The Hunchback of Notre Dame movie storyline. One of the many film adaptations of the classic Victor Hugo ‘beauty and the beast’ novel about a deaf, hunch-backed, outcast bellringer in the Notre Dame Cathedral tower in medieval 15th century Paris, who falls for a beautiful gypsy girl named Esmeralda (O’Hara in her first major role), amidst spiteful jealousy by villainous and sinister Chief Justice Jean Frollo (Hardwicke).
This 1939 black and white film version from German expressionistic director Dieterle, the first made during the sound era, is rivaled only by the 1923 silent version starring Lon Chaney.
Charles Laughton, in arguably his best acting performance of his career, was almost unrecognizable as the disfigured and mis-shapen, but sympathetic title character named Quasimodo.
One of the biggest budget films of its era, the sets are imposing, the cast is first rate, and the script is excellent, noted for its thrilling scene of the hunchback’s rescue of Esmeralda from being hanged on a scaffold, by swinging to her on a rope and whisking her back to Notre Dame, while crying “Sanctuary, Sanctuary.”
Also remembered for Esmeralda’s offering of water to Quasimodo after a brutal public flogging in the public square, and the bellringer’s heartbreaking closing line to a gargoyle atop the church: “Why was I not made of stone like thee?” Also remade as Notre Dame de Paris (1957) with Anthony Quinn in the title role, and as a 1996 Disney musical with an Oscar-nominated score by Alan Menken and Stephen Schwartz.
Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939)
Directed by: William Dieterle
Starring: Charles Laughton, Maureen O’Hara, Cedric Hardwicke, Thomas Mitchell, Edmond O’Brien, Alan Marshal, Walter Hampden, Harry Davenport, Katharine Alexander, George Zucco, Fritz Leiber
Screenplay by: Sonya Levien
Cinematography by: Joseph H. August
Film Editing by: William Hamilton, Robert Wise
Costume Design by: Walter Plunkett
Set Decoration by: Darrell Silvera
Art Direction by: Van Nest Polglase
Music by: Alfred Newman
Distributed by: RKO Radio Pictures, Inc.
Release Date: December 29, 1939
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