The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Blu-ray)
The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923) is a million-dollar super-production of Victor Hugo’s famous novel, presented in a 4K restoration by Universal Pictures. This epic adaptation recreated the Paris of 1482 complete with its own Notre Dame, and it established Lon Chaney as a monstrously sympathetic superstar. Chaney stars as Quasimodo, the mocked and vilified bell-ringer of Notre Dame who selflessly protects the starcrossed street performer Esmerelda (Patsy Ruth Miller), who is in an ill-fated love affair with the dashing Captain Phoebus (Norman Kerry). Chaney created the legendary makeup himself, and gave a performance of enormous sensitivity and pathos, launching him into Hollywood immortality.
Audio commentary by film critic Farran Smith Nehme
Booklet essay by film historian Michael F. Blake
"Life in Hollywood" newsreel
Lon Chaney Home Movie footage
Music by Nora Kroll-Rosenbaum & Laura Karpman
Slideshow of production correspondence
Slideshow of production stills
- Wallace Worsley - Director
- Lon Chaney - Actor
- Ernest Torrence - Actor
- Tully Marshall - Actor
- Patsy Ruth Miller - Actor
- Norman Kerry - Actor
Reviews
"Chaney was not merely horrific, he was exactly what the hunchback ought to be...Exactly what he was in the Victor Hugo novel...And with all that makeup glued onto him and limping under that hump, there's still a performance...a huge performance, entirely satisfactory in its own terms." - Orson Welles
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