Film Review
RKO Picture's ambitious
The
Hunchback of Notre Dame is regarded by many as the best film
adaptation of Victor Hugo's celebrated novel. With a budget of
two million dollars, it was one of the most expensive films of its
time, and with its slick production values, immense crowd scenes and
lavish design, it shows. It compares favourably
with the famous silent
1923
version (which starred Lon Chaney) and amply surpasses
the 1956 film
Notre Dame de Paris by French
director Jean Delannoy.
The film's main strength is its impressive art direction by Van Nest
Polglase, who would famously work on Orson Welles's
Citizen Kane (1941). The film
was directed by William Dieterle, a German émigré who
made several high quality films during his productive time in
Hollywood. The only real let down is the screenplay which is at
best mediocre, at worst painfully trite, with some awkward
sentimentality and some even clumsier attempts at grafting on
a few dollops of historical retrospection. It's a shame the film was encumbered with
its obligatory Hollywood happy ending (very different to what we find
in Hugo's novel), which now feels tacky and somewhat meaningless.
In its design and the way it is shot (with frequent nods to German
expressionism), the film resembles a Universal Pictures Gothic horror
movie, with the hunchback portrayed less as a real human being and more
as a Frankenstein-style monster. Similarities with RKO's previous
King Kong (1933) are readily
apparent. Fortunately, a heavily made-up Charles Laughton
manages to portray Quasimodo convincingly and with great pathos and so
the film manages to avoid ending up as the shallow horror pastiche it
could have been.
© James Travers 2008
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Next William Dieterle film:
Vulcano (1950)
Film Synopsis
Across Europe, in the aftermath of the One Hundred Years War, a new age
of peace and civilisation beckons. Yet some of the old prejudices
and superstitions remain. When a party of gypsies arrive in Paris
to join in the annual Fools' Festival, they are persecuted. One
of their number is the beautiful dancer Esmeralda, under whose spell
Frollo, the austere priest of Notre Dame Cathedral, falls. Unable
to control his desire for Esmeralda, Frollo kills her lover and allows
her to take the blame for the murder. Just as Esmeralda is about
to be put to death, she is rescued by the cathedral's hunchbacked bell
ringer, Quasimodo. In the sanctuary of the cathedral, the gypsy
girl is safe - but not for long...
© James Travers
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.