The Hunchback of Notre Dame
1923 · 101 min · silent
The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923): Lon Chaney under the hump, and nineteen acres of fake Paris. Watch the full silent Universal classic free, no account.
This is the performance that turned Chaney from a character actor into a star, and most of it happens above the neck. One eye covered over, a mouthful of false teeth, a face he has to act through rather than with, and somehow Quasimodo still reads as a person rather than an effect.
Universal built fifteenth-century Paris across nineteen acres of backlot, facade of Notre Dame included, and took six months doing it. The picture came in around $1.25 million, which made it one of the most expensive things the studio had ever attempted.
The hump grows in the retelling. It was closer to ten or fifteen pounds than the seventy of legend, though the shoot was still the longest of his career.
Free to watch via internet-archive, wikimedia, tubi, pluto.
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