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Notre Dame de Paris
1956 History / Drama / Horror
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Director:
Jean Delannoy
Starring: Gina Lollobrigida, Anthony Quinn, Jean Danet, Alain Cuny, Robert Hirsch |
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Summary
Paris, 1492. In and around the Catherdral of Notre Dame, the poor folk celebrate
the Festival of Fools. One star attraction is Esmeralda, a beautiful gypsy girl
who enchants all with her dancing and singing. One of her unseen admirers is Frollo,
a respected judge and part-time alchemist. He lives within the walls of the Cathedral
with Quasimodo, an object of fear and ridicule because of his misshapen body and hideously
disfigured face. Consumed by his uncontrollable lust for Esmeralda, Frollo instructs
the hunchback to kidnap her. She is rescued by a guard, Phoebus, with whom she falls
in love. When the two next meet, Phoebus is stabbed in the back by Frollo.
The obvious culprit for the crime, Esmeralda is arrested and sentenced to be hung.
At the last moment, Quasimodo rescues her and takes her into the Cathedral, the one place
where her persecutors cannot reach her. Or so it would seem…
Credits
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Review
There’s a cruel irony in the fact that Jean Delannoy’s most famous film is this pseudo-historical,
Hollywood-style horror classic, the film that is least representative of his oeuvre.
The man who was the personal bête noir of François Truffaut (when a critic
on the Cahiers du cinéma) is better known for this overly theatrical, garishly
kitsch adaptation of a Victor Hugo novel than for the dozen or so films he made in the
preceding decade which showed real directorial talent. Suffice it to say that Notre
Dame de Paris a.k.a. The Hunchback of Notre Dame
is not Jean Delannoy’s finest hour – it’s a plodding, characterless piece of spectacle,
entertaining in its way, but by no means a masterpiece. The only great moments in
this film are the scenes where Anthony Quinn – heavily made up to the point of being unrecognisable
– succeeds in evoking sympathy from Gina Lollobrigida (who is unconvincing in just about
every other scene). There’s a raw pathos in Quinn’s portrayal of Quasimodo which
is genuinely moving and which prevents the film from being totally emotionally arid.
For the most part, however, this feels like a clumsy (yet still watchable) re-interpretation
of the Hollywood monster film, scripted and directed with no real enthusiasm, and lacking
most of the poetry and power of Hugo’s novel. Still, the final sequence does brings a
lump to the throat...
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