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Rating:  -
It is an old silent black and white film from 1923. It has of course been enhanced for this edition that does not guarantee it is what it was. The image is amazingly clear and amazingly well centered and framed. Amazingly for 1923. The story is mythical and has been for nearly two centuries now. This version insists a lot more on the melodramatic than on the tragic. It centers too often on the spectacular and not on the deeply sentimental, sensual and psychological. It turns Quasimodo into a freak and nothing else and we miss the complex network of antagonistic loves running around Esmeralda. What's more it treats the king the way Victor Hugo, a Republican at heart, would never have done because it was perfectly unfair. What's more I would not swear whether the king lived in the Bastille castle or not, but across from the cathedral the famous Châtelet was already built, in sections at least, and it was a royal residence. To present the king Louis XI as a tyrant is totally anti-historical, which Victor Hugo was not. In the fifteen century we could say this king was cruel or violent, but he was also just and fair, hence he was only cruel and brutal with those who were considered as guilty in his days, though at times the crimes of these old centuries were absolutely exaggerated. But what the film is very good at expressing is the positive feelings, like love and attraction, plus fear, but not terror or even menace. This American director was also fascinated by crowd movements. It is surprising how far away from his European counterparts he was. The Germans were producing horror films upon horror films, absolutely bleak science-fiction. The Russians were producing masterpieces with Eisenstein but all concentrating on the Soviet revolution and Russian history. Some scene have become mythical too like the pram and the baby going down the stairs in "Potemkin". The French were more in sentimental and sentimentalese productions and some realistic left-minded and even openly communist-minded documentaries. On the other side of the Atlantic the great productions where comic films with Laurel and Hardy, Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin (who was British by the way) and a few others. This film then is different because it introduces pathos and pathetic situations but with a heavy ideological and anti-historical content.
Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris Dauphine, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne & University Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines
Rating: -
The picture quality on the disc is the best I've seen the film looking on any video or broadcast I've seen in the past (though it is an 80-plus year old silent film and this is never going to look like a Criterion Collection title). The extras are plentiful, fun (especially the 3-d stills) and informative. This is well worth shelling out the extra money for if you are a lover of silent film, classic horror, or if you're a Lon Chaney fan (the commentary is especially recommended if you fit in the last category, as is the excerpt from the "lost" Chaney film included as an extra). I rate it four back humps!
Rating:  -
The acclaimed and renowned actor of the silent era - Lon Chaney - shows us why he was named "Man of thousand faces" . This performance may be not labelled but extraordinary and outstanding.
The first version of Victor Hugo's novel about the tortured hunchback who dwells within the sanctuary of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. Ridiculed, exploited he is the freak of Paris, finds his bliss ringing louder the bells of the church to manifest his feelings. When she meets Esmeralda an alluring gypsy, he makes the best he can to rescue from her devil guardian.
The employment of special effects (notice we are in 1923) and the singular make up, the memorable stages, the perfect script in which we are aware about every insight of each personage, is undertaken with admirable execution.
I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it to you. Among the most extraordinary films of the silent era, this film must be included in any list.
Rating: -
I had not seen The Hunchback of Notre Dame for some time prior to the purchase of this DVD. Despite its age the film is beautifully acted and the set decoration is magnificent. The music for this release is by Robert Israel who scored Harold Lloyd's silent films. The score is nicely conceived and well performed. The only reservation I have is that when Lon Chaney rings the large bell the sound is that of a tubular bell: higher pitched and not a deafening as the real bell would be. I was wondering why a more suitable large bell sound was not substituted in the soundtrack.
The print is not bad. The print is of an uneven quality with some scratching but no serious damage that ruins the image altogether. Sometimes the print has a gray cast to it. One hopes that at some point there will be a way to repair these damaged prints so we can enjoy clean images. The night tinting looks a bit light and not the deep blue that I have seen in other prints; but the color is effective in handling the transition to night. Of the extras, the remains of Alas and Alack are interesting as an early performance by Lon Chaney, who we see in the roll of a hunchback and a fisherman. We do not see Chaney in close-up, unfortunately, before the available film cuts off. There is also a silent short of Chaney on the Hunchback set wearing a suit and paying no attention to the camera that is recording his short climb up the cathedral facade. There are a large number of stills, many of which can be view with the enclosed 3-D glasses.
I enjoyed the reproduction of the souvenir booklet that was enclosed with the many still photographs and sort biographies of the stars. The only think missing is a documentary on the making of the Hunchback that would go into the creation of the magnificent sets and Lon Chaney's make-up. While this may not truly be the "ultimate" Hunchback it will fill the bill for now.
Rating: -
This new Ultimate Edition of the 1923 silent version of "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" is a very nice set with various interesting bonus material such as a reproduction of the original theatre program booklet and other information generally aimed at the serious movie aficionado. And as every good movie fan would know, "The Hunchback" is one of those enduring and immortal classic tales which never loses its appeal through the ages, and like many high quality silent films of the 1920s, this version also has special features of interest to modern-day audiences. The most striking aspect for most people would surely be the extraordinary character actor, Lon Chaney, whose unique talents make the Hunchback come to life and take over the story, just as his other famous role in "The Phantom of the Opera". An expert in make-up and disguise, Chaney also excelled in body language and could make his characters ooze emotions in silent films merely with gestures, posture and movements. This expressive acting conveys the feeling of the real human being underneath the obvious heavy make-up of the Hunchback, as this despised monstrosity who finds shelter in the Notre Dame cathedral becomes involved in medieval intrigues between the rich aristocracy and the poor beggars. A love story and a tragic tale of a mother who lost her small child are also cleverly woven into this classic Victor Hugo novel, which Chaney and Universal Studios strove to reproduce as best as possible. Much of that effort is visible in the sets which were built at Universal at great cost, making "Hunchback" Universal's first big-budget spectacle picture in an attempt to keep up with other studios that were producing grand scale historic costume epics at that time. Getting background information like this from both the enclosed notes and the audio commentary on the DVD helps the modern viewer to appreciate the importance of this film at the time, its part in the development of the Hollywood studios and grand costume dramas with sets and effects no longer viable today, but nevertheless still impressive today. Those looking for `horror' by today's standards in this film will be disappointed, but as a classic story with realistic historical sets and characters dealing with issues that never go out-of-date, "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" is an important milestone in cinema's history. It has a fitting standard classic orchestral score, and the picture quality is very good overall, with only several scenes appearing scratchy or worn, but no doubt this is a better quality production than many previous public domain issues without the in-depth bonus features.
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