User Reviews

This is probably the most accurate movie to the novel I've seen. Not necessarily to the story, but every character looked almost exactly like their character descriptions, especially Quasimodo, which made other issues forgivable. This cast I would not have made any other way. You can imagine them just as Hugo describes.

Clarke is my favorite Quasimodo, for this is the only version and only time I actually grimaced at him for being ugly, not because of a sorry makeup job like the new Notre Dame de Paris rock opera productions. He did his own thing, and did not try to be like any past actors. Chaney and Garou come a close second. Laughton I like as well, for he is unrecognizable, and while I love 97, Patinkin's makeup was pretty sorry. Hopkins was very fine although a bit too 80s for something taking place 400 years ago.

However, this movie fails at the end with a stupid ending after Quasimodo's lament. The novel and any other good adaptation following the novel leave you feeling absolutely crushed at the end. This ending almost makes it, until the very last line. Then again, the way you look at it that can be good or bad - a soft ending could increase its replay value (like 39).

I saw this BBC made but released as a Hallmark Hall of Fame Production when I was twelve years old. Warren Clarke was excellent as Quasimodo though not as ugly as some. His performance was very much like Anthony Quinn. Miss Newell turned in a good performance. A little inexperienced at that time as an actress (she later went on to play most famous Cleopatra of all in the British miniseries The Cleopatras)is not as sexy as some of the past Esmeraldas. She looked like a teenager which Esmeralda was in the book fifteen years of age. Maureen O'Hara was in her late teens when she took on the role. Salma Hayak was in her twenties. Lesley Ann Down and Gina Lollobrigida were 29 and 30 when they took over the part. Silent film star Patsy Miller also made a very young Esmeralda. Haigh's Frollo is a perfect villain. Anyone who enjoys a faithful rendition should see or possibly obtain a copy of this film it is worth it. In my opinion this production compares favorably in faithfulness to the novel with the 1957 Anthony Quinn and Gina Lollobrigida film and with the French Movie musical Notre Dame De Paris. Here comes the spoiler unlike the Charles Laughton,Anthony Hopkins and Silent film star Lon Chaney Senior films, this film is true to the novel THERE ARE NO HAPPY ENDINGS FOR THE MAIN CHARACTERS. Hallmark,PBS,BBC most of the time released excellent productions of literary classics and I hope and pray that more of them become available on DVD through film/TV archives or from rare film collectors. This version of the timeless classic is a rare treat!

I've just got this 1976 BBC adaptation of 'Notre Dame de Paris' on disc from the Netherlands, (why no UK release?), and I now remember that I saw it on TV when I was about 11. It's a solid, faithful adaptation: studio-bound, so more like a stage production, with elegantly inventive sets reminiscent of the stylised architecture you see in manuscript illuminations. Some of the extras, especially the Truands, are pure Villon or Bosch. It also gets full marks from me for using the glorious 'Kyrie' from Guillaume de Machaut's 'Messe de Notre Dame' at the beginning (I am a mediæval music fan!). It follows the book closely, although Quasimodo's fate is changed, and, as so often (bar the 1923 film and the 1966 BBC version), Pâquette and her story are dropped.

It has the best Pierre Gringoire and Jehan Frollo yet (Christopher Gable and David Rintoul respectively). Indeed, this version could be retitled 'The Philosopher-Playwright of Notre Dame', since Gringoire (my second-favourite character) gets most of his best scenes and dialogue, including the scene where Claude, his former tutor, finds him working as a street entertainer! Warren Clarke is a good Quasimodo: his trial is straight from the book. It must always be remembered that, despite the popular English title, he is *not* the main character: English-language adaptations tend to over-emphasise his role. I don't understand the script's claim that he would be hanged: it's not suggested in the novel, and more probably he would be rewarded for saving the cathedral from the Truands. The spoilt young Fleur-de-Lys (Hetty Baynes) and playboy soldier Phœbus (Richard Morant) are also splendidly played, and eminently slappable. As in the book, one becomes infuriated with Esméralda for remaining fixated on the latter, even to death. Weaknesses? Unfortunately, these are in leading roles: Esméralda and Claude.

Michelle Newell's Esméralda is young, pretty and innocent enough, but, to paraphrase Raymond Chandler, her dancing would *not* make an Archdeacon kick a hole in a stained-glass window. She wears far too many clothes,(1970s hippie dress), and her dancing would make no-one's pulse race (probably not even her own). Why didn't they use Gable as choreographer, since he was in the cast? (He later oversaw a full-length ballet of 'Notre Dame' as Artistic Director of the Northern Ballet Theatre.) Her goat Djali, however, is an adorable fluffy white kid with a pink nose.

Kenneth Haigh is miscast as Claude, although he tries hard in the brothel scene, watching jealously as Phœbus seduces Esméralda. However, he lacks the required physical presence and intensity (book-Claude is tall, swarthy, lean and broad-shouldered, with passionate eyes). Like all but the 1966 BBC and 1996 ballet portrayals, he is at least a decade too old to play a young man of 35-36. We only get a truncated version of 'Lasciate Ogni Speranza', without its most harrowing moments: no version I've seen to date has included him admitting to stabbing himself, let alone baring his chest to show her the wounds. The chapter 'Fever' is omitted entirely, because in this version, he's present during Esméralda's rescue. Nor do we get the emotional build-up to the 'Porte Rouge' scene, so it comes out of the blue, without his feverish delirium (his wounds are infected) and desperate pleading; without the hideous absurdity of a semi-somnambulistic, sexually ignorant virgin attempting rape. (One doubts he even knows *what to do*, physically.) All in all, it's a curiously passionless portrayal of a passion-racked character: even at the end, he seems far too calm and sane, not physically and mentally ill as in the book. Claude is the novel's tragic hero: Romantic, yet proto-Dostoevskian; a brilliant young intellectual, tortured by desire and tearing the world down around him in crime and madness as he destroys himself and all he loves. For once, I'd like to see an adaptation that really put his psychological struggle centre-stage.

So I recommend this production heartily, with a few reservations. Most adaptations of the novel are dominated by one or other of the main characters: this is definitely Pierre Gringoire's show, and he runs away with it (as well as with the goat)!

Oh gosh where do I start? I've seen every version of the Hunchback except a few silent versions that are now lost and I had no hope of ever seeing this version; however, some kind soul uploaded it on you tube and I finally got to see it. All I can say is I'm glad I didn't pay to see it. Low budget doesn't come close to describing this... film. The only good thing I can say about this version is that it does, just like Quinn's version, follow Hugo's novel. It's shot on videotape so maybe that's the problem. It was like watching a play; the scenery never seemed to change. Warren Clarke's Quasimodo was like Mandy Patinkin's; not very ugly and nowhere near Hugo's description in the novel. The actress who played Esmeralda, God bless her, was not cast because she was beautiful. One thing I did like was Quasimodo's trial - it was almost verbatim from the novel, no other version has been that faithful. The pillory scene really showed how low budget this version was - a wagon wheel was turned horizontal (to imitate a pillory) and the actor playing Quasimodo was doing his best to stay on. Glad I didn't waste money to see this version; Chaney, Laughton and even Quinn are probably rolling over in their graves, this was an insult to any actor who has ever donned Quasimodo's makeup. If it ever comes out on DVD save your money and watch this Turkey on you tube.