Amour Désespéré...

The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923)

Monday January 5, 7:00pm, Paramount Theater, Seattle

"He looked like a giant broken to pieces and badly cemented together."
- Victor Hugo

The power of the "prestige" film and the art of the deal are a lasting legacy of Lon Chaney’s monumental Universal Pictures blockbuster, The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923). Pushed to production by emerging "Boy Wonder," Irving Thalberg, the ceaseless willpower of its star, who shrewdly optioned the rights to Victor Hugo’s epic novel, The Hunchback of Notre Dame became a lasting milestone of silent era Hollywood and transformed Chaney from a brilliant character actor into a superstar.

The grotesque and lonely Quasimodo (Chaney), cathedral bell-ringer of medieval Paris, rescues Esmeralda (Patsy Ruth Miller), a beautiful gypsy girl, from public execution for a crime she did not commit. Naturally, Hollywood required that Hugo’s hauntingly romantic but sad ending be replaced with something suitably upbeat. Still, the sheer scale of the film is overwhelming and Chaney’s performance is unequaled in a role that became the template for every subsequent film version.

Live musical accompaniment for The Hunchback of Notre Dame will be performed by maestro of the Paramount’s Publix One 4/20 Wurlitzer organ, Dennis James.