of Notre Dame in 1921 and planned to make it abroad with a German studio, Chelsea Pictures Company, which in April 1922 announced him as Quasimodo with Alan Crosland directing; the film never materialized.
- Irving Thalberg won Universal founder Carl Laemmle's approval for the production by pitching Victor Hugo's story to him as "a love story".
- Chaney's first choice to direct was Erich von Stroheim, then Universal's prized "name" director, but Thalberg had already fired Stroheim from the studio, fearing he would run up cost overruns on his own production, Merry-Go-Round.
- Film critic Robert E. Sherwood, theater conductor Hugo Riesenfeld and animation producer Max Fleischer were among the "army of cutters" hired to re-edit The Hunchback of Notre Dame after Sherwood gave his opinion on a work print.
- Universal staff built a "Gallery of Kings" for the film, 35 statues each 10 feet high and intended to resemble the originals, with the set construction estimated to take six months.
- Director Wallace Worsley traded his megaphone for a radio and loudspeaker to direct the large crowd of extras on the film's scenes.
- The Hunchback of Notre Dame was the seventh film adaptation of Victor Hugo's novel; it made Lon Chaney a full star and helped set a standard for later horror films, including his own The Phantom of the Opera in 1925.
