A description that is written and read once recedes behind newer impressions as the story unwinds itself, but the film Quasimodo is always before our eyes, repellant. Lon Chaney has exaggerated nothing in his horrible study of the hunchback.īut this fidelity to script, this intense and painful realism, has put a severe strain upon the sympathies of the audience. The twisted body, the bent legs, the droop to the lower lip, are all of Hugo’s creating. There is chapter and verse for every wrinkle and every hair of Quasimodo’s head. (Torrence is one of those impressive “character men” whose work overtops the star’s every time.)įew authors can recognise their brain-children when visualised on the screen, but Victor Hugo would have no difficulty in recognising his. The settings are admirable, the lighting admirable, and the performance of Ernest Torrence as Chopin, the beggar king, a little more than admirable. Lon Chaney wears a crown and Esmeralda, the gypsy girl, dances with tambourine on a poster that advertises the movie Hunchback of Notre Dame, 1923.
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