Review
THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME
(Notre Dame de Paris)
Rating: 
France/Italy. 1956.
Director – Jean Delannoy, Screenplay – Jean Aurenche & Jacques Prevert, Based on the Novel by Victor Hugo, Producers – Raymond & Robert Hakim, Photography – Max Kelber, Music – Georges Auric, Special Effects – Gerard Cogan, Production Design – Rene Renoux. Production Company – Paris Films/Panitalia.
Cast:
Anthony Quinn (Quasimodo), Gina Lollobrigida (Esmeralda), Alain Cuny (Claude Frollo), Robert Hirsch (Gringoire), Jean Danet (Phoebus de Chateaupers), Philippe Clay (Clopin), Daniella Dumont (Fleur de Lys)
Plot: 14th Century Paris. The hideous and deformed Notre Dame cathedral bell ringer, the hunchback Quasimodo, abused and shunned by all, develops a crush on the beautiful Gypsy Esmeralda after she treats him with kindness. She is sentenced to be executed for the murder of her lover, something that was in fact committed by the jealous Notre Dame bishop Frollo. Quasimodo intervenes to save her and hides her in the cathedral. But Frollo then raises an army to storm the cathedral.
This was the fifth cinematic adaptation of the 1831 Victor Hugo novel (see below for other versions). It was also the first version to be made in colour, which is one of its redeeming values. The production is extravagantly mounted and the colour makes it beautiful to behold on screen. It is arguably a much more faithful translation of the story than the two previous Hollywood adaptations, but crucially director Jean Delannoy lacks the visual dynamism that William Dieterle invested the still definitive 1939 version with. While Dieterle created a broodingly Gothic adaptation, this is much more prosaic, more carried by its Cinemascope spectacle. And the script is further crippled by poor dubbing.
As Quasimodo, Anthony Quinn playing to excess, turning the character into little more than an idiot Mongoloid. The film is crucially lacking in any of the pathos and suffering that either Lon Chaney or especially Charles Laughton managed to invoke in their outings in the role in the previous versions. Gina Lollobrigida fares much better – unlike the previous versions that cast Hollywood starlets, she makes for an earthy Esmeralda, you can see the Gypsy in her.
Other versions of the story are:– Alice Guy-Blache’s lost silent short Esmeralda (1905); Esmeralda (1922), a lost silent British adaptation with Booth Conway and Sybil Thorndike as Quasimodo and Esmeralda; the silent classic The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923) with Lon Chaney; the finest of all the versions, The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939) with Charles Laughton; a BBC tv play The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1977) with Warren Clarke and Michelle Newell; a Hallmark Hall of Fame tv movie The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1982) with Anthony Hopkins and Lesley-Ann Down; the Disney animated The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996), which produced a sequel with The Hunchback of Notre Dame II (2002); and The Hunchback (1997), a tv movie adaptation with Mandy Patinkin and Salma Hayek. Big Man on Campus (1986) and the French-made Quasimodo d’El Paris (1999) are parodies. Last updated: Sunday, 03 January 2010
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