The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939) on Netflix
NR19391h 57mDramaHorrorRomance
In 1482 Paris, Frollo, the king's chief justice, sees Romani as a threat to the city. His protege, the hunchback bell ringer Quasimodo, is told to seize Esmeralda, a Romani dancer.
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Plot summary
King Louis XI of France and his chief justice, Frollo, visit a printing shop in Paris. Frollo wants Paris protected from the printing press and from Romani, and on the Feast of Fools the street poet Gringoire sees his play broken up by Clopin, the King of the Beggars, while Esmeralda dances. Quasimodo, the deaf hunchback who rings the bells of Notre Dame, is crowned King of Fools and taken back to the cathedral by Frollo. Esmeralda, chased by a guard, seeks safety in the cathedral, where Frollo accuses her of being a heathen and leads her up to the bell tower. When he commands Quasimodo to pursue her, Gringoire calls for Captain Phoebus and his guards.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- The Hunchback of Notre Dame is the only film ever shown at the newly established Cannes Film Festival: the rest of the festival was canceled because World War II had begun.
- Near the end of the shoot, makeup man Perc Westmore sprayed Charles Laughton in the face with a seltzer bottle full of quinine water and then kicked him in the posterior, telling him, "That's for all the grief you gave me".
- Maureen O'Hara arrived on the set one day to find chimpanzees, baboons and gorillas, because director William Dieterle's assistant mistook his request for monks as a request for monkeys, mishearing his thick German accent.
- Because his native Britain had declared war on Germany, Charles Laughton rang the bells of the cathedral until he collapsed from exhaustion while filming the scene, overwhelming the crew with emotion.
- William Dieterle wanted Claude Rains to play Frollo, but Rains refused the part after Charles Laughton, whom he had mentored at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, was condescending to him on the Universal lot; the role went to Cedric Hardwicke.
- Pleased with her work on Alfred Hitchcock's Jamaica Inn, Charles Laughton brought a then 18-year-old Maureen O'Hara to Hollywood to play Esmeralda, which became her American screen debut.
- RKO Radio Pictures built a massive medieval city of Paris and the Notre Dame Cathedral on its movie ranch in the San Fernando Valley, one of the largest and most extravagant sets ever constructed.
- The characters of Claude and Jehan Frollo were changed from Victor Hugo's novel, as they had been in the 1923 film, because the filmmakers feared that portraying the priest as a villain would violate the Hays Production Code.
