The Hunchback Of Notre Dame (1923)

Maybe not exactly a horror film as we define it today but a good movie to spotlight nevertheless.

As someone who grew up loving the animated Hunchback from a young age even I'm kinda surprised it took me this long to see the original film adaptation. This could very well be considered the first Universal Monster movie almost a decade before Dracula, and it's not often you get to talk about a film that's now 103 years old so let's talk about it! Set in 15th century Paris the film more or less consists of a love square between the eponymous hunchback Quasimodo, a gypsy Esmerelda, a captain of the king's guard Phoebus, and brother of the arch-deacon of Notre Dame Jehman as revolution broils under the surface, it's not a very involved plot which could be said about several silent films but you can get into it. What the film may lack in story the production well makes up for, with a true to scale facade of the Notre Dame cathedral on the Universal backlot that stood untouched until unfortunately a fire devastated the backlot in 1967 and it really does feel like we are seeing the church in the fifteenth century. All the sets are massive and decorated to the max, the costuming is garish and while I'm no expert on french clothing in the 1400s feels authentic, the staggering amount of extras for crowd shots, and there always seems to be a crowd shot, around every corner gives it such weight and scale that most movies could never even dream of achieving. In terms of acting, while this is not my personal favorite performance of Lon Chaney the dedication he always brought to the makeup and the sheer disdain Quaismodo has for humanity mixed with a tragic love for Esmerelda makes it still a fine acting part that is still talked about to this day. Patsy Ruth Miller brings such light to a sometimes grim movie as Esmerelda, showing great compassion and innocence which really makes me feel bad she's gotta deal with some real pieces of work at times and while I feel her backstory is woefully presented with a true out of left field element I'm also aware about fifteen minutes of this film is lost but we have a mostly intact copy. Norman Kerry who you might remember as Raoul from Chaney's Phantom plays Phoebus and I know this is modern sensibilities coming from me, but he's a bit of a fucking whore in this! I'm serious man he's already engaged to one woman and is known to get around as they say before zeroing in on Esmerelda, and I'm just like bro move on my God. Solid performance but an irksome character. And boy does that compound hard and fast with Brandon Hurst as Jehan who is our Claude Frollo equivalent in this film, you can just tell from Brandon's face he's a real devil of a swine and he just cannot leave this poor girl alone, tries to abduct her, literally stabs Phoebus to get to her, and pretty much orchestrates a failed coup just to run off with her, like Christ alive he's not as interestingly evil as the Disney version but he's still a bastard! It's easy to get invested because you do want the best for Esmerelda and can sympathize with Quasimodo even if he isn't a baby face voiced by angel sent from above Tom Hulce, and for a almost two hour film takes it's time but doesn't drag it's feet either. I would say it's more a minor classic of both the silent film era and the horror genre, but I still liked it just fine. I certainly can appreciate the art all made by hand no less, and this was a megabucks hit for Universal gaining over 3 million dollars and I need you to think about that for a sec considering movie tickets were dimes back then, and I'm happy to say I ginally have seen it. I give it 2.5 stars, 7/10, and we have a semi-horror title up next.