Rating: 
Summary: Hunchback and Christ have interesting parallel's
Review: The Hunchback, at the top of the church, looks down at people and yearns to spend a little bit of time with them. He is warned that he will be tormented and rejected. Still he yearns to be able to spend even a short amount of time with normal people. So did Jesus.- The Hunchback is to be rejected for his appearance, for what people see when they look at him. Jesus gets rejected because He has no status, no religious training, no formal schooling. Jesus also gets rejected for what He sees in people. - The Hunchback does descend, is ridiculed, mockingly crowned king, then tortured. He does develop a friendship in the midst of the pain. Yet, when he asked him for help, his mentor turns his head away, magnifying the loneliness, the rejection. That also happened to Jesus. He developed friendships with the disciples, He cried out on the cross, "Father, Father, why have you forsaken me?! - The Hunchback helps Esmerelda, a woman of ill repute. She befriends him, and helps him with his pain, later. The same is true of Jesus and Mary Magdelane. - The Hunchback, in his part of the story after the crowning and release from the crowd, while accepted and trusted by only a few, is shown to be very loving. So was Jesus, after his crowning, death and release. - The Hunchback is accepted at the end, first by a child, then by the crowd. Jesus tells us of a child-like faith that can accept him, and when he returns, he'll be accepted, too. - Oh, back at the start, when they were born, their mothers were pursued, and in both cases there was an attempt to kill the baby. Who wanted to kill the baby? A combination of government and religion! - Was Victor Hugo a closet admirer of Jesus Christ? I am not so sure, but he may have been influenced by the Christian saga more so than we have been led to believe!
Rating: 
Summary: A great actor for fundamental questions
Review: This is the most popular piece of French literary folklore by Victor Hugo. The film is a fair adaptation of the novel. The core of it is a love story between a gipsy girl Esmeralda and a poet Gringoire. But it becomes intricate because this gipsy girl causes love in many hearts. First of all in the captain of the guard, Phoebus, then in the bellringer of Notre Dame Quasimodo, and most of all in the « prime minister » of Louis XI, King of France. This love story will get to a happy ending but due to causes and thanks to means that go beyond the simple love story. For one it is the invention of the printing press that changes many things. It enables Gringoire to publish a pamphlet that causes the people of Paris to intervene in a decision that the king is supposed to take, that the king is lobbied to take by the nobility in order to end the sanctuary right French churches had in those days. The people will support this sanctuary right and win : the king will listen to public opinion. The question is essential because this printing press brings a new circulation of information and hence a new power to the people. The second important question is that of justice which should be decided by common sense and not by torture or ordeals. Justice will be met in the end, but after a very tortuous process. Finally the question of using force to impose one's will, be it the force of the army for the nobles or the force of violence for the people is severely criticized as ineffective. It goes against common sense and common sense means information. This also means trust : to trust the common sense of the people and the common sense of the king. The film has another great interest in the acting of Charles Laughton who performs marvelously in his role of Quasimodo, a deaf hunchback who is absolutely ugly but has a heart of pure gold. Dr Jacques COULARDEAU
Rating:
Summary: Grim,filled with pathos and terrific acting!!
Review: This version of "THoND" is in my opinion,the best ever made.Charles Laughton epitomizes all the sadness,frustration and anguish the Hunchback feels when he falls in love with the beautiful Gypsy girl who showed him kindness..The supporting cast is wonderful,with Sir Cedric Hardwicke excelling as the Chief Justice who falls under the spell of the lovely Gypsy girl,Esmeralda,played gently and kindly by Maureen O'Hara.
When you begin watching this movie, you forget it is Charles Laughton.The make-up he wears is grotesque,and he is unrecognizable,but even through all the make up you can feel the gut-wrenching emotions he so ably portrays to the viewer.
Any classic film lover will most certainly already have this masterpiece on his/her DVD shelf.If you don't already have it,please give it a try.You will not be disappointed.Then,after you watch it,check out"The Beauty and the Beast," by Jean Cocteau,1948.Another classic love story not to be missed.
Rating:
Summary: Grim,filled with pathos and terrific acting!!
Review: This version of "THoND" is in my opinion,the best ever made.Charles Laughton epitomizes all the sadness,frustration and anguish the Hunchback feels when he falls in love with the beautiful Gypsy girl who showed him kindness..The supporting cast is wonderful,with Sir Cedric Hardwicke excelling as the Chief Justice who falls under the spell of the lovely Gypsy girl,Esmeralda,played gently and kindly by Maureen O'Hara.
When you begin watching this movie, you forget it is Charles Laughton.The make-up he wears is grotesque,and he is unrecognizable,but even through all the make up you can feel the gut-wrenching emotions he so ably portrays to the viewer.
Any classic film lover will most certainly already have this masterpiece on his/her DVD shelf.If you don't already have it,please give it a try.You will not be disappointed.Then,after you watch it,check out"The Beauty and the Beast," by Jean Cocteau,1948.Another classic love story not to be missed.
Rating:
Summary: ANOTHER 1939 CLASSIC.
Review: Unlike Lon Chaney's completely barbaric figure, Laughton's interpretation of Quasimodo is the type of character from a nightmare dropped into reality (of a sort); his portrayal tends to nudge the audience, making it aware of his own quintessential humanity - so much so - that what we see ultimately becomes a sentimental conception. As a historical pageant which displays such bustling characters as the beggars and tumblers, the King and courtiers, the clerics and guardsmen, etc., the film works well. Although some people deny this film masterpiece status its reputation suggests, this version of the Victor Hugo novel has several things going for it: impressive sets, superb camerawork, elegantly stylized direction and a detailed study in grotesquerie from Laughton. The script restored some of the compexity which was lacking in the 1923 Lon Chaney silent, thereby interweaving the plot with subtle strands of court, state and church intrigue, most importantly the sinsiter undercurrent of clerical lecheries represented by the remorseless pursuit of the beautiful gypsy Esmeralda (Maureen O'Hara, astonishingly beautiful in her American debut at 18) by Frollo (Sir Cedric Hardwicke).
Rating: 
Summary: This is Hollywood, Not Victor Hugo
Review: Whatever the film's cinematic merits, it willfully disregards both the story line and cultural/political viewpoint of Hugo's novel. The interesting question is why were these particular changes made: Esmeralda is pardoned by Louis XI? She lives to marry Gringoire, and is not hanged with Quasimodo then dying next to her? Esmeralda wises up about Phoebus? Louis XI is made out to be a champion of free thought and democractic rights? Gringoire is now a Tom Paine-type hero? Mon Dieu! I can only conclude that Hollywood believed that the public would not spend its money to watch a tragedy where people die unjustly and no one lives "happily ever after." If that's Hollywood's line, fine; but it's too bad they pass it off as a movie version of M. Hugo's novel. Even the wretched Frollo is redefined, and he acquires in the movie a kindlly older brother as archbishop, who has all the idealized traits of a good cleric. Was this archbishop character made up in order to throw a bone to the Church watchdogs of 1939, who might otherwise have taken offense at Frollo, whom Hugo depicted as a dry-as-dust priest who is driven by an uncontrollable lust for a too-naive young woman?
Rating:
Summary: Hugo's Hunchback: Outer Ugliness Hides Inner Beauty
Review: When director William Dieterle transformed Victor Hugo's THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME to fit the big screen, he succeeded in capturing the power and sweep of an age that was characterized by individual examples of humanity lost in a sea of inhumanity. Much has been said about the universality of the Beauty and the Beast theme that has marked many past and future books, movies, and television series. Here, Dieterle makes use of the considerable talents of Charles Laughton as Quasimodo, Maureen O'Hara as Esmeralda and Sir Cedric Hardwicke as Frollo, all of whom play out their lives against a brute Parisian government that seemed determined to crush any opposition. One of the less acknowledged aspects of the Beauty versus Beast contrast is the theme that the beauty of Esmeralda and the beastiness of Quasimodo are not limited to those two alone. The very system that wrecks the lives of the poverty-stricken populace puts on a facade of saintliness that makes its inner core of corrupt ugliness all the more stark. O'Hara's Esmeralda is sweetness personified. She is a lovely gypsy woman who unhappily catches the eye of a lecherous Chief Prosecutor, sanctimoniously played by Hardwicke, who commits a murder only to frame Esmeralda, who has rejected his advances. Hardwicke plays the Chief Prosecutor in a way that brings to mind every corrupt official who has ever been caught with his hand in the till. He sees nothing wrong with using the full weight of his office to humiliate and condemn a woman who has done nothing to deserve this. Enter Quasimodo, a hunchbacked and deaf bell ringer whose appearance frightens others to the same extent that Esmeralda's captivates these same others. Early on, she takes pity on him by giving him water after a savage lashing. Later, he shows that his inner being is far more decent and sensitive than the hypocrites that cry out for his blood. The trial that condemns Esmeralda as a murderous witch says a great deal more about the repressed ugliness of the judges even as they mouth pious and empty phrases that can only caricature but not capture the spirit of their criminal justice system, which in any event, stacks the deck against anyone whom the church accuses of misdeeds. Frollo's perfect diction,his sonorous phrasing, and his impressive robes linger in the audience's mind as a truly terrifying symbol of evil. The people of Paris themselves have two faces as well. As Quasimodo is being whipped, nearly every voice is raised against him. The mob of Paris was as unthinking then as when, centuries later, Madame Guillotine lopped off countless heads during the French Revolution. Yet, these same Parisians could storm a church where they mistakenly believed the King's soldiers were headed to arrest Esmeralda and take her for hanging. The theme of outer appearances hiding its inner opposites makes an unexpected appearance when Quasimodo intervenes and kills many of these same Parisians who want only to save Esmeralda from the King's soldiers who have been given new orders to save her. The final scenes of THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME are full of unforgettable savageries made even more unforgettable by their lack of necessity. Quasimodo laughs maniacally as he repells the church door crashing mob. At the end, only Esmeralda finds a measure of closure as she is reunited with her lover. But for Quasimodo, all he has is the certainty that Esmeralda is safe from the rampaging mob, the lecherous criminal justice system, and an uncaring royal army. Quasimodo's closing line as he addresses the stone gargoyles atop the bells of his beloved church--"Why can't my heart be as stony as thee"--well evokes the paradox that often virtue comes with a high price tag. For good-hearted men--even human gargoyles like him, Quasimodo emerges as a man whose humanity dwarfs all those around him.
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