The Hunchcast of Notre Dame

[Leslie] Welcome to "The Hunchcast," where we discuss all things "The Hunchback of Notre Dame." I'm Leslie.

[Patrick] And I'm Patrick, and today we're discussing RKO's "The Hunchback of Notre Dame," released in 1939, directed by William Dieterle and starring Charles Laughton, Maureen O'Hara, Sir Cedric Hardwicke, and Edmund O'Brien.

[Leslie] Sir Cedric Hardwicke, so fancy. Patrick, a couple weeks ago we covered Universal's "The Hunchback of Notre Dame," which was released in 1923, and starring the man of a thousand faces, Lon Chaney. Am I correct in saying that RKO's "Hunchback" is a remake of Universal's Hunchback?

How did that come to be?

[Patrick] RKO's adaptation is a remake of that Universal silent classic, but you wouldn't really know that by watching the movie, because they're very, very different beasts. Universal tried remaking their 1923 version as soon as sound was invented. As early as 1931, the head of Universal Studios, Carl Laemmle, announced that the studio was going to remake "Hunchback" in sound and better than ever.

Now, 1931 was also more or less the height of the Great Depression in the United States, when our economy was at its worst and one out of four people were unemployed.

[Leslie] Yeah, Universal's "The Hunchback of Notre Dame," the 1923 version, was one of the most expensive movies ever made at the time. What freaking money did Universal have lying around at the height of the Great Depression to remake that movie, but as Carl Laemmle said, on an even larger scale?

[Patrick] They got a bit of a windfall with new films in the horror genre like "Dracula" and "Frankenstein," which both came out in 1931. And speaking of Frankenstein, Boris Karloff, a relatively unknown actor at the time, played the monster in that movie, and he was quickly announced to play Quasimodo.

[Leslie] That would have been awesome. I would have loved to see him as Quasimodo.

[Patrick] Personally, I think Karloff would have made a great Frollo, a menacing British voice that's sweet and eerie. But off the success of Frankenstein, Universal thought, okay, who's the next ugly guy in makeup? It's Quasimodo.

And there were attempts to get the ball rolling throughout the early 1930s. Universal would make a big announcement, we're doing "The Hunchback" remake. No.

And in 1932, John Huston, yes, that John Huston, the guy who directed "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre" and "The Maltese Falcon" and a zillion other movies. He wrote a story treatment for a remake of The Hunchback of Notre Dame, as well as a few pages of a script. But that didn't get off the ground either.

And throughout the early 30s, Universal is announcing and then quietly forgetting about remaking "Hunchback." It was a turbulent time economically. And even though a lot of the sets from the 1923 version were still standing.

[Leslie] And would be standing until 1967, when they were destroyed in a fire.

[Patrick] It's very difficult to do Victor Hugo's novel justice on the cheap. You need all those extras, you need all those costumes. It needs to be an epic.

[Leslie] But that hasn't stopped some producers from making really cheap adaptations of "The Hunchback of Notre Dame." Listener, I'm not going to reveal what adaptations I'm talking about. You're just going to have to wait until we cover them on this show.

[Patrick] And as Universal hemmed and hawed and waxed and waned with remaking the movie throughout the early 30s, they announced just about every actor who is in some kind of horror or supernatural movie to play Quasimodo. Aside from Boris Karloff, they announced Peter Lorre, Irving Pichel, everyone's favorite. But by 1936, Universal was in some big trouble.

And not just because of the Great Depression. The studio had bet big on a movie version of "Showboat." Based on one of the most popular musicals ever made, "Showboat" was a huge production.

A super jewel, if you will. Which was Universal's term for one their big-budget epics when they could finally scrape around a couple of bucks to make something worth watching.

[Leslie] That's right. The Hunchback of Notre Dame was also a super jewel. That's J-E-W-E-L, listener, not the other one.

Leslie, you made that joke in the Universal's Hunchback episode. I know.

[Patrick] And even though the 1936 version of "Showboat" is pretty good, you know, it's available from the Criterion Collection, it did not make enough money to satisfy Universal. And the founding family of Universal, the Laemmle family, gets ousted from the company that they started.

[Leslie] I used to rule the world. Seas would rise when I gave the word. Now it…

Coldplay? Anybody? All right.

[Patrick] Universal, as they have this new leadership, they're trying to save some money and get themselves a bit more prestige. They are looking to get fast cash. So the rights to remake the 1923 Hunchback get sold off to another studio.

That's easy money.

[Leslie] Wait, I'm confused. Victor Hugo's novel, "Notre-Dame de Paris," or as we know it in the English-speaking world, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, was in the public domain. Why was any studio in Hollywood looking to buy the rights to make a they could make themselves for free?

[Patrick] I was confused about that too, but I've got a couple theories as to why. The first is that there are elements of that 1923 movie that are not in Victor Hugo's novel. So if somebody wanted to adapt elements from that movie specifically, you had to have the right to do so legally.

[Leslie] Like the idea of the character Claude Frollo from Victor Hugo's novel having a lot of his actions and personality traits given to a character named Jehan Frollo, which we're going to see in RKO's movie that we also saw in Universal's movie.

[Patrick] Likewise, by buying the remake rights, a studio is preventing the original studio from remaking that movie. So you're crushing the competition. You don't want too many Hunchback of Notre Dame movies out at once.

[Leslie] Like how there were two different film adaptations of the book "Dangerous Liaisons" released one right after the other within the same year. Well, one of us is gonna have to change.

[Patrick] So Universal sells the rights to their 1923 adaptation to MGM, which was probably the most prestigious studio in Hollywood throughout the 1930s, run by Louis B. Mayer. And as it happens, guess who was a big wig at MGM in the late 1930s?

Yo mama! Irving Thalberg.

[Leslie] I remember Irving Thalberg. He was the very young producer at Universal who had grown up chronically ill, spent a lot of his childhood sick in bed, unable to play outside, entertained himself by reading a ton of books, especially "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" by Victor Hugo, which he fell in love with. He grows up, he becomes a remarkably young producer at Universal, and when Lon Chaney approaches the studio and pitches a film adaptation of "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" with himself playing Quasimodo, Irving Thalberg gets so excited.

Not only does he convince the studio to make the movie, but he convinces the studio to expand the film's budget. And while Universal's "Hunchback of Notre Dame" was one of the most expensive films ever made at the time, that investment paid off because the film elevated Universal from a B-tier studio to a major player in the motion picture industry, and it made Lon Chaney an internationally recognized superstar. And I did know that, and we discussed this in our episode about Universal's "Hunchback," Irving Thalberg left Universal to work at MGM before the movie was even completed, so he didn't really get to enjoy the fruits of his labor.

But here he is at MGM in the mid-1930s, I guess, and oh, wouldn't you know, we just bought the rights to remake this movie that I produced.

[Patrick] So it all comes full circle.

[Leslie] Oh, how the turntables.

[Patrick] Well, MGM never bothers making the movie. Cute. After about a year or so, MGM is gonna sell the rights for a cool profit for not even writing a script or really doing anything aside just sitting on the rights to remake Universal's movie.

They sell it to RKO Radio Pictures.

[Leslie] Which no longer exists.

[Patrick] No, but in the 1930s, it was one of the major players. And RKO, unlike Universal and MGM, actually get the ball rolling on this remake. They get this movie in theaters in less than two years from buying the rights.

[Leslie] Nice.

[Patrick] They were able to work fast back then in Hollywood. This was the age of the so-called studio system, where the big movie studios had absolute control of every aspect of production, everything was in-house, and they knew how to do every aspect of making a movie to a complete science. But that doesn't mean the process of casting a movie is going to be very easy.

You know, the studio found a director fairly quickly in William Dieterle, who had done a lot of respectable period dramas, such as "The Life of Émile Zola." And he also did a lot of directing on "A Midsummer Night's Dream," which is one of my favorite movies, even though it is incoherent.

[Leslie] Yeah, William Dieterle was German, and he was very influenced by the style of German Expressionism, which you can definitely see in this version of "The Hunchback of Notre Dame."

[Patrick] After Lon Chaney made the part of Quasimodo so prestigious after the 1923 movie, everybody and their mother wanted to play Quasimodo. It was a coveted role. Orson Welles was sought to play Quasimodo, and he was almost cast, but he only wanted to play Quasimodo if he could also direct the movie.

And RKO thought that was too big of an ask to be both the director and the star of the movie.

[Leslie] You want to have total creative control over this movie as the star and the director? That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. And then two years later, Orson Welles both directs and stars in a movie called "Citizen Kane," which is still to this day considered one of the best movies ever made.

LOL.

[Patrick] One of the other actors that really lobbies for the role is, of all people, Creighton Chaney.

[Leslie] Lon Chaney's son, who did not have a very good relationship with his father toward the end of his father's life.

[Patrick] But Creighton was really passionate about following his father's role. He wanted to honor his father, and he probably would have had his own interesting take on the character. Now, by 1939, Creighton was not a nobody.

He was relatively well known on Broadway for his portrayal of Lenny in "Of Mice and Men."

[Leslie] Was he going by the name Lon Chaney, Jr. at that time, or was he still being billed as Creighton Chaney?

[Patrick] He was going by Lon Chaney, Jr., which might have looked cute on a poster. Like, oh, Junior's playing the same role as his dad. And whether or not he would have been a good Quasimodo, we'll never know.

Because Creighton is cast aside in favor of Charles Laughton.

[Leslie] Yes, listener, if you're unfamiliar with the name Charles Laughton, you are missing out. Please, please, please take a couple minutes, do some research into his life. He is, in my most humble of opinions, one of the best actors who ever walked this planet.

He was in over 60 movies. By the time he played Quasimodo, he had already won an Academy Award for playing, of all people, King Henry VIII. And The Hunchback of Notre Dame was not Charles Laughton's only experience acting in a film adaptation of a Victor Hugo novel.

Just four years before this movie came out, in 1935, he played Javert in a film adaptation of Les Misérables. But despite all of his success, Charles Laughton's life was not all peaches and cream. He was a closeted gay man, living and working in Hollywood, at a time when some studios, especially MGM, wrote moral turpitude clauses into their contracts which said, hey, if we find out that you are engaging in any behavior that we deem morally reprehensible, such as carrying on a relationship with someone of the same sex, we will fire you, we will blacklist you, you will never work in Hollywood again. Which is why Charles Laughton was hesitant when Irving Thalberg, who was working for MGM, approached him and said, hey, I would really like you to play Quasimodo in The Hunchback of Notre Dame if MGM ever gets around to making their own film adaptation.

So, extremely wealthy, successful actor. He's married to a beautiful actress named Elsa Lanchester, who is best known for playing the Bride of Frankenstein in "The Bride of Frankenstein" for Universal. He's got this gorgeous house overlooking the Pacific Coast Highway.

His life is very shiny and pretty on the outside, but on the inside, he is unable to present his true self to the public. It's a very sad story, actually.

[Patrick] It's not just that he was gay in a time when being gay was frowned upon. He was very self-loathing, and Laughton often thought poorly of his performances as an actor, and he thought poorest of all of his own appearance. He regarded himself as the epitome of physical ugliness and once said that "his face was so ugly it could stop a sundial."

So Quasimodo is not just a role that he's doing for the money, and he was paid good money. He's doing it because he relates to Quasimodo and understands Quasimodo and that sort of self-loathing misery that only a character as wretched as he can really embody.

[Leslie] We could probably talk for hours about marginalized people's attraction to this story, particularly to characters like Quasimodo and Esmeralda, these outcasts existing on the margins of society looking in. I mean, the first person to compose an opera based on The Hunchback of Notre Dame was a disabled woman. The first person to direct a film adaptation of The Hunchback of Notre Dame in 1905 was a woman.

The producer who convinced Universal to make The Hunchback of Notre Dame and to give it the budget it deserves was a man who had grown up chronically ill, and now the man playing Quasimodo for RKO was a closeted, gay, overweight man. I think the story of The "Hunchback of Notre Dame" and the story of the fan community associated with The Hunchback of Notre Dame is one of seeing yourself and your insecurities reflected in the titular character, which we definitely see here with Mr. Laughton, who turns in a fantastic performance as Quasimodo, but we'll get to that in a bit.

[Patrick] Laughton saw himself in Quasimodo, and he saw one of his co-stars in an obscure British movie called Jamaica Inn in Esmeralda. Laughton was especially fond of a then-18-year-old actress from Ireland named Maureen O'Hara. She was just getting started, and Laughton really became her mentor and almost a father figure.

He brought her over to America, had her cast as Esmeralda, and really advocated for her and supported her, not just through this movie, but throughout the rest of their life.

[Leslie] And clearly, he was not interested in her as a romantic partner, wasn't attracted to her. Again, he was a gay man, but they did have a very sweet father-daughter relationship for many, many years, even after the making of Hunchback.

[Patrick] But the making of Hunchback, while it was an efficient production of the Hollywood studio system, wasn't exactly the easiest. They filmed most of the movie in the late summer of 1939 in the San Fernando Valley in California.

[Leslie] Oh, it is hot, hot, hot, baby.

[Patrick] It was a rough summer. You had these crowds of people sweating in these medieval costumes, poor Charles Laughton underneath, pounds of makeup. It was tough, and poor Maureen O'Hara, running around barefoot on those cobblestone streets, really got her feet messed up.

[Leslie] Oh, gosh, poor girl.

[Patrick] This was a lavish production. The replica of Notre Dame, which, like the 1923 movie, technically only encompassed the first 20 or so feet of the cathedral. That's just for the facade, and various parts of the interiors and exteriors were built on studio sound stages.

It cost a quarter of a million dollars, and the overall budget for the movie was $1.8 million, which was pretty huge back then.

[Leslie] And according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics inflation calculator, $1.8 million in 1939 is $42.8 million today. So, not near the budget of some of these expensive CGI-wrought Marvel movies that are being pumped out today, but still up there in terms of budget.

[Patrick] Like the 1923 film, this version spared no expense. But unlike the 1923 film, this version spared no expense not just on the set, but on the talent. You had rather accomplished screenwriters, you know, successful novelists and working journalists doing the script and the story scenario.

You had a solid director in William Dieterle. You had big stars like Charles Laughton, Sir Cedric Hardwicke, Thomas Mitchell, who that year also starred as Scarlett O'Hara's father in "Gone with the Wind."

[Leslie] Yeah, 1939 was a fantastic year for movies, which also means that it was a very hard year to get an Oscar nomination during. This was the year of "Gone with the Wind." It was the year of "The Wizard of Oz."

[Patrick] And at the very end of the year, December 1939, we get RKO's "The Hunchback of Notre Dame." But what did moviegoers see when this movie finally came out, premiering at Radio City Music Hall on December 29, 1939, Leslie?

[Leslie] I thought you'd never ask, Patrick. Our story takes place in Paris at the end of the 15th century. No specific year is given.

The Hundred Years' War is finally over, and with the benevolent King Louis XI in power, the people of France begin to dream of a future in which all people are treated equally. However, an obstacle stands in their way. The king's callous and prejudiced chief justice, Jehan Frollo, played by Cedric Hardwicke.

Forgive me, Sir Cedric Hardwicke. Did not mean to disrespect you, Sir Hardwicke. I know you're listening.

You're our biggest fan. Jehan and the king, played by Henry Davenport, visit a printing shop to see a revolutionary new invention called the printing press. While the king is excited about this new form of expression of thought, Jehan warns him that "the smallest things are often the death of the greatest."

Meanwhile, at the city gates, the beautiful Romani dancer Esmeralda, played by Maureen O'Hara, sneaks into the city. Esmeralda has come to Paris to request an audience with the king and implore him to grant the Romani equal rights. The Festival of Fools, which the king will be attending that day, is her perfect opportunity, and she makes her way to the city square and dances for the crowd.

Her dance attracts the attention of several men, including the captain of the king's guard, played by Alan Marshall, the progressive playwright Pierre Gringoire, played by Edmund O'Brien, Jehan Frollo, and the king himself, who tells Jehan, "Who cares about her race? She's pretty," which is a startlingly progressive line to come from a movie released the same year as "Gone with the Wind." Esmeralda notices someone staring at her from under the stage.

The crowd recognizes the eyes of the bell ringer of Notre Dame Cathedral, Quasimodo, or Casimodo, as everyone in this movie calls him, played by Charles Laughton, and they force him out and crown him the King of Fools. The parade they throw in his honor is interrupted by Jehan, Quasimodo's adoptive father, who leads Quasimodo into the church. Back in the square, a pair of guards demand to see Esmeralda's city papers.

Because she has no papers to show, she runs into Notre Dame and claims sanctuary. She is welcomed by the cathedral's archdeacon, played by Walter Hampton, who is also Jehan Frollo's older brother. While the other parishioners pray only for themselves, Esmeralda selflessly implores the Virgin Mary to lift her people out of oppression.

Jehan confronts Esmeralda, calling her a heathen and a witch. The two strike up a conversation and find that they share a love for animals. Esmeralda acknowledges the goodness inside Jehan and takes this as a sign that the Mother of God will answer her prayer.

The king, who has been praying nearby, overhears Esmeralda and tells her he will consider helping the Romani. Jehan leads Esmeralda to the bell tower to be looked after by Quasimodo, but after Esmeralda runs out of the cathedral in horror at Quasimodo's appearance, Jehan signals for him to chase after her and abduct her. The conflict wakes up Pierre Gringoire, who alerts the king's guards.

While Quasimodo is arrested, the captain of the guard flirts with a smitten Esmeralda. He tells her his name is Phoebus and that he will see her again. Esmeralda is initiated into the Court of Miracles, the secret hideout where all Paris's outcasts take shelter.

Pierre is chased into the court only moments later, and Clopin, the king of the Court of Miracles, played by Thomas Mitchell, sentences him to be hanged for trespassing, unless one of the court's women takes him for a husband. Esmeralda offers to marry him to save his life. Once alone, Pierre recites a love poem to Esmeralda that includes the name Phoebus.

Esmeralda reveals that she is in love with a man named Phoebus, and though Pierre is initially disappointed that Esmeralda doesn't reciprocate his feelings, he tells her he's willing to be anything she wants him to be—a husband, a brother, or a friend. The next day, Quasimodo is brought to trial. Because both Quasimodo and the presiding judge are deaf, Quasimodo is sentenced to be whipped because of a misunderstanding.

Gringoire implores the archdeacon to stop Quasimodo's brutal punishment, but the archdeacon replies that he can't, saying, "If his punishment seems unjust, there is a higher power who watches and avenges." I wonder if that's foreshadowing. Quasimodo cries out for water on the pillory.

Initially, he is ignored, including by Jehan Frollo himself, but eventually Esmeralda takes pity on him and gives him a drink. When the archdeacon asks Jehan what Quasimodo's crime was, Jehan lies to his brother and tells him Quasimodo pursued Esmeralda of his own accord. Sometime later, Esmeralda and Pierre are hired to perform at a party for the nobility.

Both Jehan and Phoebus are in attendance. Jehan corners Esmeralda and confesses that he has become obsessed with her, saying, "I want you for myself alone. If I can't have that, it will be my end and yours."

Later that evening, Phoebus and Esmeralda meet in the garden for a romantic rendezvous. Esmeralda confesses her undying devotion to Phoebus, while Phoebus admits his affairs are only fleeting. Moments later, the partygoers hear a scream and rush into the garden to find Phoebus murdered and Esmeralda standing over his body holding a knife.

Meanwhile, Jehan rushes to Notre Dame and confesses to his brother that he has killed a man out of love for a woman who has bewitched him, and he begs his brother for help. The archdeacon disowns Jehan and says, "My duty is to help the girl, not you." Pierre visits Esmeralda in prison and promises he will work to free her.

Esmeralda implores Pierre to look after her people when she's gone, and begs him to forgive her for meeting with Phoebus, saying, "Even before he was killed, I knew he didn't really love me." During Esmeralda's trial, Pierre's attempts to persuade Jehan of Esmeralda's innocence fail, and he is forcibly removed from the courtroom. Then Quasimodo rushes in, and in an attempt to save Esmeralda, he says he murdered Captain Phoebus, but he is laughed out of the room.

Esmeralda confesses to the murder under torture, but King Louis intervenes and proposes a different test. He blindfolds Esmeralda, and lays the murder weapon on a table beside a different dagger. Esmeralda touches the murder weapon at random, which the king interprets as a sign of her guilt.

Sure. On the day of her execution, the archdeacon tells Jehan he cannot allow an innocent woman to do public penance on holy ground, and Jehan replies, "Then she will hang without public penance." Just as the noose is tied around Esmeralda's neck, Quasimodo swoops down from the cathedral, grabs Esmeralda, and swings back up, crying, "SANCTUARY!"

Up in the bell tower, Esmeralda asks Quasimodo why he saved her, and he answers, "I tried to carry you off, and the next day you gave me a drink of water and a little pity." He says she must never leave the church or she will be hanged, and that would kill him. Jehan and a cohort of other nobles sign a handwritten petition imploring the king to do away with the law of sanctuary forever.

Meanwhile, Pierre finishes his own petition to the king to pardon Esmeralda, and he brings it to the printing press to be copied en masse and distributed throughout the city by students and beggars. Sure enough, Pierre's petition reaches the king. As Jehan is reading it to him, the archdeacon rushes in and shares that Notre-Dame is being stormed by beggars who wish to remove Esmeralda from the cathedral.

Jehan confesses that Esmeralda is innocent and that HE is the real murderer, saying, "I did it, and I'd do it again." Jehan runs away, and the king orders him to be arrested. Clopin and his army of vagabonds approach Notre-Dame and demand the archbishop to give up Esmeralda under threat of having the church stormed.

A cohort of middle-class craftsmen and citizens arrive, saying they've read Pierre's pamphlet and are ready to defend the sanctity of Notre-Dame against both the beggars and nobles. The priests, too, try to stop the vagabonds by fortifying the door. Up above, Quasimodo spots the army of people in front of the church and believes they are there to kill Esmeralda.

He promises to defend her and tells her to ring one of the bells if she needs him. Quasimodo fights the vagabonds off by dropping boulders, wooden spires, and molten lead on them, crushing several people, including Clopin. As the vagabonds retreat, Quasimodo hears a bell ring and runs into the bell tower to find his father Jehan trying to kill Esmeralda.

He lifts Jehan over his head and throws him off the cathedral to his death. As the sun rises, Gringoire announces that the king has pardoned Esmeralda and is allowing the Romani to live anywhere in France. Esmeralda leaves the cathedral and embraces her husband, and the two follow the crowd into the city streets to celebrate.

Meanwhile, up in the bell tower, Quasimodo watches as Esmeralda is led away. He asks the statue, "Why was I not made of stone like thee," and the credits roll. I love this ending.

I love this ending, but I also hate this ending. And that's why I love this ending. Because just about everyone in this film gets their happy ending, right?

The king's oppressive chief justice, Jehan, is killed. Pierre saves Esmeralda from execution. Esmeralda is free and realizes that the man who has truly earned her affection is not Phoebus, but her husband, the guy who's been by her side the whole time.

And the king overturns all these laws barring the Romani from settling wherever they want to in the country, yadda yadda yadda, they all live happily ever after, right? Oh, wait. Quasimodo is still alone.

Because the king can write and rewrite laws. He can't change people's minds. He can't change the Parisians' opinions about Quasimodo.

And that I interpreted as a reminder that progress doesn't always come from the top down. You know, sometimes progress requires a collective mindset change, which can be even harder than trying to appeal to our legislators to get laws passed and overturned. See, for example, Quasimodo, perhaps one of the most oppressed people in Paris, watching this beautiful celebration of justice and equality alone.

[Patrick] Maybe Frollo is right when he says, "Public opinion is dangerous."

[Leslie] It can be dangerous if the public has an opinion that a person should be hurt or ostracized or have their individual autonomy stripped away.

[Patrick] This movie places a large emphasis on the theme of progress and the fight against what the film calls stupid superstition and prejudice. It's a very forward-thinking movie. And Gringoire is the ultimate example of that.

In Hugo's novel, he's a buffoon. He's an ass. He is a pseudo-intellectual who thinks he is this great, well-informed man, but he really doesn't know anything.

He's utterly ignorant of the role that he is playing in the story, and quite literally turns into a jester and a clown about halfway through. This Gringoire, though he starts off a little bit pompous like in the novel, is a man out of time. He is a freethinker.

He's a little Thomas Paine. He's a little Voltaire. He's a little Victor Hugo, dare I say.

Promoting all sorts of causes that he finds would be helpful for the people. He champions equality, religious tolerance, and all sorts of things. And he champions the printing press, which has an important thematic role in Hugo's novel, but here it's actually incorporated into the plot.

[Leslie] I like that. I like that this movie shows rather than tells the importance of the printing press. You know, in Victor Hugo's original novel, he laments that the printing press has more or less made cathedrals obsolete because all of those statues and stained glass windows that you see in these architectural marvels were created to communicate stories from the Bible to a largely illiterate population.

Now, with the printing press, more people are able to get books into their hands faster and cheaper. That means more people are going to learn how to read. You'll have this idea of universal literacy coming into play, which means we don't need beautiful cathedrals to tell us stories from the Bible.

We can just read the Bible themselves, therefore making cathedrals obsolete. And Victor Hugo laments that. Ironically, he laments that through a printed book.

But this movie heralds the printing press and universal literacy as the key to the human race achieving its true potential and arriving at a future where there truly is liberty and justice for all.

[Patrick] I attribute a lot of those progressive themes—and I'm using progressive in a general sense, not in terms of a contemporary political agreement.

[Leslie] Or the car insurance company.

[Patrick] Or the soup, if we want to add an O. I attribute that approach to the source material, to the backgrounds of the people who wrote the story treatment and the screenplay. The story treatment was written by a guy named Bruno Frank, who was a German novelist, not exactly the Hollywood type.

Frank wrote in a variety of genres, including historical novels. He wrote a historical novel in the early 30s, which has been translated as "The Man Called Cervantes," which is about Cervantes, the author of "Don Quixote." And the portrayal of Cervantes in that novel is a lot like Gringoire in this movie, where he is a man of the Enlightenment in a backwards, superstitious time.

And I think Frank also drew on his background not just as a writer when creating his story adaptation, but on his background as a German and as a Jew. He moved to America in the early 30s, not necessarily by choice, but because in his country he was quickly considered not human. He was an Untermensch, a subhuman, by the Nazi government that was ruling Germany in the 1930s.

And there is a lot of parallels between the political situation in Europe and, to a lesser extent, the United States in the 30s and this movie.

[Leslie] Yeah, this movie is all about Esmeralda's and Pierre Gringoire's fight to convince King Louis to grant the Romani people equal rights. At the beginning of this movie, we see a caravan of Romani stopped at the city gates and told, You can't enter the city without a permit because of your ethnicity. We don't want foreigners in our city.

The same thing happened with many Jewish people in Germany and eventually beyond during the 1930s. They were told, We're not going to hire you. We're not going to sell you a home in this area.

We're not going to allow you to vote. Oh, and we're not going to allow you to have any individual autonomy. And here, let's herd you into a concentration camp.

I see many parallels in this film between the treatment of Romani people and the way Jewish people were treated in Germany in the 1930s. And I'm sure Mr. Frank understood that better than anyone.

[Patrick] And I agree that the portrayal of the Romani in this movie is influenced by the treatment of Jews in Nazi Germany. But let's not forget, the Nazis also greatly disfavored the Romani. They were considered untermenschen as well.

[Leslie] Yeah, basically anyone who wasn't a white, blonde, blue-eyed German was considered subhuman by the Nazis.

[Patrick] Yeah, if you weren't a member of the Aryan race, the Nazis' ill-defined group that was supposed to be genetically superior, you were considered inferior and should be put up for extinction. That also included people with disabilities, such as Quasimodo, as he's portrayed in this movie.

[Leslie] Why is he called Quasimodo and not Quasimodo?

[Patrick] I think it's an effort on the part of the filmmakers to preserve a sense of Frenchness to this movie. In French, they don't pronounce Quasimodo as Quasimodo. They pronounce him as Quasimodo.

[Leslie] But if the filmmakers were trying to preserve the French pronunciation and be faithful to the source material, why call this movie The Hunchback of Notre Dame, the English title? Why not call it "Notre-Dame de Paris," or "Notre-Dame of Paris,", or even Notre Dame?

[Patrick] Well, by 1939, the title "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" was the title for the story in the English speaking world. Popular translations of Hugo's novel used that title, and especially the 1923 movie was called "The Hunchback of Notre Dame."

[Leslie] And of course, that movie was a silent film. It didn't have sound. So how do we know whether Quasimodo in that movie was Quasimodo or Casimodo?

We don't.

[Patrick] I also see a large influence from the screenwriter, Sonia Levien. Like Frank, Levien was Jewish. She grew up relatively poor in the city of New York, back before high school was available to every person in the city.

[Leslie] Yeah, in doing research about Ms. Levien myself, I learned that she was a pretty remarkable person. She grew up in a Jewish ghetto in New York City. She did not earn a high school diploma because there was no high school in her area.

After she finished eighth grade, she went into the workforce and started working in a factory. She hated it, and through blood, sweat, and tears, she ended up climbing her way out. She ended up attending NYU Law School, which, listener, I went to NYU myself.

There is absolutely no way that they would accept somebody who didn't have a high school diploma today, but it was a different time. She ended up editing for a magazine and working there with former US President Teddy Roosevelt, who took to calling her Little Miss Anarchist. And then she decided, you know what?

I don't want to work for this magazine anymore. I want to try to make it as a Hollywood screenwriter. So she packed up her life and moved to California, and the rest is history.

[Patrick] You mentioned Little Miss Anarchist. That comes from Levien's political views, which were very influenced by her parents, who immigrated from the old world. Her father was something of an anarchist, very influenced by Peter Kropotkin and other thinkers who wanted to abolish the state in forms of government and go to a more collectivized, localized sense of organization.

And she was also a bit sympathetic to kind of the opposite form of government, but still on the left side of the political spectrum, with the newly formed Soviet Union in the early 1920s after the Russian Revolution. I'm not aware of Levien's political views by the time this movie was made, but I do see a very strong political undercurrent to this movie. It's very critical of superstition and institutional oppression.

But the movie is also critical of the new rise of authoritarianism throughout the 1930s and the Great Depression. There's obviously the comparison between the Nazi regime and the way that the Romani are treated in this movie. I also see a few parallels to Stalinist Russia and the rise of the Soviet Union and Marxism-Leninism as the way the beggars are portrayed in this movie, with Pierre Gringoire and Esmeralda seen more as a moderating force.

[Leslie] Yes, they're the radical moderates. Oh no. I also see Clopin as an allegory for the way World War I veterans were treated during the Great Depression.

As Quasimodo is being whipped, Pierre Gringoire and Clopin are standing off to the side, talking about how unfair everything is and how justice is long overdue, and Clopin reveals that he is a veteran of the Hundred Years' War. And he says after the war ended, he and a bunch of other veterans came back home and started going door to door asking for honest work, and they were punished for begging. That sounds to me a lot like the way World War I veterans were treated during the Great Depression, when here is this whole generation of men who went off to war and came home with very severe mental and physical wounds from that experience fighting for their country.

What do you mean they're all out of work? What do you mean they're all living in poverty and can't feed their kids in the country that they fought to defend?

[Patrick] Yeah, Clopin is talking about the Hundred Years' War between England and France, but whenever the heck this movie is supposed to take place by the end of the 15th century?

[Leslie] Yeah, a specific year is not given. The book takes place during 1482. This movie just takes place during the end of the 15th century, so it could be set in 1482, or it could be set in 1492, or it could be set in 1475.

No specific year is given.

[Patrick] The Hundred Years' War had been over for a long time, so Clopin being a veteran is not impossible, but it stretches credibility. How old is this guy?

[Leslie] He doesn't look that old. He looks like late 50s, maybe late 60s at the absolute most.

[Patrick] The idea of getting whipped for begging for work really reminds me of an incident from 1930, 1931 or so called the Bonus Army Incident. Do you remember that from history class, Leslie?

[Leslie] Oh gosh, Pat, it's been so long. You're gonna be so disappointed in me. No, if I learned about this, I don't remember it.

Please enlighten me, my dear.

[Patrick] Now, after the war, veterans were promised a bonus, a cash payment of a certain amount that would be paid out after a certain number of years after the war had ended. Might have been like 20 years in the future, something like that. But the Great Depression was so hard that veterans organized to try to convince the government to give out the bonus early.

And so the people marched onto Washington, they peacefully protested, and President Herbert Hoover sent out the military and the National Guard to break up the protests and shoot at American veterans. It was a disaster.

[Leslie] Herbert Hoover, probably one of the worst presidents the U.S. ever had.

[Patrick] There's a reason why he lost to Franklin D. Roosevelt. When your response to people dealing with the Great Depression is to shoot veterans in the face and beat them up in the streets, that's a terrible look.

[Leslie] Uh, yeah.

[Patrick] So maybe I'm stretching, but the way that they're talking about, oh, back with the war, I just see it as a big allegory for the political situation at the time.

[Leslie] This whole movie is about the state of the world during the 1930s. It's about the way veterans were treated post-World War I, sure. It's also about the way Jewish people and anyone the Nazis deemed subhuman or of inferior genetics were treated in Germany and beyond as the Holocaust was beginning.

It's also about the Great Depression in general.

[Patrick] A lot of these aspects of 1930s America and Europe are represented in the class politics of this movie, which, like in the novel, there's a distinct role for social class, and the 1923 movie emphasizes that as the aristocrats versus the beggars. This movie has a similar class dynamic, but it's a lot more developed. It's less black and white.

You have the nobles versus the beggars, but there's also a role for the monarchy and for the middle class, the church, and the new class of free thinkers and intellectuals such as Pierre Gringoire in this movie.

[Leslie] Yeah, it's not just group A versus group B, as in Universal's The Hunchback of It's group A versus group B versus group C versus group D.

[Patrick] Louis XI is a bit in the middle. He's still an all-powerful monarch, but he's concerned about the power of the nobility being greater than his own, which is actually historically accurate. And Louis XI is a bit of an enlightened despot in this movie.

He'll read these pamphlets and consider some of these new ideas like the printing press, but he will also believe in things like trial by ordeal, which was a real thing in the Middle Ages, and will be appalled at the notion that he will have to bathe twice a year if he wishes to live longer.

[Leslie] Which is different from the way King Louis XI is portrayed in Victor Hugo's original novel. In that book, he is a very cruel, callous man who enjoys spending money on new ways to torture people, such as buying cages that are too low and too narrow for prisoners to be comfortable in. And he likens himself very down-to-earth and very humble.

He says, oh no, I'm not going to be frivolous with my money like previous kings were. I'm not going to sleep in my grand, ornate palace. That's way too ostentatious for me.

Instead, I am going to have an apartment built in the Bastille, a political prison, and I'm going to sleep there instead because I am a humble, down-to-earth king.

[Patrick] With no chairs.

[Leslie] Yeah, in the book, he's too cheap to buy chairs for his apartment, so when his friends come over and hang out with him, they have to stand all night because there's nowhere for them to sit down.

[Patrick] Yeah, King Louis XI would not be a fan of Aldi.

[Leslie] No, he wouldn't. And in Universal's movie, we see King Louis XI very briefly, and he is described as maybe even more tyrannical than King Louis XI from the book. He's described as very cold and callous and the driving force behind the oppression of the beggars.

This King Louis XI in RKO is a little more open-minded. He's not completely there yet. He does have some learning to do and some progress to make.

Like you said, Patrick, he is appalled that he has to shower two times a year and not once a year or once every other year. But he does say things like, who cares about her race? She's pretty.

Can you imagine that line featuring in a film released the same year Hitler invaded Poland? That's a pretty startlingly progressive line, especially to come from a character who is, I'll just say it, an older white man.

[Patrick] And I'm not saying this is exactly what the filmmakers intended, but I think my interpretation is a bit valid. Is Louis XI Franklin Roosevelt Claude Frollo is Adolf Hitler and Clopin is Stalin or just maybe some kind of Bolshevik revolutionary?

[Leslie] What would that make Pierre Gringoire?

[Patrick] Sonia Levien.

[Leslie] Ah, there we go. Yeah, let's talk about Pierre Gringoire, because like you said earlier, Patrick, Victor Hugo's Pierre Gringoire is a bumbling idiot. He likens himself this noble crusading intellectual, but really he's just a dumb, selfish jerk.

[Patrick] He's a boobie.

[Leslie] He is a boobie. He writes this play that's performed at the Festival of Fools. It's too complicated.

Nobody understands what it's about. He gets married. He is almost hanged in the Court of Miracles.

Esmeralda comes forward and offers to marry him to save his life. And he feels absolutely no loyalty toward her in return. He keeps forgetting that he has a wife.

He keeps forgetting that he is a character in a Victor Hugo novel. He keeps leaving the story and running into characters every hundred or so pages and saying, oh, you, I remember you. How's my wife?

I don't know. She's somewhere. He is solely interested in his own self-preservation.

He is a completely selfish individual, which makes it so frustrating that he is one of only a couple of characters who survives the book. But RKO's Pierre Gringoire is my favorite Pierre Gringoire, because it takes everything that I hated about Gringoire's character and fixes it. In this movie, he is an intellectual.

He is a very smart, clever person. He has a doctorate. He introduces himself as Pierre Gringoire, Doctor of the Seven Liberal Arts.

Patrick, what are the seven liberal arts?

[Patrick] Before liberal arts were these gen eds that you had to get out of the way, and hopefully a few AP credits would take care of them when you went to college. The liberal arts in the middle ages were actually cool. They were separated into two sections, the trivium and the quadrivium.

Three plus four equals seven. The trivium and the quadrivium, that sort of classical medieval education, that was no joke. So I don't know where Gringoire got his doctorate from, maybe the University of Paris, but he's a serious guy.

And Pierre Gringoire is a man out of time. He is a forward-thinking intellectual. He values reason rather than stupid superstition and prejudice.

[Leslie] Like I said in Victor Hugo's novel, Pierre forgets about his wife after a little while. He doesn't care to repay his debt to the woman who saved his life. But in RKO's movie, when Pierre Gringoire tells Esmeralda, I love you and I am willing to be whatever you want me to be, a husband, a brother, a friend, he means it.

He goes out of his way to take care of Esmeralda, even after he knows that she is in love with another man. He visits her in prison, he writes an appeal to the king to get her pardoned, and it works. When she is being led to her execution, the guards have to peel Pierre off of her because he will not let her go, and as the noose is being tied around her neck, Pierre puts his head on Clopin's shoulder and bursts into tears.

But when Quasimodo rescues Esmeralda, they become tears of joy. And over time, Esmeralda grows to reciprocate Pierre's feelings. Initially, she only married him to save his life and didn't really feel any affection for him, but over time, as she notices that he cares about her, he is an intellectual, he is invested in social justice, he is committed to helping her and freeing her and her people, she starts to love him.

I really like Esmeralda and Pierre's relationship in this movie.

[Patrick] And I really like Esmeralda herself. She's a much more active character than she was in Victor Hugo's book, and just like with the themes of the printing press, where we're doing a lot more showing rather than telling, here, we see events that are only mentioned briefly in the book, such as Esmeralda and the Romani entering the gates of Paris.

[Leslie] In the book, Esmeralda says that she came to Paris with a caravan a couple of years ago. Here, we actually see her arriving at the Paris gates, being told you can't come in because you're Romani, and sneaking past the guard. Esmeralda in this movie is technically what we would conceive of today as an illegal immigrant.

[Patrick] She's an action hero.

[Leslie] Absolutely, she's running around Paris, she's fighting for social justice, she's a badass woman in this movie.

[Patrick] No, and when she gets kidnapped by Quasimodo, as in the novel, it's not that she gets run down in an alleyway. She runs all over the city. She makes poor Charles Laughton get his steps in.

[Leslie] Can I tell you a story from Maureen O'Hara's memoir?

[Patrick] Oh, please do.

[Leslie] Patrick, you mentioned that Maureen O'Hara and Charles Laughton met on the set of this Alfred Hitchcock movie called "Jamaica Inn." Well, there was a production associate also working on the set of Jamaica Inn named George Brown. He was 26, Maureen was 18, and Brown had a crush on Maureen O'Hara.

I don't blame him, she is a beautiful woman, and he asked her on a couple of dates. They ended up going on two dates. She didn't really like him that much.

She wasn't interested in him. But he was one of those people who do not know how to take no for an answer. And the day she and her mother were supposed to leave Ireland to go to the United States to start shooting The Hunchback of Notre Dame, George Brown called her apartment building every five minutes.

And the phone is ringing and ringing and ringing off the hook. And of course, there was no caller ID back then. You know, one of the calls might have been from someone associated with RKO calling to share some information about The Hunchback of Notre Dame.

So of course, because she is a consummate professional, she picks up the phone every time it rings, and it's always this George Brown guy who she really doesn't know anything about, telling her, I love you, please come to my house and see me. We're meant to be together, just harassing this poor girl. And eventually, she decides to go to his house just to get the incessant phone calls to stop and to hopefully convince him in person, hey, I'm not interested in you, leave me alone.

She gets to his house, there is a priest there. She goes, what the heck is going on? He goes, oh, we're going to get married.

And he coerces her into marrying him on the spot. And to make matters worse, he lies to the priest about her age. She was 18.

He told the priest she was over 21 years old. So here's poor little Maureen O'Hara, only 18 years old, sailing away to the United States to kick off her career in Hollywood. This is supposed to be one of the most exciting days of her life.

She's supposed to be spending this time focusing on the role and this upcoming movie she's going to be in. And instead, she is near to tears, freaking out about the fact that she was just forced to marry this guy she knows nothing about. Eventually, the marriage was annulled, but oh my gosh, this wasn't even 90 years ago when this was happening.

[Patrick] Forced proximity trope?

[Leslie] No, no. We've got a little forced proximity trope happening between Quasimodo and Esmeralda in this movie.

[Patrick] Laughton's portrayal of Quasimodo is very sensitive, often imitated, but never duplicated. And I think it's because he brings his personal pathos to the character. Unlike Lon Chaney, Charles Laughton was very much a method actor, to the point where he wanted to physically be in pain and suffer in the role, which I find a little ridiculous.

But it's that emotional pain that he understands what it's like to be an outcast and to feel hideous in your own body and ugly compared to people around you who you find beautiful and much better than yourself in terms of their kindness and beauty and generosity. There used to be a YouTube re-upload of the scene of Quasimodo and Esmeralda in the bell tower, where Quasimodo tells Esmeralda, "I never realized till now how ugly I am because you are so beautiful." And that re-upload was called, in all caps, Charles Laughton is God?

I'm inclined to agree. It is a masterful performance that really should have won an Academy Award. It is often imitated, never duplicated, an absolute masterpiece of a scene.

And the little scene afterwards, which is not from Hugo's novel, is brilliant. Where Quasimodo shows Esmeralda around the bell tower and plays the bells for her in a childish, delighted way, only to have her alarmed by the volume of the bells, that is inspired by bits and pieces from the book, as are so many of the changes in this adaptation. They're not just changes that are made willy-nilly.

They are changes that are often informed from the novel and have a seed from the novel. Hugo describes Quasimodo naming the bells and being affectionate towards them and even swinging and riding on the bells as if he's riding a horse. That's described beautifully by Hugo.

But in the film, we actually see it and incorporate it into the story, where Quasimodo leaps onto a bell to make noise and sing for Esmeralda. And I say often imitated, never duplicated. That's not just with Laughton's performance as Quasimodo, which is very sensitive and absolutely marvelous.

The makeup effects are also brilliant. I know there was a lot of conflict between Charles Laughton and the makeup man, Perc Westmore, in figuring out what the design for Quasimodo would be. There were many tests and fights behind the scenes.

But the result is absolutely breathtaking. Quasimodo looks like a real person.

[Leslie] Oh my gosh, during the whipping scene where Quasimodo's tunic is torn open and his back is exposed, the hump is seamless. It looks like it's part of his body. When I was watching this movie the other night in preparation to record this episode, I found myself staring at that makeup job in awe, with my jaw dropped to the floor, even though I've seen this movie many, many times before.

I mean, it's in my letterboxd top four. Every time I see that makeup, I am in awe.

[Patrick] It rivals anything by Jack Pierce, you know, any other big makeup effects character of that era, any of the characters from "The Wizard of Oz" or "Frankenstein" or "The Wolfman." Perc Westmore's Quasimodo is up there, and the scene where Quasimodo is showing the bells to Esmeralda, which is not in the book. In the book, Quasimodo loses interest in the bells after Esmeralda gives him water.

You know, his affection for the bells is replaced by an affection for Esmeralda. I like real girls now. This is an element expanded from the Lon Chaney movie, where Quasimodo rings the bells out of wild joy for Esmeralda being present.

Having Quasimodo actually show Esmeralda the bells is a scene that ends up in just about every future adaptation that I can think of. It's in the 1956 French film. It's in a few of the TV versions.

It even ends up in the Disney cartoon.

[Leslie] That's little Sofia and Jean Marie Anne-Marie Louise Marie. I like how in RKO's movie, Quasimodo does not refer to the bells as his girlfriends or his harem as Victor Hugo does in the original novel. He refers to the bells as his babies.

Like, he's his dad, and they're his little children he takes care of. And when he's introducing the bells to Esmeralda, he sings their names in the notes that they play. I think that's so clever.

That's such a great acting choice from Charles Laughton. Of course he's going to sing the names of the bells, because that is how they communicate with him. That is how he understands them.

[Patrick] I love all the little choices where he kicks the bells with his feet and swings them with his arms. He hardly ever uses the bell rope. It's such a joyous and playful attitude that is something that's from Hugo's novel, just in a new cinematic way.

[Leslie] I want to talk about Sir Cedric Hardwicke's Frollo. This is the Claude Frollo who we know from the book, but just like in Universal's "Hunchback" adaptation, the character Claude Frollo is split into two characters. The religious aspects of the character, namely him being the Archdeacon of Notre Dame, is given to a separate character who is the older brother of the second character, Jehan Frollo, who performs all of the actions that Claude Frollo does in the book.

He is lusting after and pursuing Esmeralda. He stabs Captain Phoebus and pins it on Esmeralda in an attempt to get her executed. Although in Victor Hugo's original novel, Frollo does not successfully murder Phoebus.

Phoebus survives that book. In this movie, Frollo is successful in stabbing the Captain. Captain Phoebus dies in this movie.

So we have Jehan's older brother, the Archdeacon, who represents God's goodness and sense of justice and compassion. And then we have his younger brother, Jehan Frollo. He is not the same Jehan Frollo from Victor Hugo's novel.

In Victor Hugo's novel, the character named Jehan Frollo is a teenager. He's a college student. He doesn't really care much about anything besides hooking up with pretty girls and drinking lots of beer.

YOLO swag forever. He's a frat boy. In this movie, Jehan Frollo is essentially the character Claude Frollo from the book, just without being the Archdeacon of Notre Dame, and without being an alchemist.

In the book, Frollo teaches alchemy to a whole bunch of nobles on the side. Here, Frollo is the king's chief justice, and he would never indulge in the Black Arts, like alchemy. He's very, very straight-laced.

[Patrick] I want to mention that during the 1930s, there was a formal censorship code in place in Hollywood. So even if they wanted to portray Frollo as a villainous priest, as in the novel, they really couldn't. One of the components of the Hays Code was that you could not portray clergy in a negative light.

Even so, I think that this plays around with the Hays Code and the censorship regime at the time. Esmeralda regards Frollo when they first meet, and she says, "Who are you? You're not a priest, and yet you look like one."

And Frollo replies, "I am what I wish to be."

[Leslie] Even though he's not a member of the clergy like his brother, he is a religious figure. I mean, when Jehan comes to his older brother, the Archdeacon, and says, I have killed a man out of love for a woman who has bewitched me, both characters quote the Bible in order to justify their stances.

[Patrick] Claude says, "He that smiteth a man so that he shall die shall be surely put to death." And Jehan replies, "Ah, but God also said, I will appoint a place where there he shall flee." You gotta protect me, bro.

Unlike the 1923 movie, the portrayal of religion in this movie is not totally black and white. Yes, the church is portrayed positively for the most part, as is religion itself. Esmeralda becomes a Christian in this adaptation.

[Leslie] Yeah, she prays to the Virgin Mary for the first time in her life, in a scene that never fails to make me tear up no matter how many times I watch this movie. And by the way, that scene where Esmeralda takes sanctuary in Notre Dame after she flees from the guards asking to see her city papers, aka her citizenship papers, that scene is borrowed in the Disney movie during the "God Help the Outcasts" sequence, when we see all the parishioners praying only for themselves, and then we cut to Esmeralda singing, I ask for nothing, I can get by, but I have so many less lucky than I. That does not appear in Victor Hugo's novel. Esmeralda is not interested in social justice at all in Victor Hugo's novel.

Her big goal instead is to be reunited with her long lost parents.

[Patrick] Esmeralda does pray to the Christian God in the novel, but it's really only out of desperation and fear towards the end of the story.

[Leslie] Yeah, she doesn't recognize her friends who are storming Notre Dame to liberate her from the cathedral and bring her home, and she prays to the Christian God for the very first time to protect her. Whereas in the 1939 movie, Esmeralda prays for her people to be liberated from oppression, saying, "Take my life, take all I have, but please help my people." You know, I ask for nothing, I can get by, but I have so many less lucky than I.

And there are quite a few scenes and shots in the Disney movie that are borrowed almost directly from RKO's 1939 movie, but we'll get to that when we get to the Disney movie in a couple of weeks.

[Patrick] Yeah, Ted Turner, who owned the copyright to the 1939 movie in the 1990s, he should have sued. This movie has a largely positive portrayal of Christianity and religion, but it does not shy away from the danger of hypocrisy and superstition as embodied by Jehan Frollo and the aristocracy and especially the legal system.

[Leslie] Yeah, when Jehan confronts Esmeralda in the cathedral, saying, you're a witch, you're a heathen, you come from an evil race, Esmeralda says something to the effect of, if my people really did have the power of witchcraft on our side, wouldn't we use it to lift ourselves out of poverty? Wouldn't we use it for our own gain? And Jehan, even though he's having his hypocrisy called out plain as day, doesn't even entertain the argument.

[Patrick] Nope, he just says that "Esmeralda's people should be destroyed by fire and sword", which is a paraphrase of actual orders that have been given against the Romani throughout the Middle Ages and early modern period.

[Leslie] I do really enjoy that scene though, because the two strike up, not a conversation necessarily, but Esmeralda does wear Claude Frollo down by talking about her love of animals. And of course, she's talking about this, she's looking at the Virgin Mary, and Jehan is staring at her rack, and every time she looks back at him, his eyes shoot from her chest back to hers. Very funny.

But he reveals that he loves animals too, and we see this whenever Jehan ducks into his office. There are cats everywhere, which makes me wonder, how does he get away with wearing black so often? He must be covered in cat hair from head to toe.

[Patrick] I wonder if he considers Quasimodo an animal, like one of his cats.

[Leslie] Oh, that's interesting. He probably does.

[Patrick] Quasimodo is kind of a cat. They're both loners who like jumping around.

[Leslie] Does Jehan talk to Quasimodo in this movie, or communicate with him outside of a couple facial expressions and a hand gesture? I mean, during the scene where Jehan orders Quasimodo to chase after and abduct Esmeralda, Jehan doesn't say anything. He just gives Quasimodo one single hand signal, and Quasimodo knows that that means chase after this person and abduct them, which tells me this can't have been pre-planned, right?

Because Esmeralda just came to Paris that day. Jehan Frollo has only just seen her. So this scene makes me wonder, how many other people has Jehan forced Quasimodo to kidnap?

If he already knows one hand signal means grab this person for me, surely there were others, right?

[Patrick] Maybe. Quasimodo is terrified of Frollo in this version. All Sir Cedric Hardwicke needs to do is give Quasimodo a stare and Quasimodo will stop whatever he's doing.

There's a scene where Quasimodo is madly ringing the bells out of affection for Esmeralda. All the priests in Notre Dame and the Archbishop and the Archdeacon cannot stop Quasimodo from ringing out at the wrong time. All Frollo has to do is give a single look to Quasimodo, and the filmmakers do a great job with portraying Frollo's dramatic eyes, which are an important part of his character in the novel.

Frollo is such a creepy, leering character, yet his eyes in the novel are the only part of him that seem youthful. His hair is almost completely gone except for a few ugly gray tufts, and otherwise his expression is very weathered and severe, but those eyes are the only glowing youthful part of him. And Sir Cedric Hardwicke does an amazing job with refraining from blinking.

Whenever he's going on some maniacal rant about how Esmeralda is a witch and must die, he never blinks. For as many differences as there are in this adaptation, I don't know if there's another adaptation that gets Frollo as a frightening, creepy character with those crazy eyes the way that this version does.

[Leslie] He's almost like a cat himself, in that his eyes move first and then he moves. Maybe he has taken on the mannerisms of those cats that he loves so much.

[Patrick] He likes those cats better than Quasimodo.

[Leslie] He likes those cats better than most human beings.

[Patrick] No, you're right. In the opening scene, Frollo tells the king that he should hang the operator of the printing press when that guy is like five feet away.

[Leslie] That's a scene straight from the Disney Channel. You need to hang the printer. Uh, he's right behind me, isn't he?

Except Jehan knows the printer's right behind him and doesn't care. Oh, your majesty, you should hang that guy. And of course, the king, because he is a more benevolent old man who doesn't take anything too seriously, is like, haha, Jehan, you're so funny.

[Patrick] "Sire, we must break the press and hang the printer, for between them they will destroy our old and holy order."

[Leslie] And there is a scene, and it's a very brief scene, I didn't mention it in the plot synopsis, where Jehan orders a printing press to be destroyed by the guards.

[Patrick] And the printing press was metaphorically and kind of literally destroyed in regimes like Nazi Germany. Freedom of expression was severely limited unless you were saying what the party line wanted. They had book burnings, for goodness sakes.

Frollo is also concerned about the foreign race overrunning all of Europe. Frollo in the novel wishes he had the power and efficacy of Frollo in this version. In the novel, Frollo writes petitions to ban the Romani from Paris.

But here, those laws are actually in place and enforced. At some point, Frollo is able to round up all of the Romani women in Paris just so he can inspect them and see, all right, did they find Esmeralda so I can have her for myself? He's using government power to bring Esmeralda into his midst.

And he doesn't even have to do the elaborate roundabout conspiracy like he does in the novel, where Frollo blames Esmeralda for Phoebus's murder, and then helps use his friendship and connections in the law to bring Esmeralda to his hands.

[Leslie] Which I think makes this Frollo look even more desperate. That he is in this huge position of power, even outside of the church. He is able to bring Esmeralda to him with just a flick of his wrist, and yet she keeps evading him.

I think that makes this Frollo look even more obsessive and neurotic. Oh my gosh, I am one of the most powerful people in the country. I am the king's high justice.

I should be able to snap my fingers and have this woman in my lap in two seconds. Why does she keep evading me? It's a very interesting dynamic.

[Patrick] Well, that's another influence on the Disney movie. In this adaptation, Frollo is a judge. He's the chief justice.

That's more or less the same role that Frollo has in the Disney animated film.

[Leslie] And that's a change that originated in the first opera adapted from "The Hunchback of Notre Dame," Louise Bertin's "La Esmeralda," in which the character Frollo was supposed to be a priest, but the French government censorship committee said, hey, you can't have the antagonist of your opera, which is being performed at a government-funded opera house, in the role of a clergyman. That's not okay. So that character was changed to an alderman or a magistrate, someone who still has a position of authority just in the judicial system rather than in the church.

And we see that change made in several other adaptations. We see it made in this movie, RKO's movie. We see it made many decades later in the Disney movie.

You know what I like about this screenplay? I like that it fills in some little plot holes from Victor Hugo's novel without feeling overwritten. For example, in Victor Hugo's novel, this play is being performed at the Festival of Fools, written by Pierre Gringoire, and then Clopin starts interrupting the play by begging for money.

Why is Clopin interrupting the play? Why is he begging for money at this particular moment? Well, RKO's movie answers that.

At some point, Clopin looks up and says, oh, all these people are watching the play, which means they're not watching us and giving us money. So he hijacks the play. In Victor Hugo's novel, Esmeralda is present at Quasimodo's for some reason.

Here, the movie answers that question. Pierre Gringoire is present, trying to appeal to the archdeacon to stop the brutal punishment. Esmeralda finds him and says, oh, I told my people that the king is considering helping us, and then sees Quasimodo.

In Victor Hugo's novel, Esmeralda shares that she came to Paris a few years ago with a caravan of her people. Why did she do that? Why Paris?

Why not any other city in Europe? Well, this movie answers that. She comes to Paris to appeal to the king and try to get her people equal rights.

It's filling in those little plot holes without feeling heavy-handed. You know, that's a criticism that I have of movies like Disney's live-action "Beauty and the Beast," starring Emma Watson, where it goes out of its way to answer questions that nobody really had. And if they did, they were speculating amongst themselves on Tumblr.

Oh, why didn't anyone remember the castle staff? Oh, that's weird. I don't think we needed that question answered in that movie.

I think the fact that Disney went out of its way to answer it in the remake of the movie just proves that they're a little self-conscious about what people on the internet might say about their films. So RKO's "Hunchback" fills in little plot holes very naturally and organically, showing rather than telling, without being heavy-handed or feeling self-conscious or anxious.

[Patrick] It's a very confident movie.

[Leslie] Absolutely. There's a lot of showing rather than telling. For example, when Quasimodo is preparing to fight back the vagabonds who he thinks are trying to storm the cathedral to kill Esmeralda, he's not running around the bell tower mumbling to himself saying, oh no, what do I do?

I have to save Esmeralda, but I don't know how. Because he doesn't have to. Charles Laughton is such a good physical actor that we can see that fear and confusion and conflict on Quasimodo's face and in Quasimodo's body, and we as the viewer can extrapolate that that is what he's thinking.

You know, this is a movie that trusts its viewers' intelligence. It shows and it doesn't tell. Pat, I reached out to a couple of our listeners on social media and I said, hey, the next adaptation we're covering is RKO's 1939 movie.

Are there any bits of trivia you think I should include in my notes? And just about all of them said, oh, you should include the fact that this film's sound technicians went to Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris and recorded the bells to include in the movie. And I replied, yes, they did, and then they got back to America and realized the actual bells of Notre Dame didn't sound that great.

So they recorded the bells at a random local church and used those instead. So there you go.

[Patrick] I'm reminded of that episode of "The Simpsons" where a film production comes to Springfield and the kids are confused as to why some of the filmmakers are painting horses white with black spots. The kids ask what's going on and the filmmakers explain that they're painting the horses to look like cows because cows don't look like cows on film. You got to use horses.

Well, what do you use if you want to show a horse? I don't know. Usually you just tape a bunch of cats together.

We got the real bells of Notre Dame in this movie. Yeah, but they don't sound like the bells of Notre Dame as we imagine them in our hearts. Find something better.

[Leslie] We got the bells of Notre Dame at home. All right, Pat, we have arrived at the end of our episode about RKO's "The Hunchback of Notre Dame," released in 1939. But before we part, what are your overall thoughts on this particular film?

[Patrick] I love this movie. I could almost quote it word for word from the beginning.

[Leslie] I would be very surprised if you couldn't.

[Patrick] Eh, let's go on a long road trip. Let's see what happens.

[Leslie] All right, listener, I'll update you.

[Patrick] This is a brilliantly made film in just about every aspect. The editing is terrific. This is fast paced and engaging.

The special effects and set design are world class. This is the Hollywood studio system at its peak doing the best that it could do, which was be efficient and get a lot of people moving and a lot of parts in motion. The cast is stacked and all give fantastic performances.

This is a career-defining performance for Charles Laughton, a career-defining performance for Maureen O'Hara, and career highlights for Thomas Mitchell, Sir Cedric Hardwick, and Edmund O'Brien, who is unrecognizable in this movie. He's most famous for being kind of schlubby and gangster movies. I think he was in the first movie version of "1984."

All excellent performances. On the back of the box of the DVD, it says that this is one of the best examples of Hollywood expertise at work. I agree.

And Maureen O'Hara, years later reflecting on this movie, said, "It's the best hunchback that was ever made." It's the finest portrayal by anybody of Quasimodo, and that she was very proud to have been part of it. And I'm inclined to agree.

We'll go through all of the adaptations that we can find throughout this podcast and this little creative adventure, and I hope that there are new adaptations that are even better, but it's going to be very difficult to top this movie. This is a masterpiece, and it's up there with Hugo's novel for me. I adore this movie.

It really is one of the finest that has ever been made in film history. Now, Leslie, could you possibly praise this movie any more than me?

[Leslie] I completely agree with Miss O'Hara. This is the best hunchback that was ever made. This is one of those very rare book-to-film adaptations where the movie is better than the book.

And I am saying that as someone who considers Victor Hugo's "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" to be my favorite novel of all time. This movie redeems Pierre Gringoire, a character I absolutely despised in the book. It fills in just about all of the book's plot holes without feeling overwritten.

And it argues for the book's themes better than the book itself does, those themes being the triumph of intellectualism and modernity over medievalism and brutishness. Every single one of the actors in this film gives a career best performance. I am heartbroken that this film wasn't at least nominated for best picture.

[Patrick] This movie only got two Oscar nominations for best sound and best score. Nothing for directing, nothing for best picture, nothing for acting. I know it was a stacked year in 1939.

Still, this movie is that good.

[Leslie] I think it is a crime against humanity that this film did not get at least a nomination for best picture. It's a crime against humanity that Charles Laughton didn't get at least a nomination for best actor. And of course there was no Oscar for best makeup at this time, unfortunately.

The Oscar for best makeup wasn't introduced until after David Lynch's "The Elephant Man" was released in theaters. But I digress. Listener, if you have never seen this movie, please, please, please, please, please, I will sell you my firstborn if only you agree to give it a chance.

You will be amazed. Which brings us to the game we like to play at the end of every episode. Patrick, out of everyone and everything we discussed in this episode of "The Hunchcast," who or what would you, A, meet at the inn, B, turn to dust with, and C, throw off of Notre Dame?

[Patrick] I will be meeting Sonia Levien at the inn because how on earth do you go to NYU law school with no high school diploma? Sounds like a lot easier of a time. So, Sonia, what is your secret?

We'll get a drink. We'll get a room. We'll figure it out.

Now I'll be turning to dust with Charles Laughton, not just because this performance is one of the best, but because Charles Laughton is one of the best. Maybe not one of the best people. He could often be very cruel and arrogant, but his pathos and his genius and love of beauty really are remarkable.

I love Laughton so much that I did a book report about a biography of him when I was in the ninth grade. Laughton's performance in this movie is so wonderful that it introduced me to so many wonderful films that he starred in. Mutiny on the Bounty, The Island of Lost Souls, The Old Dark House, The Private Life of Henry VIII.

He even played Rembrandt once upon a time. Laughton is one of my favorite actors. He's certainly not your conventional Hollywood type, being not conventionally attractive and overweight, but he is so brilliant and so wonderful and has this love of beauty about him, even if it is mixed with his own self-loathing and misery, that it breaks my heart just to think about him.

So I will be turning to dust with the one and only Charles Laughton. As for who I'll be throwing off of Notre Dame, it's not anybody in this movie. It's not anybody who made this movie.

I will be throwing the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, every last voting member, off of Notre Dame, and I hope they impale themselves with their Golden Academy Awards statues as they land. This movie was absolutely snubbed at the 1940 Academy Awards, and heads need to roll for that crime against humanity, Leslie.

[Leslie] Yeah, shove your little gold statues up your butt, people.

[Patrick] Now Leslie, are we in agreement or do you have your own take?

[Leslie] Oh, I always have my own take. I am an individual.

[Patrick] Ah, a free thinker, like Gringoire.

[Leslie] I try to be. I am going to meet Edmund O'Brien at the inn. Not only is he a beautiful, beautiful man, very nice to look at in this movie, but he brings a sort of intensity and earnestness and compassion to Pierre Gringoire that is completely absent from the character in Victor Hugo's original novel.

I love what he brings to the role. I love that he, along with the brilliant writing of Sonia Levien, totally redeemed this character and make him one of my favorite characters in any Hunchback adaptation. So I'm going to meet Mr. O'Brien at the inn. And he and Maureen O'Hara met each other at the inn quite a few times after this movie was made. Not in a romantic context, I don't believe they ever dated, but the two of them remained friends for a very, very long time after this movie finished shooting. Even though they never worked together again, they made an effort to stay in each other's lives, which I think is very sweet.

I will be turning to dust with showing and not telling. Listener, I am an editor. That's my career.

That's how I pay the bills. My editing philosophy when it comes to fiction is showing rather than telling. Trust the reader's intelligence.

You don't need to hold their hand and spoon feed them. Trust that they weren't born yesterday and they can extrapolate what's going on without you having to overexplain, as in these second screen movies that are being released on Netflix nowadays. I think this movie is a great example of showing rather than telling.

There are quite a few scenes that do not have any dialogue at all, or if they do, very little dialogue, and yet we as the audience know exactly what's going on. We know exactly what the characters are thinking and feeling just based on their expressions and the context of the scene. That is the mark of a great writer, Sonia Levien.

I hope you got your flowers eventually. I can't believe you were snubbed for an Oscar for best adapted screenplay, so I'm turning to dust with showing rather than telling. And this might get me in a bit of trouble with our listeners.

I'm going to throw the bells of Notre Dame off of Notre Dame. Get your act together, guys. How far you have fallen from your former glory.

Say that ten times fast. What do you mean you didn't even sound good enough to be featured in a movie about the bells of Notre Dame and that the sound technicians at RKO had to go to a random local church? Come on, guys, get it together or I'm tilting you off of the facade.

[Patrick] Well, whatever we got next episode, Leslie, has some pretty big shoes to fill.

[Leslie] Does it sing the bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells of Notre Dame?

[Patrick] Well, I suppose we'll find out.

[Leslie] Thank you for listening to this episode of "The Hunchcast." Ring that notification bell to be automatically updated when new episodes are released. If you liked this episode, please take a moment to give this podcast a five star rating or review.

It really helps our show get in front of new people. For free bonus content and to share your thoughts with us, follow us on Instagram, Tumblr, and TikTok at "The Hunchcast." "The Hunchcast" is a production of 1482 Media.

[Patrick] Welcome to "The Hunchcast," where we discuss all things "The Hunchback of Notre Dame." I'm Patrick.

[Leslie] And I'm Leslie. And today, we're discussing the Lon Chaney biopic "Man of a Thousand Faces," released in 1957, directed by Joseph Pevney, and starring James Cagney, Dorothy Malone, and Jane Greer.

Pat, last I checked, this is a Hunchback of Notre Dame podcast. Why in God's name are we talking about the Lon Chaney biopic?

[Patrick] Well, it's because this movie features a lot of scenes that depict the making of Universal Pictures' "The Hunchback of Notre Dame," which we reviewed in our previous episode.

[Leslie] Yes, this is Lon Chaney May here at "The Hunchcast," folks.

[Patrick] Lon Mayney?

[Leslie] We'll workshop it.

[Patrick] Movies about the lives of celebrities are nothing new.

[Leslie] Well, that's my question for today's Minute of History, Patrick. Why was this particular biopic made in the mid-1950s? I mean, Lon Chaney passed away in 1930.

What was it about his story and his portrayal of Quasimodo, perhaps one of his most famous characters, that demanded to be retold 27 years after his death?

[Patrick] Corporate nostalgia. During this time, the mid-1950s, there was an increased interest and nostalgia for the era of silent film.

Remember, there was no home video back then. There was no Netflix. There were no DVDs.

There was barely television, and TV stations in the 1950s were not going to show silent movies unless it was a cartoon or a very desperate occasion, right? People wanted things that were new or at the very least had sound. But yet there were still so many moviegoers that remembered silent movies.

"The Jazz Singer," the first movie with a synchronized soundtrack, only came out 30 years before "Man of a Thousand Faces." And there were a few manifestations of this nostalgia throughout the 1950s. Probably the biggest is the movie "Sunset Boulevard," which is all about Norma Desmond, a washed-up has-been actress from the silent movie era, who wants to stage her big comeback in the era of sound films, which the movie came out in 1950.

Sound movies were only 23 years old. That would be like making a movie about a washed-up OG YouTuber today. And yet for some reason, 23 years in the past seemed a lot further than it does today.

[Leslie] Well, probably because there were very few tangible ways to recall that period. Like you said, Patrick, TV stations weren't re-airing silent films in the middle of the day. It felt further away because there was no way to physically present it to the next generation and say, oh look, let's sit down and I'm going to show you the movies I used to watch when I was a kid.

[Patrick] Also during this time, you had companies like Ken Films and other distributors of 8mm and Super 8 films that would sell old cartoons and clips from old movies, especially old silent movies, in a format that did not include sound. So people were able to see clips from these movies if they had the money to own a projector and buy reels of film.

[Leslie] Did a lot of people have access to that kind of money?

[Patrick] No. But a lot of people did have access to their local movie theaters. It might have been difficult to watch old films, but new films, I already mentioned "Sunset Boulevard," increasingly pandered to a nostalgia for the silent era.

And there were a few biopics throughout the 50s of silent movie stars. Probably the most notable was "The Buster Keaton Story." This movie was all about the famous slapstick comedian, Buster Keaton.

And it follows a similar format to this movie, where you go through the actor's life and their loves and tragedies and triumphs and do little recreations of some of their most famous moments, which, again, there's no home video, were very hard to see. There was also no way for the average person to cross-reference if the Hollywood recreations were accurate in the slightest.

[Leslie] And, oh boy, listener, we are going to get into whether these recreations from this movie are accurate to the movie we reviewed last episode.

[Patrick] Now, that's why people were interested in the silent movie era to begin with. It was nostalgic. As for Lon Chaney himself, it's the same reason.

Chaney was famous as the man of a thousand faces, as the title of this movie would suggest. He was the master of playing grotesque and unusual roles and depicting them through his own ingenious makeup designs. Shortly after Chaney's death, Universal Studios, who Chaney worked with throughout his career on such films as "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" and "The Phantom of the Opera," really ramped up their films in the genres of the macabre and the supernatural, with movies like "Dracula" and especially makeup-heavy horror films like "Frankenstein," "The Bride of Frankenstein," and "The Wolfman."

And those movies were successful in the 1930s and 1940s, but by the 1950s, they had fallen by the wayside until the advent of television. Television brought these old horror movies full of grotesque, Lon Chaney-like characters to the mainstream, and a whole new generation, the baby boom generation, really grew up with and loved these films all over again.

[Leslie] But they weren't watching the movies that Lon Chaney was in, right? Because TV stations weren't re-airing silent films?

[Patrick] Very rarely. However, these so-called monster kids, these boomers who really liked "Dracula" and "Frankenstein" from seeing reruns on TV, they saw plenty of photographs of Lon Chaney as Quasimodo and "The Phantom of the Opera" and other unusual characters, because in order to capitalize on the newfound popularity of these old Universal Studios monster films, new magazines like "Famous Monsters of Filmland," published by the lovely Forrest J. Ackerman, really capitalized on this newfound interest in vintage horror films. And besides talking about the history and the making of these old movies, these magazines would publish photographs from hard-to-find films.

Ackerman and other magazine publishers would reprint photos of Lon Chaney, and they built him up in these magazines as a sort of mythic figure. You kids might not know about Lon Chaney, but let me tell you, for the older generation, he was the real deal when it came to monster stuff. So these magazines were full of trivia, they were full of humor, they were full of history and plenty of myths, but they were also a huge source of interest and enthusiasm for Chaney.

So you've got your silent film nostalgia going on, and you've got a hunger amongst young audiences to know more about Lon Chaney and these films that are so hard to see in the 1950s.

[Leslie] But does this film accurately portray those silent movies, especially the movie we talked about in our last episode, Universal's The Hunchback of Notre Dame? We are going to get into it, listener. But first, let me summarize the plot, and then our lovely hunchback historian will break down how much of it is historically accurate and how much of it is gussied up and glamorized for Hollywood.

A young Lon Chaney grows up in Colorado Springs, where he is often bullied for having deaf parents. As an adult, Lon, played by James Cagney, who is almost 60 playing a 22-year-old, mind you, it happens to the best of us, performs in a vaudeville show with his wife, Cleva Creighton, played by Dorothy Malone. After Cleva is fired from the show, she encourages Lon to take an offer from "The Kolb and Dill Show," another popular vaudeville act, and shares that she's pregnant.

Lon takes Cleva to meet his parents to share the good news, but Cleva is scandalized when she learns Lon's parents are deaf. Afraid her unborn child will also be deaf, she expresses interest in getting an abortion, telling Lon, ""And if you think my portrayal was overwrought, watch the movie." You'll be stifling laughter.

To Cleva's relief, her son, Creighton, is born hearing. As the years go by, Lon and Creighton develop a friendship with a Kolb and Dill chorus girl named Hazel Hastings, played by Jane Greer. Meanwhile, Cleva and Lon have grown apart.

Cleva tells Lon she took a job as a singer and that she's hired a nanny for Creighton, asserting, Lon approaches Cleva's employer and convinces him to fire her. A few days later, in the middle of Lon's vaudeville act, Cleva walks on stage and poisons herself. She survives, but the action damages her vocal cords, and she can never sing again.

After Cleva runs away from the hospital, Lon divorces her and sues her for full custody of their son, but the court rules that Lon doesn't have a suitable home or steady employment, and Creighton is put into a home for wards of the state. Desperate to start a new life and earn a steady income, Lon moves to Los Angeles to work in motion pictures. Over the years, his ability to use both his body and makeup to transform into different characters earns him a reputation in Hollywood.

After a journalist asks about Lon's ex-wife and child, Lon swears off interviews for good. Hazel visits Lon, confesses her feelings for him, and proposes they get married to improve Lon's chances of regaining custody of his son. The plan works, and Creighton, who thinks Cleva is dead, starts calling Hazel mom.

Lon's career takes off, and he's brought to Universal Studios to meet a young producer named Irving Thalberg, played by Robert Evans, who pitches Lon the role of Quasimodo in "The Hunchback of Notre Dame," or "The Hunchback of Notre Dame," as everyone in this movie calls it. Thalberg asks Lon how he sees Quasimodo, and Lon replies, "I see him as a man deformed, cursed, tormented, laughed at as a freak, but his tormentors never see the heartbreak or the tears." Thalberg replies, Production on "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" begins, but, plot twist, Cleva reappears, and approaches Lon on set during the whipping scene.

She says she regrets walking out on her family, and all she wants is to see her son again, but Lon refuses. Meanwhile, Creighton, now a teenager, expresses interest in becoming an actor and working under the name Lon Chaney Jr., but his father forbids it. Later, Hazel tells Creighton that Cleva is alive, and he leaves home to take care of his mother, calling his father a liar on the way out.

Irving Thalberg, now working for MGM, tells Lon about the advent of talking pictures and proposes remaking one of Lon's hit movies, "The Unholy Three," as a sound film. On the set, Chaney suffers from a gravelly voice and is rushed to the hospital, where he's diagnosed with throat cancer. Shortly after, Lon and Creighton make amends.

On his deathbed, Lon writes, Jr., next to the name Lon Chaney, imprinted on his makeup case, and bequeaths it to his son. Creighton takes the makeup case from his father, ready to begin his acting career, and the credits roll. Patrick, break it down for us.

How much of that is historically accurate? Give me a percentage.

[Patrick] I'd say about 60, maybe even 65.

[Leslie] You know what? That's a lot better than some biopics I've seen, so I'll take it.

[Patrick] I gotta be honest. This movie has a reputation of being totally made up. I don't think that's fair.

There are a handful of creative interpretations of the facts.

[Leslie] That's a really polite way to put making stuff up.

[Patrick] But I think most people are too hard on the facts of this movie. First of all, when this movie was being written, there wasn't a biography of Lon Chaney that you could read. Now, probably the most famous one is written by a guy named Michael F.

Blake, who is the definitive expert on Lon Chaney. He wrote, I think, two biographies of Chaney in the early 90s that still hold up really well. But before then, there weren't a lot of facts written out there because, and this movie portrays this accurately, Chaney was not a fan of interviews.

He famously said something along the lines of, "In between films, there is no Lon Chaney." So, I can give the screenwriters a little bit of credit by filling in some of the gaps. The basic facts of Chaney's life are there, more than I would have expected, but it's the way that the facts are told.

So you have the facts, how are we telling the story? The story is pretty different than the actual history, especially with regard to Chaney's relationship with his son, Creighton. Spoiler alert, Lon would have never dreamed of calling his son Lon Chaney Jr. and making him his official successor.

[Leslie] Well, now I want to hear you elaborate on that. What was their relationship really like? By the time Chaney died of throat cancer, which, by the way, the fact that Lon Chaney died of throat cancer right after making his one and only sound film is historically accurate.

That is way too coincidental to make up.

[Patrick] Less historically accurate is the fact that he died in bed surrounded by family, he died in the hospital, and especially the detail of Chaney bequeathing his makeup case to Creighton and writing Jr. at the end. No way. Chaney never wanted his son to be an actor, and he never had a come-to-Jesus moment at the end of his life like happens in this movie.

By the time Chaney died in 1930, Creighton was working as a plumber or a water heater repairman. And because it was the Great Depression and because his father was no longer there to disapprove, Creighton did seek work as an actor, but he didn't call himself Lon Chaney Jr. because he knew that would be disrespectful to his father. He tries making it on his own, and, listener, I don't want to be too mean to Lon Chaney Jr. But there's a reason why his greatest role is playing Lenny from "Of Mice and Men."

[Leslie] Well, didn't he also play the Wolfman at one point?

[Patrick] Oh, he played the Wolfman like five times. But anyway, Creighton tries to become an actor in the early days of the Great Depression. He's not a great actor, and eventually some sleazy Hollywood producers are saying, listen, kid, you're no good.

You're getting Z-level roles in B movies. So, Creighton, let's change your name to Lon Chaney Jr., and maybe you'll start getting some work. And to be fair, it does work.

Of course, he eventually gets typecast as acting in horror films. Acting might be a bit of a stretch. He lacks the charisma of Boris Karloff and the menace of Bela Lugosi, but he has a certain working man quality about him that I can appreciate.

[Leslie] Is that working man quality being named Lon Chaney Jr. and living in his father's shadow?

[Patrick] I'd say more like drowning in your father's shadow. Oh, poor Lon Chaney Jr. And Lon was not the loving father that this movie portrays him as. Here in the movie, Lon is so determined to do anything for his son.

He wants the best for Creighton at all times. And I'm not saying that Lon Chaney was the worst father in the world. He was maybe like the third worst.

He was pretty disrespectful to Creighton, especially with his hopes and dreams. And yeah, lying to your son and saying that his mother was dead for years when really you just divorced is kind of nuts. And that's not something made up for the movie.

That's a real detail.

[Leslie] Another real detail is that while there isn't much known about Lon Chaney's first marriage to Cleva Creighton, the detail that she walked out on stage in the middle of one of his performances and poisoned herself? That's historically accurate. Yikes.

A detail this movie doesn't portray is that when Lon Chaney and Cleva got married, he was 22 and she was 16. And she had the baby, Creighton, when she was 17.

[Patrick] But you know what's surprisingly accurate and touching, at least in my opinion? The portrayal of deaf people in this movie. This movie is full of sign language.

I'd say about like 20% of the movie is just in American Sign Language with no subtitles. And the technology obviously existed at the time. I feel like if this movie came out today when characters are talking to each other in sign language, there would be a huge impulse from a producer.

Put subtitles on so we can know what's going on. But no. When characters are talking in sign language, like when James Cagney as Lon Chaney is praying, or he's talking to his mother and father who are deaf, or talking to his son and teaching him sign language, there's no subtitles, but you can still figure out what's going on with their performances.

It's a surprisingly sensitive portrayal of disability for a movie from the 1950s.

[Leslie] Yeah, I think it's worth mentioning that this film was released just over 10 years after in Europe disabled people are being herded into concentration camps. You know, the Holocaust was not too far away from the release of this film. So for this film to take such a sensitive approach to disability, except with Cleva Creighton's thoughts on disabled people, and we'll unpack that, is really profound.

And very, very touching. And I like that there are no subtitles for the sign language scenes. I think, number one, it reinforces to those of us who are watching who don't know sign language, oh, this is what deaf people feel like when hearing people are talking.

They can't understand what the heck is going on either unless they can read lips. And number two, like you said, Patrick, the actors are so good at using their faces and relying on the tone of the scene that you as the audience member get a pretty good idea of what is being communicated without words. And that was Lon Chaney's strength, his ability to communicate information without words.

And that was why he made such a compelling Quasimodo in Universal's adaptation.

[Patrick] Less nuanced is the portrayal of ableism. The filmmakers got the hard part right. They were able to portray the culture of deaf people very accurately and sensitively.

Yet when it comes to the prejudices against those people, it is so heavy-handed. The movie goes from being very touching and sophisticated to just being like a corny after-school special. I swear, everybody in this movie hates deaf people.

[Leslie] This movie takes place in a world where everyone is shockingly ableist. I mean, when Cleva realizes that her in-laws are deaf and that her baby might also be deaf, she immediately wants an abortion. She bursts into tears and runs away from the dinner table.

"I don't want to be mother to a dumb thing!" I mean, it would be really heartbreaking if it wasn't so dramatic and overwrought. I mean, I was watching this movie stifling laughter at how ridiculous that was.

[Patrick] And the score, which is normally, you know, very sensitive and symphonic, goes so over the top during these scenes.

[Leslie] You would think that you were watching a battle scene in "All Quiet on the Western Front."

[Patrick] But no, it's just a scene of somebody saying, "I hate deaf people! They are not my equals!" And walking across the room.

And it's not just Cleva, Chaney's first wife, who's like this. There's a scene where Chaney is showing his press book to a theater manager, trying to get a job. And the manager guy is really impressed.

Like, wow, you're really good at pantomime. How do you do that? And Chaney's like, oh, I learned it from my parents.

Ooh, they in show business? No. Deaf.

And the manager guy just freezes. And he squints up his face. And he says, "MUTES!"

But then there's like a cute line that is kind of clever. "Well, don't let it bother you. It doesn't bother them."

And Chaney's parents seem so happy. They seem like they have such a nice family relationship. Which I hope is true.

There's not a ton about Chaney's family life. But it did seem like he had a pretty decent upbringing. All things are considered.

[Leslie] Yeah, their home is so pretty. It's on such an idyllic little snow-covered road. I mean, during the scene where Chaney takes his wife home for Christmas for the first time, their uber home is a horse-drawn sleigh.

This movie captures such a charming period of American history.

[Patrick] It's simultaneously very nuanced and just completely goofy with its portrayal of deafness and disability.

[Leslie] Speaking of goofy portrayals, James Cagney's performance was very widely praised both by audience members and critics when this movie was released. But when I look at him in this movie, I don't see Lon Chaney. I see James Cagney.

You know, he was almost 60 when this movie was released. And here he is playing a tap-dancing 22-year-old. He doesn't look like Chaney at all.

Chaney is very slim and tall. He's got very high cheekbones and sunken back eyes and flat, blunt eyebrows. James Cagney looks nothing like that.

He's a competent actor. He gives a good performance. He clearly knows what he's doing.

I mean, Orson Welles in a BBC interview called James Cagney perhaps the greatest actor who ever stepped in front of a camera. I don't see that in this movie. When he says, my name is Lon Chaney, I don't believe him.

Which is a shame because he's clearly a very competent actor. I mean, at this point, he had an Academy Award.

[Patrick] James Cagney is best known for playing gangsters and tough guys.

[Leslie] Stick him up, see?

[Patrick] No, that's Edward G. Robinson. Cagney's more stereotyped as saying, you dirty rat.

Although apparently he never said that in any of those old gangster movies.

[Leslie] Mandela effect.

[Patrick] Literally, but he's like a tough guy, little guy gangster. He's kind of short and stubby. And aside from being a gangster, he's in musicals.

Like "Yankee Doodle Dandy."

[Leslie] Well, he grew up on the vaudeville circuit. So I can see that connection to Chaney. Maybe that's why he was cast in this role.

But again, I just don't buy him as Lon Chaney. I especially don't buy him in what is supposed to be a recreation of Lon Chaney's makeup looks. I mean, let's talk about the Quasimodo makeup look recreation in this movie.

There are a couple scenes in this film of James Cagney as Lon Chaney wearing what is supposed to be Lon Chaney's Quasimodo makeup from Universal's Hunchback. The film we talked about in our previous episode. It looks nothing like Chaney's makeup.

Frankly, it looks a lot worse than Chaney's makeup. And Chaney did his makeup job by himself with incredibly primitive techniques. I mean, rubber wasn't widely available in the 1920s, so he didn't really use it.

This movie relies pretty heavily on a rubber mask. It just looks like a halfway decent Halloween costume.

[Patrick] They look terrible.

[Leslie] Especially the Phantom of the Opera. I mean, my gosh, that's just repulsive. And not in a good way.

[Patrick] Granted, there's only so much you can do to make James Cagney look like Lon Chaney. They have very different facial structures. I'm not going to hold back when it comes to my criticism of the makeup of this movie.

Not just because it's important to the story, but because the people who did the makeup were very talented. This movie had a budget. This was made by Universal.

This movie is made in widescreen and has a bunch of movie stars in it. It's not like this was a budget production. They had the money.

And they had the talent. The Westmore family, which is probably the most famous family of makeup artists in all of Hollywood history, worked on this movie. I think it was Bud Westmore who did the makeup here?

[Leslie] And didn't another member of the Westmore family, Perce Westmore, didn't he do the makeup job on Charles Laughton's Quasimodo in the 1939 "Hunchback" for RKO?

[Patrick] Yeah, he did. And we'll get to that one soon. But Perce Westmore did an amazing job with his Quasimodo.

[Leslie] Oh, Charles Laughton looks fantastic in that movie.

[Patrick] But this Quasimodo, done decades later, looks terrible. And I get that there were a lot of different makeup jobs to make for this movie. So they couldn't spend the entire time working on just one character.

But I'm sorry. They all look terrible. They had more advanced techniques.

And by this time in the history of makeup, you could apply materials very quickly. Thanks to innovations in rubber and plastic production, you could have specific parts molded rather than having to build them up organically every day as Chaney did with his wart and some of his details on his cheekbones.

[Leslie] Yeah, as we mentioned in our previous episode, listener, Chaney was working at a time when the idea of a movie studio hiring a designated makeup artist or crew of makeup artists was unheard of. It hadn't happened yet. Actors were expected to supply and do their own makeup.

And it's just a testament to Lon Chaney's talent that his original makeups that he did by hand with primitive techniques in the 1920s looked so much better than the recreations done by an entire team with cutting edge techniques 30 years later.

[Patrick] This Quasimodo looks like a caveman. He is so goofy. And in the scenes where they're recreating the whipping scene, the body makeup is even worse than the face.

[Leslie] It's awful. The hair is applied everywhere with really no rhyme or reason. His hump is just not prominent on his body at all.

It's really underwhelming. And what's especially underwhelming in the recreation of the whipping scene is the number of extras positioned around the pillory. In Universal's Hunchback, there are innumerable extras.

Hundreds upon hundreds. In the recreation of the whipping scene in "Man of a Thousand Faces," that hundreds strong crowd has been culled down to a couple dozen. I mean, what happened to Paris?

Did the frickin' plague whip through there? Come on, guys. You couldn't get a couple dozen more extras?

[Patrick] Notre Dame itself looks pretty rough too. This movie was made by Universal. The sets for the 1923 "Hunchback" were still standing for the most part.

I think up until the 60s, like 1967.

[Leslie] So Universal absolutely could have used the same sets for the recreation of the whipping scene. I don't know why they didn't. That's a huge missed opportunity there.

It just ends up looking like the Great Value version of Universal's "Hunchback." Which I guess is okay because this movie focuses a lot more heavily on Lon Chaney's personal life. Which I guess was appealing because so much of his personal life was a mystery.

He and his family kept to themselves mostly. The recreation scenes of "The Phantom of the Opera" and "The Hunchback" are really used as set dressing for Lon Chaney's personal drama. Such as, during the whipping scene, Lon's estranged ex-wife Cleva pulls up and says, "I want to see my baby, please!"

And he goes, "No! I hate you. Because you hate deaf people."

[Patrick] My god, I'm sorry, I gotta keep hating on the makeup.

[Leslie] Please hate on it! We could spend the rest of our lives hating on these makeup jobs and it wouldn't be enough.

[Patrick] Poor James Cagney can hardly get a performance through all of the rubber that's glued to his face. Which is a shame because Lon Chaney was so expressive in that original movie.

[Leslie] It reminds me of the expressions on the faces of the lions in Disney's original animated "The Lion King" versus the non-expressions on the emotionless faces of the CGI lions in Disney's quote-unquote live action "The Lion King." Just a beautiful canvas of emotion versus absolutely nothing. Just totally stiff like they're frozen in ice.

That's what I see when I compare the Quasimodo makeup in this film to the Quasimodo makeup in Universal's film.

[Patrick] But hey, the Quasimodo recreation is a masterpiece compared to "The Phantom of the Opera," which is probably Chaney's best makeup job and best movie that he was in. It is unbelievable in the original. And here, poor James Cagney looks terrible.

He looks like the bottom of a sneaker. And the set is even worse. It takes place in some random hallway when the movie was filmed again at Universal in sound stages that were still in use in the 1950s, a recreation of which appears in the opening scene.

[Leslie] I know, I know. I want to talk about the scene where young Irving Thalberg pitches the role of Quasimodo to James Cagney as Lon Chaney. Listener, if you listened to our previous episode about Universal's "Hunchback," you already know that this is not historically accurate.

Lon Chaney was the one who pitched the movie to Universal after trying and failing to get it made himself as an independent venture. Listener, you also know that the part about Irving Thalberg being very sickly as a child and spending a lot of time cooped up in bed reading and coming across "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" and falling in love with it, that is historically accurate. So we've got a mishmash of facts and, let's say, creative licenses at play here.

I think the funniest part about this scene, or at least the part that made me laugh out loud, was when Irving Thalberg tells Lon Chaney, "Oh, did you receive the book?" As in, did you receive Victor Hugo's "The Hunchback of Notre Dame?" And Lon Chaney replies, "Yes, I did.

I couldn't put it down. I read it in one sitting." Listener, "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" is 450 pages long.

450 dense pages. Is Chaney saying that he didn't get up from his chair even to use the bathroom for 10 hours straight? Because I think that's what he's implying here.

Sorry, "The Hunchback of Notre Dame." Because that's what everyone in this movie calls it, for some reason.

[Patrick] Notre Dame de Paris is not an airport novel.

[Leslie] No, absolutely not. You could read it on a red-eye from New York to Sydney, Australia, but you can't read it on a three-hour flight to Las Vegas. Absolutely not.

I read it in one sitting. Couldn't put it down. What are you talking about, brother?

I understand I couldn't put it down. I get it. But this is not the kind of book you can read in one sitting.

This is not "The Hunger Games." This is not "Divergent."

[Patrick] I don't think it's a book you should read in one sitting.

[Leslie] I totally agree with that. Don't read it in one sitting. Read it over at least a couple days.

Take a while to digest it and to reflect on it as you go. That's the reason why we spent five episodes covering Hugo's novel rather than pushing everything into a single episode. It's the kind of novel that really takes its time.

Another detail in this scene that is accurate is Lon Chaney not really believing that Irving Thalberg can be a 23-year-old kid and being really surprised by his age. That was historically accurate. Irving Thalberg was extremely young to be a producer at even a B-level movie studio like Universal was at the time.

But quick fun fact, Patrick. Do you know how Robert Evans got cast as Irving Thalberg in this movie?

[Patrick] What's the tale, my dear?

[Leslie] Well, he was in the pool at the Beverly Hills Hotel and coincidentally Irving Thalberg's widow was lounging by the pool at the same time. And she saw Robert Evans coming out of the water and she thought, huh, that kid looks a lot like my late husband did when he was in his 20s. So she approached him and the rest is history.

He gets cast in this movie that kicks off his acting career. Eventually he transitions from acting to producing and becomes head of production at Paramount where he oversees the making of the "Godfather" movies. So Robert Evans was a pretty cool guy.

[Patrick] You know who we haven't mentioned since your initial plot summary? Hazel, Chaney's second wife.

[Leslie] I really wish she had more of a personality in this movie. You know, she's really around just to be everything that Cleva, Lon's first wife, is not. She is very close with Creighton.

She fits right in in the domestic sphere. She loves Lon. She wants to be a wife and a mother.

She's very supportive. Other than that, she really doesn't have much to her. She sort of just serves as the Madonna to Cleva's whore and that's it.

[Patrick] And I don't think that's a horrible angle to have her be but we don't really know who she is as a person. And the movie gets the basic facts of her relationship with Lon and Creighton Wright where she's a showgirl and she was married to this guy who was kind of a jerk and a double amputee and she wanted to settle down and have more of a normal life with a normal family.

[Leslie] That's a great story. Why didn't we see that in this movie? You know, Cleva's narrative is that she feels trapped as a housewife and she wants to put herself out there and have a career.

Why can't Hazel have a story that's juxtaposed against that? Why can't her story be, oh, I'm burnt out from performing. I want to settle down and have a more normal life.

She kind of just proposes this marriage to Lon as a way for him to get his child out of the state's custody. You really don't see her desire to settle down and have a more quiet life. She kind of just does it.

[Patrick] But Hazel always feels like she's at a bit of a distance in this movie and I wonder how much of that is just a product of the time. Now, I love old Hollywood movies, but this movie feels like a product of its time in a bad way. I understand that they're doing the bad wife and the good wife.

I'm sure that's how Chaney thought. He got divorced after all. But Cleva is a woman who is framed as bad for wanting a career.

She feels very isolated living away from the big city and having to give up her career and work in secret. Whereas Hazel is framed as good because she doesn't want a career. She wants to be domestic.

She wants to raise Creighton and not ask any questions. Even if you still keep the basic facts of the story as they're presented here, you could tell it in a much more emotionally interesting way, in my opinion.

[Leslie] Yeah, I agree. Cleva coming home and telling Lon, Hey, I got a part-time job as a singer. I hired a nanny for our son.

I'm going to have a life of my own now. I feel very stifled and isolated in this house that you have bought for me in the middle of nowhere. I want to have a life of my own.

I don't just want to be mom. That's seen as, at least by Lon, a horrible atrocity. And he's so insistent.

No, you have to be home. Our son needs to be raised by his parents. And I understand what he's saying.

He doesn't want his kid to be raised by a person he's never met. And this is my 21st century sensibilities talking. The idea that Lon could quit his job and raise his son full-time while his wife works full-time never occurs to him.

He's like, nope, either my wife raises him or he doesn't get raised right. Just the idea that, oh, if you care so much about the way your son is raised, why don't you become the stay-at-home parent? Never occurs to him.

Now, the idea of a stay-at-home dad was completely unheard of in the 1910s, which is when this story would have taken place. I get that. But as a 21st century viewer, the irony is so apparent to me.

Especially because, again, when she had Creighton, Cleva was 17 years old. Show me a woman who wants the same thing at 23 that she wanted at 17, and I will shoot myself in the foot. You know, you're a different person in your early 20s even than the person you were a couple years ago in your late teens.

Cleva probably thought, okay, well, this husband and kids and domestic bliss thing that seemed really appealing to me when I was a teenager and a kid just doesn't appeal to me anymore. You know, I love my son, but I also want to be on stage and be a singer and have my life outside of the domestic sphere. And that was not okay with Lon, at least as the conflict is portrayed in this movie.

Very little is known about Lon Chaney's first marriage. But I do think that the scene where Lon goes behind Cleva's back and has her fired, I don't think that's supposed to be a very positive scene. I don't think Lon is supposed to earn the audience's sympathy in that moment.

Again, this movie shows him at the very end of his life asking for forgiveness from his friends and family. I think this might have been one of the events he was asking for forgiveness for.

[Patrick] And details like that are why I'm a little bit more sympathetic to the historical accuracy of this movie than a lot of other critics are. Chaney isn't portrayed as a perfect saint in this movie. Very recently, the biopic "Michael" came out.

That's based on the life of Michael Jackson, and it doesn't touch on any of the controversies of the last 20 years of his career.

[Leslie] Well, this movie does portray Lon Chaney keeping Creighton's mom's identity from him and sheltering him and not being encouraging of him going into acting until the very last moments of his life. So it doesn't completely sanitize the father-son relationship, but you're right, Patrick, Lon Chaney was not the best dad in the world historically.

[Patrick] But there are shades of gray to this portrayal, and for the 1950s, I definitely appreciate that.

[Leslie] And listener, I know we're over here criticizing this film's portrayal of women. I think that's warranted. There's also a scene in this movie where James Cagney, as Lon Chaney, puts on yellow face to get a role, which is not okay and was never okay.

I do want to say, before we wrap up here, a film released 70 years ago will never hold up to today's standards. I think that's a good thing. It means we've progressed.

It means we're learning, we're growing, we're moving forward. I think it's important to appreciate old films for what they are, forgive them for what they're not, have conversations about what they're not, learn from them, and two, if you feel comfortable, watch them anyway. And if you're not able to do that, if you're not able to watch those films, forgive them, reflect on them, have conversations about them, commit to learning from them, well, sorry, you're not going to be able to watch a movie made prior to the last five seconds, because we are constantly progressing, we're constantly learning and moving forward.

So if you watch this movie, listener, and Pat, I'd like you to get into your overall thoughts and explain whether you actually would encourage our listeners to watch this movie. If you choose to, listener, please take all that with a grain of salt, and I encourage you to have those conversations about the not-so-great aspects of this movie.

[Patrick] My overall thoughts are very complicated. This movie was very popular when it came out, it ran on TV very frequently, it was nominated for an Academy Award, but I don't think it's a great movie. At the same time, I think retrospective critics have been a little bit too hard on this movie.

It is a sappy 1950s Hollywood melodrama about Hollywood melodramas, but there are certain quirks that make it worth revisiting. I care about the story of Lon Chaney and his family and his relationship with his son, exaggerated and made up as it may be. James Cagney, though he looks nothing like Lon Chaney, especially in all the makeup designs, does a really great job as an actor portraying a character.

I believe him when he's frustrated, when he's laughing, when he's angry, and expressing all the emotions that Chaney has over the course of his career. And even though the makeup is horrible, Cagney does a very good job of portraying the different sorts of characters that Chaney had to be. When he is Quasimodo, he's leering around and limping.

When he's the Phantom of the Opera, he's making grand gestures. When he is a vaudeville performer, he's a genuinely talented little clown dapping around. But I would really only recommend this movie to hardcore Lon Chaney enthusiasts who want to compare his life story to a movie version.

If you're not a dork like me who wants to see footage of a guy pretending to be Lon Chaney as Quasimodo, you might not get too much out of this movie. But if you want to see the greatest hits of Lon Chaney's career, coupled with some very early and sensitive portrayals of American Sign Language on film, I'd give this movie a watch. And the recent Blu-ray release by Arrow Video is terrific.

I would definitely recommend that and the commentary track that goes along with it. Now, where do you lie, Leslie?

[Leslie] I am mixed on this film. I disagree with you, Patrick. I do believe James Cagney is a very good, very competent actor.

He had already won an Academy Award for his performance in the film "Yankee Doodle Dandy" by the time he made this movie. But maybe it's because of how much older he was than Chaney when he made this movie. Maybe it's because of the fact that he looks nothing like Chaney, and because of that, all the makeup jobs look nothing like the original makeup jobs on him.

I don't buy James Cagney as Lon Chaney. I don't buy him for a single second. When he says, hi, I'm Lon Chaney, I do not believe him.

I think this movie is a very shiny, pretty, yet not completely cowardly portrayal of a very specific period of Hollywood history. But I think if you're a fan of Lon Chaney, or you have been inspired by our Lon Chaney May here at "The Hunchcast," and you want to learn more about him, I don't think this film is the first place I would point you. I would point you to Michael F.

Blake's work as a biographer documenting and reflecting on Chaney's life, which, while he was alive, Chaney was very, very quiet about. And I'm especially disappointed by the recreation scenes of Universal's "The Hunchback of Notre Dame." Hey, you're Universal Studios.

The sets that you used to make this movie in the 1920s are probably just down the street. Why aren't you using those? It seems extremely obvious to me, but for some reason, I don't know, maybe they were in use by another production, or maybe Universal just didn't consider it.

I don't know. All I know is that the Hunchback recreation scenes in this movie look really disappointing. I would give this movie 2 out of 5 stars on a good day, maybe 2 stars if I'm feeling a little grouchy or I woke up on the wrong side of the bed.

I think the only person I would recommend this movie to is a fan of James Cagney, because that's really the only person I could see getting a lot out of this movie. I appreciate its very sensitive and respectful portrayal of deafness and the deaf community and CODAs, Children of Deaf Adults. That's really it.

Which means that we are going to have a lot of things to choose from for our game we like to play at the end of every episode. Pat, I'll turn this to you first. Out of everyone and everything we discussed in today's episode, who or what would you to quote Irving Thalberg, quoting Irving Thalberg.

[Patrick] I'm going to take Hazel to the inn. I'll spend some time with her and I'll see, Do you have a personality? Who are you, Hazel?

Are you more than a plot point? Are you a woman?

[Leslie] Are you three children in a trench coat? Let's peel back the layers.

[Patrick] I'll be turning to dust with Lon Chaney's parents. They are only in the movie for a couple of scenes at the beginning and at the end, but they are so cute. I love seeing them as a couple and as parents and looking at the way that they communicate with each other.

Even though they have no spoken dialogue, you can tell they have a lot of love in their little family. And it's no question. Who am I throwing off of Notre Dame?

It's going to be the Westmores and the criminals who did these makeup jobs. I don't know what kind of blackmail these people had against James Cagney, but to deface that poor Hollywood legend with whatever the heck they were trying to call the Phantom of the Opera is simply a crime against the human race. So you are getting thrown off of Notre Dame, and the crowd below will cheer and will be looking for pieces of you to tear off as memorabilia just to be sure that you are dead and that they can tell future generations.

[Leslie] A la President Snow's death at the end of "The Hunger Games" trilogy.

[Patrick] Now, Leslie, you liked this movie a little bit less than I did. Where are you going to end up in this game?

[Leslie] I am taking Irving Thalberg's Widow to the inn. Didn't she put into motion such a classic, charming Hollywood origin story? It's similar to the way Patsy Ruth Miller, who played Esmeralda in Universal's "Hunchback," was discovered.

She was discovered at a party in Hollywood when she was 16. You know, I love this very "A Star is Born"-esque story of an older, more experienced Hollywood titan or Hollywood ornament putting their arms around a young actor and saying, stick with me, kid, I'm going to make you a star. And for Irving Thalberg's Widow to be lounging by the pool at the Beverly Hills Hotel, probably with a strong drink in her hand, checking out young men as they ascended from the pool, that's pretty amazing.

I'm taking her to the inn, and I want to sit there with my chin in my hand while she tells me a bunch of stories about the good old days. I am going to turn to dust with Lon Chaney himself, a man who was dust, or at least close to it, by the time this movie was released in theaters. If he was composite in any way, he was probably rolling in his unmarked grave, fun fact.

I think we are overdue for a Lon Chaney biopic, especially now that we're in this horror renaissance and we have so many monster films being made in recent years. I mean, we had Pennywise, we had "Nosferatu," we've got Guillermo del Toro's "Frankenstein." I think this would be the perfect time for a new Lon Chaney biopic.

I really hope that somebody already has one in the works. I think that would be fantastic. I think Bill Skarsgård could do a good job as Lon Chaney.

I mean, he looks a lot more like Lon Chaney than James Cagney did, God rest his soul.

[Patrick] I think Cillian Murphy could do it. He's got that weird face that Chaney has.

[Leslie] Those high prominent cheekbones, those slightly sunken back eyes. I'm buttering what you're slicing, I get it. And I am throwing ableism off of Notre Dame, honestly.

I think it's portrayed in such a dramatic, overwrought way in this movie. And there certainly were people who were this prejudiced against people who were deaf. But for everyone you talk to to just writhe and growl at the mention of Lon Chaney's parents not being able to hear or speak, it's way too much.

So I am throwing ableism off of Notre Dame. Notre DAME, sorry. Apologies to Irving Thalberg.

[Leslie] Welcome to "The Hunchcast," where we discuss all things "The Hunchback of Notre Dame." I'm Leslie.

[Patrick] And I'm Patrick, and today we're discussing Universal Pictures' "The Hunchback of Notre Dame," released in 1923, directed by Wallace Worsley and starring Lon Chaney, Patsy Ruth Miller, Norman Kerry, and Brandon Hurst.

[Leslie] 1923, that's over 100 years ago. Pat, is this the first film adaptation ever made of Victor Hugo's novel?

[Patrick] Oh, not by a long shot.

[Leslie] Really?

[Patrick] There have been adaptations for about 20 years at this point, more or less ever since movies were invented. The earliest adaptation is from 1905, directed by a woman, actually, so not just with the opera we talked about last week, "La Esmeralda," by Louise Bertin, but the film "Esmeralda," from 1905, directed by Alice Guy-Blaché, was the first adaptation, and it was thought to be lost, like so many silent films are, but it was found and put online about a year or so ago. It's a similar story with another adaptation from 1911, which was also a French film, and there were a few other ones throughout the 19-teens and early 1920s.

It's not even the first American movie based on the novel. The earliest I could find was a movie from 1917 by Fox Studios. That wasn't even made in Hollywood, it was made in New Jersey.

That's how old the film industry was. We didn't even have the idea that you make movies in California.

[Leslie] I think that's a great segue into our minute of history. Who was responsible for pitching the idea of another "Hunchback of Notre Dame" movie to a Hollywood-based movie studio?

[Patrick] Universal was technically a Hollywood movie studio, but it wasn't one of the major ones.

[Leslie] Yeah, they were a second-tier studio, right? They did not have the money that MGM or Warner Brothers had at the time.

[Patrick] No, they were cranking out cheap fodder for your local Nickelodeon theaters, right? Westerns, comedies, things that don't cost a lot of money. But there was a desire around Universal to be more prestigious, to be like Warner Brothers or especially MGM.

And there had been several attempts to make another American adaptation of Hugo's novel, but it came to Universal in a bit of a convoluted way. The star of the movie, the actor who plays Quasimodo and is certainly the most memorable part, is an actor named Lon Chaney.

[Leslie] Yes, the Man of a Thousand Faces. Listener, if you're not familiar with that name, I would describe him as the Bill Skarsgård of his day, in that he was the character actor of the silent film era. In addition to playing Quasimodo, he also played the Phantom of the Opera for Universal a couple years later.

[Patrick] Ah, did Mr. Skarsgård do all of his own makeup designs?

[Leslie] Well, I know that at this time, during this period of Hollywood history, the idea of a movie studio hiring a designated makeup artist was unheard of. So actors were expected to do and supply their own makeup, even if that makeup job required the use of prosthetics. So, listener, that makeup you see on Quasimodo in this movie?

Lon Chaney designed that himself and applied it all by hand every single day.

[Patrick] And that's really what made Lon Chaney stand out as an actor. He wasn't a big star. He got into acting after years of doing material on the stage.

He was all about being a character actor and not always being the handsome leading man, which is why he was attracted to the idea of playing Quasimodo. And he worked with Universal a ton throughout the 19-teens and the early 1920s. And he hated it.

Universal was not just cheap with their budgets, they were also cheap with their actors. Chaney knew his worth. He wanted some more money.

And so he wanted to pool his cash together, get some investors involved, and finance a really prestigious, awesome production of "The Hunchback of Notre Dame." There was talks of, oh, maybe we could film in Europe, we can get so-and-so to direct it, but that falls through. And even though it's Chaney's idea, he's not enough of a star to bankroll a huge epic movie by himself.

And around this same time, there's a really young employee at Universal named Irving Thalberg, who, like Chaney, is a fan of Hugo's book. Thalberg had a lot of health problems from his youth and spent a lot of his childhood sick in bed. He couldn't play outside, so he would read.

And he was enthralled reading "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" and thought it would make a great movie once he got older. Well, he was older, Universal needed a hit, all these factors come together, and eventually, early 1922, start of 23, Universal decides they're going to make their own adaptation of The Hunchback of Notre Dame. And unlike all of their other movies, those cheap westerns and pie-in-the-face comedies, "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" would be prestigious.

I'm talking huge grand sets, hundreds of extras, big costumes. It was as expensive as any movie could be back then. It was one of the most expensive films ever by the time it was released in 1923.

And Universal had a special term for these expensive productions. They were called super jewels, right? This is not just a movie, it's a super jewel.

[Leslie] That's J-E-W-E-L, listener, not the other one.

[Patrick] No, Quasimodo was not a vape god. When Chaney was trying to get the movie produced independently, there was talks that maybe he would be the one to direct it. And ultimately, Universal did not go with Chaney.

[Leslie] What, so he would be the executive producer, the writer, the director, and the star? What, is he Tommy Wiseau?

[Patrick] I think he's a little bit better than Tommy Wiseau, because a lot of this movie more or less was directed by Lon Chaney. Universal went with a work-for-hire guy, Wallace Worsley, who Chaney did not hate, but also did not love. Lon Chaney is showing up on his days off, more or less to do some backseat directing with Worsley.

Especially scenes involving Esmeralda.

[Leslie] Yeah, in Patsy Ruth Miller's memoir, which is called My Hollywood, When Both of Us Were Young, she claims that Lon Chaney directed most of the movie, and she didn't care for Wallace Worsley either.

[Patrick] No, and movies were still finding their voice in 1923. You know, the idea of a movie being a feature-length experience that's more than an hour was pretty recent. You know, "The Birth of a Nation," which is kind of the first modern movie, only came out in 1915.

There's a lot of experimenting going on, and while we can pick on Wallace Worsley a little bit and some of the uncreative shots going on, movies were still trying to figure out how to be movies. But what is this movie about, Leslie?

[Leslie] I thought you'd never ask, Patrick. Our story takes place in Paris in 1482, where the citizens are celebrating the Festival of Fools. We're introduced to the disfigured bell ringer of Notre Dame Cathedral, Quasimodo, played by Lon Chaney.

Rejected by society, Quasimodo scorns the Parisians and serves only two entities, Notre Dame, and his master, Jehan Frollo, played by Brandon Hurst, who is the younger brother of the cathedral's archdeacon, Don Claudio, or Dom Claude, depending on what title card you're looking at, played by Nigel de Brulier. As the tyrannical King Louis XI makes his way through the crowd, Clopin, played by Ernest Torrance, the king of the beggars and Paris' uncrowned monarch, speaks with Jehan of a day when they will bow their heads to no man. Later that night, Quasimodo, having been crowned the King of Fools by the Parisians, is treated to a performance by Clopin's adoptive daughter, the beautiful dancer Esmeralda, played by Patsy Ruth Miller.

The next day, the king's new captain of the guard, Phoebus, played by Orlando Bloom, oh sorry, played by Norman Kerry, visits his fiancée, Fleur-de-Lys, and spots Esmeralda from her balcony, immediately becoming attracted to the dancer. Jehan, too, longs to possess Esmeralda, and he orders Quasimodo to abduct her while she walks home. Phoebus comes to Esmeralda's rescue, arresting Quasimodo while Jehan escapes.

Phoebus brings Esmeralda to a seedy tavern in the hopes that she might become his mistress, but after she opens up to him about her status as an orphan, he comes to respect and pity her, and he chivalrously escorts her home. Later that night, poet Gringoire, played by Raymond Hatton, strays too close to the Court of Miracles, the city of thieves where Clopin rules. Gringoire is mistaken for an aristocratic spy, and sentenced to be hanged.

However, Esmeralda stops the hanging by imploring her father, Have you so little misery that you must create more? Cut him down, I say! You go, girl.

The next day, Quasimodo is publicly flogged for attempting to kidnap Esmeralda. When he laments his thirst, only Esmeralda takes pity on him and gives him a drink of water. Later, Phoebus invites Esmeralda to accompany him to a ball hosted by Fleur-de-Lys'ss aunt in honor of his promotion.

Phoebus has Esmeralda change into a beautiful gown, and he escorts her to the ballroom, and introduces her to his guests as Her Highness the Princess of Egypt. Clopin and his people storm the ball, forbidding a relationship between a vagabond and an aristocrat. Heartbroken, Esmeralda leaves with her father.

The next day, Jehan approaches Clopin with a proposition. In exchange for Esmeralda's hand in marriage, he will give Clopin half of the treasure of Notre Dame. Whatever that is, it's never explained.

Clopin is initially intrigued by this offer, as he believes he can use the treasure to lift his people out of poverty, but he ultimately turns Jehan down, saying, "The hour for an uprising is not yet." Phoebus and Esmeralda meet in Notre Dame's courtyard for one last farewell. The romantic encounter is interrupted, however, when Jehan stabs Phoebus and disappears into the night.

Esmeralda is blamed for the crime and brought to court, where she tries to expose Jehan as the true attacker, but she ultimately confesses to the stabbing under torture. Jehan visits Esmeralda while she's in prison awaiting execution, and tells her Phoebus has died of his wounds. He confesses his love and asks Esmeralda to leave with him, but she scorns him and sends him away.

On the day of Esmeralda's execution, Quasimodo swings down from the bell tower, throws Esmeralda over his shoulder, and runs into the church, crying, "Sanctuary!" as Don Claudio, the archdeacon, forbids the king's soldiers from rushing in after her. Shortly after, Jehan tells Clopin that King Louis XI has ordered Esmeralda to be removed from the cathedral and hanged immediately.

Clopin and the vagabonds take this as a sign that the hour for revolution is here, and they rally Paris's entire lower class to storm the cathedral and sack the city. Gringoire visits Phoebus, who is NOT dead, and tells him Esmeralda is alive and living safely in Notre Dame. Meanwhile, the approaching mob wakes Esmeralda.

She doesn't recognize her family and friends, and misunderstanding their intentions, she implores Quasimodo to defend the cathedral, especially after the king's guard joins the conflict and kills Clopin. While Quasimodo is distracted, Jehan sneaks into the cathedral and grabs Esmeralda, attempting to force himself on her. Quasimodo rushes in and fights Jehan off, throwing him off of Notre Dame, but not before Jehan fatally stabs him in the back.

Phoebus rushes in and embraces Esmeralda, and the two leave the cathedral arm-in-arm. Meanwhile, Quasimodo rings the bells of Notre Dame one last time before taking his final breath and the credits roll.

[Patrick] There's a lot going on here. You mentioned this takes place in 1482.

[Leslie] Yes, sir.

[Patrick] You had to do a bit of math to figure that out, because when I'm watching this movie, I see a title card. After all, this is a silent movie. There's no spoken dialogue.

Anytime a character speaks, there is a card that appears with the dialogue so the audience can understand. There are way too many title cards in this movie. A silent film should embody the idea that you show and do not tell the story.

These title cards are often unnecessary and way too complicated. Although occasionally, I do appreciate the overwritten, overly medievalized dialogue of Perley Poore Sheehan, the scenario writer who also wrote a lot of Pulp Fiction adventure stories, and he wrote an adaptation of this movie as a short novel. So if you want to read an abridged version of Hugo in the style of a Tarzan novel, be my guest.

Now, instead of saying, in the year 1482, there was a creature known as the Hunchback of Notre Dame, there's a title card saying, Ten years before Columbus discovered America, there lived within the rocky fastness of the cathedral a creature whom the Parisians of that day knew as the Hunchback of Notre Dame. If you do not know that in 1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue, you're going to have no idea when this movie takes place. It's a math problem.

[Leslie] Honestly, Patrick, I've only seen a handful of silent films. I haven't seen nearly as many as you have. I don't have a very strong point of comparison.

I honestly found the title cards fine.

[Patrick] I just think a lot of the time the audience can see what's going on. They don't need to be explicitly told with a sentence on the screen saying that whatever is happening is sad.

[Leslie] Well, in that sense, I don't think this would be a bad first silent film for someone who's never seen a silent film before and isn't familiar with the format.

[Patrick] No, not at all. You know, it's a familiar story. There's plenty of cards and plenty of action.

Yeah, this is a good first silent movie.

[Leslie] Well, is this a familiar story? Because I thought that Quasimodo's master was a man named Claude Frollo. In this movie, he is Jehan Frollo, but he's not the Jehan Frollo that we know from the book.

[Patrick] Not really. This is the first of a few adaptations that are going to split the character of Claude Frollo in two. The character's religious qualities are going to be given to the Archdeacon of Notre Dame, and the character's negative qualities are going to be given to a secular character, in this case, Jehan, who, instead of being a rowdy student, is instead just some guy, at least in the version of the movie that we have today.

Because, like so many silent films, what we have to watch is only a partial view of the original movie that came out in 1923.

[Leslie] So there were entire scenes and subplots that were cut, you're saying?

[Patrick] When this movie was first released, it was part of a roadshow presentation, which, in modern terms, you can think of like the movie equivalent of when Broadway musicals go from city to city. It was a touring production, it was a luxurious experience, you had to pay more money per ticket, there were programs, and the movie was longer. You know, there were live musicians who would play along, you know, silent movies were never silent, there was always somebody playing along, even if it was just on a piano.

And the original version was well over two hours, and there were a ton of subplots, including ones that actually explain who the heck this Jehan Frollo guy is.

[Leslie] Yeah, he is the brother of the Archdeacon, which I guess is why he's able to keep Quasimodo in the bell tower? Who, speaking of which, in the novel, Quasimodo is Frollo's adoptive son. Frollo adopts Quasimodo when he's a toddler, teaches Quasimodo to read, teaches him to speak, gives him a job.

Maybe he doesn't feel a large amount of fatherly affection toward Quasimodo, but he does still feel some sort of obligation over him. In this movie, Quasimodo is described multiple times as Frollo's, Jehan Frollo's, slave. They do use the term slave several times.

Not servant, not ward, not son, slave. It's pretty brutal.

[Patrick] Jehan was supposed to be, like Claude in the novel, an alchemist. There were scenes filmed early on that showed Claude condemning Jehan for practicing alchemy because it's not a very Christian idea. And more importantly, you mentioned the treasure of Notre Dame.

[Leslie] Yes, Jehan goes to his buddy Clopin, which I really like their friendship.

[Patrick] It reminds me of the relationship between Claude Frollo and Clopin from Louise Bertin's Esmeralda Opera, except here it actually makes sense and isn't stupid.

[Leslie] Yeah, it's never explained how they met or why they're friends or what either of them are getting out of this friendship. I guess it's because they have the same goal. They both want to overthrow the king and crush the French aristocracy, but they both have differing motivations.

Clopin, as the king of the beggars, wants to lift his people out of poverty. Jehan, it seems, just is a greedy person and wants to possess wealth and possess Esmeralda.

[Patrick] Again, you mentioned possess wealth. There was a whole subplot that no longer exists. All of the footage is gone, but there are a few photographs and we still have the original script, the shooting script, that talks about it.

There was a literal physical treasure inside of Notre Dame that Jehan was scheming to get at, like a pirate in some old cartoon.

[Leslie] X marks the spot under the altar, I guess?

[Patrick] Well, I thought it was ridiculous, but, well, listen, Leslie and I just got back from Paris a few weeks ago, and while we were exploring the interior of Notre Dame, we found an area where there is supposed to be a literal treasure. They use the word treasure. Now, I don't know if it's a coincidence, but as soon as I saw that there was a treasure room, I immediately thought to this lost subplot from the 1923 movie of the secret treasure of Notre Dame.

Clopin wants it, Jehan wants it, Claude is trying to protect it. There's a lot of ink in the script about this treasure of Notre Dame. Almost all of it is gone from the movie, and I don't think that's such a bad thing.

I would love for these scenes to turn up one day, but I don't think the movie as it exists today, in its shorter form, with a bunch of missing scenes, because this is a movie that's 100 years old, it's not in perfect condition, I don't think we're that much worse for wear.

[Leslie] You said you hope the scenes turn up one day. How would they turn up one day? Do these scenes exist in some form, somewhere?

[Patrick] It's possible that a collector or an archivist somewhere, whether in the United States or in another country like Japan or Brazil or the UK, has a copy of the movie that includes the lost scenes, but they just haven't digitized it or preserved it or told anybody. While 90% of silent films are lost to history, they've degraded or they've been destroyed in fires, this was such a popular movie, I think there's a decent chance that at least a few of these lost scenes, and we'll talk about them as we go, are going to turn up.

[Leslie] Speaking of things that are lost, let's talk about this movie's set, because obviously this was not shot in Paris, Paris, even in the 1920s, looked too modern and too far removed from the medieval setting that the producers wanted, so an entire set was built on Universal's backlot in Hollywood, this recreation of medieval Paris, including Notre Dame's facade, a city square, the Court of Miracles. Part of the reason why this movie cost so much money is because those sets were made to last. The studio executive said, okay, we have to build these really expensive sets anyway, let's make them as high quality as possible so we can reuse them for future films.

And I know these sets were used in movies until the 1960s when they were destroyed in a fire.

[Patrick] Yeah, many of the sets were destroyed, but a few of them were built back. The facade of Notre Dame, which was really only built up through the Gallery of the King's region, so about 20 feet up in the cathedral, they didn't rebuild that. That was burned and they just gave up.

[Leslie] Wait, so they only built about the first 20 feet? Yeah. Then why is it that we can see the entire cathedral in the movie?

[Patrick] Well, for close-up shots, they did build small sections of the upper gallery or the balcony when you see Quasimodo looking down and making faces, but for the shots where you see the entirety of the cathedral, that's just a model that is hung over the camera. And it's not even a complete scale model of the cathedral. It's just the part of the church above that first 20 feet.

And because, you know, when you mess around with a camera lens, you don't get the same sense of perspective that you do in real life. When the little cathedral is held in front of the camera and it matches up perfectly with the Gallery of the King's in that first 20 feet of the facade, it looks seamless. It looks like the real building.

[Leslie] See, this is the filmmaking wizardry that we lost with the advent of CGI.

[Patrick] Nowadays, they would just hand it off to some studio in India and say, hey, buddy, you got 10 seconds to do this CGI for one nickel. Otherwise, I'm going to blacklist your company in all of Hollywood.

[Leslie] Speaking of Notre Dame, the central conflict of this film is pretty far removed from the original purpose of Victor Hugo's novel. Victor Hugo wrote "Notre-Dame de Paris," a.k.a. "The Hunchback of Notre Dame," at a time when people didn't really care about architectural preservation the way they do today. We've already talked about this extensively in previous episodes of this podcast, listener.

But basically, Enlightenment thinkers didn't care about preserving quote-unquote old buildings. They wanted to knock those old buildings down and replace them with modern marvels that reflected how far they had come intellectually and technologically. But Victor Hugo and his fellow romantics believed that these quote-unquote old buildings united us with a mutual cultural identity.

They were our history standing before us. And Victor Hugo wrote "The Hunchback of Notre Dame," at least in part, to advocate for the restoration of these old buildings. And it worked.

His novel revived public interest in Notre Dame Cathedral to the point where the French government funded a huge, very expensive restoration project. So Victor Hugo's novel is the reason why, Pat, you and I were able to visit Notre Dame Cathedral a couple weeks ago and stare at it with eyes glistening and jaws hung open marveling at how wonderful it is. So the novel's original purpose was fulfilled long before the 1920s.

What do we do with the story now? If we don't have to make a movie about why it's important to care about old buildings because people already care about old buildings, what do we do with the story? Well, we reinterpret it.

And this movie reinterprets the story as being about a class war. On one hand, you have King Louis XI and the French aristocracy tyrannizing marginalized groups. On the other hand, you have Clopin, the king of the beggars, who dreams of lifting his people out of poverty and overthrowing the French aristocracy.

And caught in the middle of it all is this forbidden romance between Esmeralda, Clopin's daughter, and Phoebus, the captain of the king's guard. He represents the highest of the high, she represents the lowest of the low. They want to be together, but because this class conflict is coming to a head, they can't.

[Patrick] Irving Thalberg did not pitch this movie as being about architectural preservation or the decline of the Ancien Régime in favor of modernity and the Enlightenment. He pitched it to Universal as a love story.

[Leslie] That's exactly what we get here, this more economically informed version of "Romeo and Juliet," this forbidden love between people of two very different backgrounds.

[Patrick] You say economically informed, I say politically informed. I might be stretching here, but I really see the politics of this movie when it comes to class and the rise of the vagabonds versus the aristocrats as a reflection of the Russian Revolution. I mean, the Soviet Union was fully formed a year before this movie was released in 1922.

And there was a huge concern amongst many Americans about communism and socialism.

[Leslie] Yeah, let's talk about that. It's, at least in my opinion, unclear at the end of the movie whether the vagabonds achieve their goal. You know, they mobilize, the entire lower class gets together, they storm the streets of Paris, they ransack the city, and they storm the cathedral of Notre Dame.

Even though Notre Dame and the Catholic Church kind of float above this class conflict, in this movie, the Catholic Church is very much a bastion of good. I mean, just after Quasimodo is done being flogged, the archdeacon runs out of the cathedral, rushes up to Quasimodo, and unshackles him. I mean, we literally see someone who represents the church unshackling somebody from the bonds of oppression.

I mean, hello. How obvious could you get?

[Patrick] Like with splitting Claude Frollo into the good religious character and the evil secular character, I see that as yet another decision to portray religion a lot more positively than Victor Hugo did. This movie is not going to leave any questions about the quote-unquote uselessness of God that Hugo talks about. This is an explicitly pro-Christian movie, and I would even say a pro-Catholic movie.

[Leslie] Absolutely. This is the most pro-Catholic church film I have ever seen.

[Patrick] And yes, there were censorship boards, mostly at the local level. The famous Hays Code was not yet in effect, but certain cities did reserve the right to, you know, ban certain movies from being played. And around the time that Hunchback came out, there were concerns, especially from certain Lon Chaney movies, like "The Penalty," of portrayals of violence and crime and bad guys getting away with their crimes.

No such ambiguity is found in this movie. And while nowadays we can roll our eyes at the extremely positive portrayal of the church, at least in comparison to the novel, right, I'm not telling anyone what their religious views should or shouldn't be, but Hugo was not the most flattering to religion in Notre Dame de Paris.

[Leslie] No, absolutely not. We see the Archdeacon of Notre Dame, an incredibly powerful position within the clergy, teaching alchemy to the king and lusting after a 16-year-old girl and stabbing people. I mean, it's not a very positive view of the Catholic church.

This movie completely forgoes that very negative portrayal of a clergyman. The Archdeacon of Notre Dame, this Dom Claudio or Don Claude, depending on the title card you look at, I don't know, he is a Christ-like figure. He is a bastion of good.

Often throughout the film, he is the only person who can get people to rein in their anger and choose peace. I mean, there's a very brief scene at the beginning of the movie where Clopin frustratedly pushes a woman down the stairs, and the Archdeacon runs up to him and puts his hand on Clopin's shoulder, and just a couple of words from the Archdeacon is enough to get Clopin to calm down.

[Patrick] Even Quasimodo respects him. They pray together, they walk around together, and as you mentioned earlier, the Archdeacon helps free Quasimodo. It's not just Esmeralda who's kind to him, but the Archdeacon as well.

And while you might roll your eyes at the portrayal of religion compared to the novel, you know, this is the Hollywood version, of course there's going to be a lot more approving of religion and not as negative, I think this was a bit of a bold choice in its own way at the time, because Catholics were not the most respected in the United States in 1923.

[Leslie] The KKK certainly didn't respect them.

[Patrick] Not at all. And they were associated with immigrant groups, Italians, Poles, Irishmen, a lot of people who were viewed unfavorably during this time. And Universal sought the approval of Catholic churches and nuns while making this movie.

To their credit, they got what they wanted. They got the approval of several Catholic groups, nuns, and religious leaders.

[Leslie] Could you argue that this is one of the earliest examples of a film studio pandering to a minority group?

[Patrick] Oh, absolutely. And it's not like Universal was run by Catholics, anyhow. The main producer on this movie, the head of Universal Studios, was a man named Carl Laemmle, who fled from Germany as a Jew being persecuted.

But I wonder if that might have something to do with it. Aside from, you know, pandering to a minority group for a quick buck, this is a minority group that wasn't super popular in America. And, you know, maybe Mr. Laemmle knew about that, as a guy who might not have been able to practice his religion or be himself in his home country. He certainly couldn't have done it a few years after this movie came out.

[Leslie] You briefly mentioned Quasimodo's relationship with the Archdeacon. I'd like to unpack that for a moment, because the Quasimodo in this movie has a lot more self-respect than the Quasimodo in Victor Hugo's novel. In Victor Hugo's novel, Quasimodo is loyal to his master.

In the book, we would call that man Claude Frollo, but in this movie, we're calling that man Jehan Frollo. Quasimodo's loyal to that man right up until the bitter end. After Quasimodo is captured and publicly flogged for a crime his master told him to commit, Quasimodo in the book doesn't begrudge Claude Frollo that.

He continues to be loyal to Frollo, he continues to serve Frollo, he continues to love Frollo. It isn't until he realizes that Frollo was responsible for Esmeralda's death —yes, listener, in the book, Esmeralda does die— that he finally turns on Frollo and throws him off of Notre Dame. In this movie, like I said, Quasimodo has a lot more self-respect.

After he is publicly flogged for a crime that his master told him to commit, he completely abandons his master. We see a little scene of the two of them running into each other in Notre Dame, and Quasimodo sticks his tongue out and makes this horribly gruesome face at Jehan, and Jehan just runs away. And after that, we really don't see the two of them together.

Quasimodo tends to gravitate more toward the archdeacon, and we get to see them together approaching Esmeralda after Quasimodo rescues her, and telling her, it's okay, we're gonna take care of you, we're going to give you shelter and clothing, it's alright. They make a really nice team.

[Patrick] I like my cooler dad. He's nice and doesn't have me whipped for my crimes. Maybe Quasimodo has so much self-respect in this version because he's such an athlete.

Hugo describes Quasimodo as being like a lizard or a mountain goat in the novel, just jumping around the architecture, dislodging the crows, totally athletic and in sync with the church. This movie captures that great, and while Lon Chaney did not do all of his own stunts like the publicity claims, he did a lot of them, and it's really amazing to see, again, with very limited special effects back then, you just see Lon Chaney jumping around the architecture and swinging and flicking his tongue and climbing about the projections, it's really amazing.

[Leslie] Yeah, he does a lot of tongue flicking in this movie. In the book, Victor Hugo writes that Quasimodo hates the general populace and scorns them. In this movie, Quasimodo is very playful in his hatred of the Parisians.

One of the first shots in this movie is Quasimodo leaning over the balustrade, sticking his tongue out at the Parisians, blowing them raspberries, making faces at them. It's really fun to watch him being a troll. It really is.

[Patrick] To be fair, the public hates him. He's ridiculed. He's Quasimodo.

He looks like he stepped right out of the pages of the novel. And whenever Lon Chaney portrayed a character from literature, he was always very careful to portray that character exactly as the author described.

[Leslie] Yeah, this makeup job looks almost identical to some illustrations of Quasimodo that I have seen.

[Patrick] And some illustrations that Lon Chaney saw. He really based the makeup not just on Hugo's description, but on illustrations, particularly those by the French artist Gustave Brion.

[Leslie] Well, I'm sitting here wondering how Lon Chaney is able to accomplish such cool stunts wearing that hump. I mean, that thing is huge. It looks really heavy.

I had always heard that Lon Chaney's hump weighed 70 pounds.

[Patrick] No, it wasn't anywhere near that. I don't even think it was 20. And think about it.

Lon Chaney was not a world-class athlete. He was a 40-year-old man who was acting in a movie for money. You're not going to go to work and injure your body horribly.

You know, this is before method acting and all that kind of foolishness destroyed so many actors' brains. Like, why would you wear a 70-pound weight for no reason? You're just going to hurt your body and injure yourself.

Now, granted, Lon Chaney did suffer some minor injuries on this movie. Having the wart over his eye kind of messed up his vision. And there's a scene where he throws Jehan Frollo to his doom.

That hurt his back a little bit. But no, there's no reason why you would wear a 70-pound weight for no reason when you can just act like it's heavy. He's an actor.

[Leslie] You know what? You're right. That does make sense given a story Patsy Ruth Miller tells in her memoir where she's on the set of this movie and she's struggling to get through a really emotionally demanding scene.

And then Lon Chaney pulls her aside and says, and I love this quote, I have it written down, "Remember, my dear, you are an actress. You do not have to live the part. You just have to act it.

The point is not for you to cry, but to make your audience cry." Yeah, putting the pieces together here myself, that does not sound like something a really intense method actor who believed you had to suffer to turn in a compelling performance would say.

[Patrick] No, and that's because Lon Chaney was a very practical guy. He didn't give a lot of interviews. He was pretty withdrawn and he had common sense.

He gave a ton of advice to Patsy Ruth Miller. He was a bit of a mentor figure, almost a father figure, because Patsy Ruth Miller was a very young girl. She was almost the age of Esmeralda in the novel.

[Leslie] Yeah, she was 18. And hers is a very classic Hollywood Cinderella story. She was discovered, I think, at a party when she was 16 years old.

This was her first really big role. And even though she acted for many, many years after this, she would always be known as Esmeralda from Universal's "The Hunchback of Notre Dame." This was the role she was known for for the rest of her life.

[Patrick] And, you know, it's better to be remembered for one role than to not be remembered at all. I really like this version of Esmeralda.

[Leslie] This might be a hot take, but this is my favorite Esmeralda. At least among all the Esmeraldas in all the adaptations I've seen, which are not nearly as many as the ones you've seen, Patrick. Patsy Ruth Miller's Esmeralda takes everything I disliked about Victor Hugo's Esmeralda and fixes it.

Yes, she's still a little naive and she's still a little innocent, but she's a lot more outspoken and headstrong. I mean, take the scene where she saves Gringoire from being hanged. In the book, she saves him by offering to marry him.

In the movie, she doesn't have to do that. She just runs up to her father, who she knows has a soft spot for her, and says, "'Have you so little misery that you must create more? Cut him down,' I say."

You know, Esmeralda in the book is not a damsel in distress by any means, and we have had pretty extensive discussions about the way she is portrayed in that novel and how it differs from the general conception that a lot of readers have of her. But I can't see Victor Hugo's Esmeralda saying something like that. I'm also really drawn to Esmeralda and Quasimodo's relationship in this movie.

In the book, Esmeralda really never gets over her discomfort at Quasimodo's appearance. Even when they're living in the bell tower together, he isolates himself from her because he can tell his appearance makes her uncomfortable. In this movie, Esmeralda is totally fine with Quasimodo.

I mean, she touches him, she talks to him, they have a very sweet relationship. This movie has my favorite depiction of Esmeralda and Quasimodo's first encounter. Because Quasimodo is crowned the King of Fools, which, by the way, we don't get to see.

[Patrick] Just like the "La Esmeralda" opera.

[Leslie] Right. You know, first we see him blowing raspberries at the Parisians and expressing how much he hates them, and then the next time we see him, he's riding on their shoulders and he has a crown on him. And here I am thinking, wait, number one, why did he go down there?

Number two, if he hates these people so much, why would he want to be their king? How did that happen? So I really wish we would have seen that.

Was that part of the cut footage?

[Patrick] No, but there were scenes in that sequence, not of the actual election of the Pope of Fools or showing why Quasimodo was down there, but there were some extra scenes where Gringoire would tease Quasimodo and then Quasimodo growls at him and Gringoire gets very scared. A few photographs of that exist, which I absolutely adore. But no, we don't know what the King of Fools is.

[Leslie] Anyway, he's crowned the King of Fools, and then the vagabonds bring Esmeralda out to dance for him. And Esmeralda comes out of her little tent and she's dancing. She doesn't notice Quasimodo at first, but when she does, she freezes.

And she doesn't look scared or disgusted, at least in my opinion. It's just that she's clearly never seen someone who looks like that before and she just needs a moment to process what she's seeing. And Quasimodo, of course, thinks that she's about to run away from him screaming and he makes a face at her.

Esmeralda snaps out of it, and playfully, she makes the same face back at him, and then she goes right back to dancing. Like nothing even happened. And Quasimodo, in that moment, looks shocked, frankly.

I think that's the moment he fell in love with Esmeralda. You know, I think he was cooked after that. He didn't stand a chance.

[Patrick] I took it that Esmeralda was snubbing his looks, and he felt very embarrassed because you see, when Esmeralda goes back to dancing, he drops his arm and he shakes his head. But you know, we're able to have different interpretations because there's not a title card that comes up telling us what to think. We're able to see the visuals as visuals.

[Leslie] Listener, in our previous episode about the opera "La Esmeralda," you might remember Patrick bringing up the fact that a couple years ago, the CEO of Netflix released a statement saying that he wanted to produce second screen first content. Basically, movies that constantly explain and re-explain and re-explain again what's going on in order to appeal to people who have the movie on in the background while they're playing Candy Crush on their phone or cooking dinner or folding their laundry so that even if you're not paying complete attention to the screen, you can still understand what's going on. Silent films are not that.

You know, you're not spoon-fed narration or overly obvious dialogue about what's happening. You really have to put your phone down and pay attention, and you get to have conversations like these where you talk about, oh, well, I interpreted this expression this way. Oh, no, well, I interpreted this action as this way.

[Patrick] Lon Chaney was a master of expression and body language.

[Leslie] A thousand percent.

[Patrick] After all, Lon Chaney grew up with deaf parents, and he knew sign language.

[Leslie] And he was able to bring that experience to the role of Quasimodo, a deaf character. I wonder if that's part of the reason why he was so drawn to this role and tried so hard to get this movie made. Pat, correct me if I'm wrong.

In this movie, especially when Quasimodo is being flogged and his tunic is ripped open, we see this big, hairy lump in the middle of his chest. It's almost like a monoboob. Is that the camel's breast that Victor Hugo makes note of in the novel?

[Patrick] I would have to imagine. Chaney did try to get as close as he could to the description from the book, and this might be the only adaptation to have Quasimodo's monoboob.

[Leslie] I'll take your word for it. You've seen quite a few more than I have. Speaking of Quasimodo's flogging, I love Esmeralda's role in this scene.

Because in the novel, Esmeralda does give Quasimodo water, but she runs away right after he's done drinking. And he tries to express his gratitude toward her, he tries to kiss her hand, but she pulls her hand away and just darts off. Because, again, his appearance is too off-putting to her.

In this movie, again, this is why Patsy Ruth Miller's Esmeralda is my favorite. After Quasimodo has drank to his heart's content, Esmeralda sticks around. She tries to redress him, she talks to him a little bit.

She doesn't leave the pillory until after the archdeacon has approached Quasimodo and has started freeing him from his shackles. Again, the biggest problem I had with Esmeralda in the novel is that she just couldn't get past Quasimodo's appearance, and there's so much room for their relationship to grow. Here, we get to see them interact a lot more.

They're friends. Esmeralda's not afraid to touch him or talk to him or even pet his head as a way to thank him for saving her life. You know, they have a very sweet relationship.

I really enjoy watching it. He's like a puppy. Does a puppy throw his master off the roof?

[Patrick] A dog will protect his master. And you know what? Jehan loses the status of being Quasimodo's master fairly early on.

You talked about Quasimodo snarling at him and scaring him off after the pillory scene. Quasimodo switches to the archdeacon in Esmeralda pretty quickly.

[Leslie] Like I said, he has a lot more self-respect in this incarnation.

[Patrick] He has a lot of self-respect, but he's not delusional to the point where he thinks Esmeralda's actually going to be in love with him. He will protect her and will ring the bells in her honor, expressing his wild joy in the only way he knows. But he wants Esmeralda to be happy, and that includes supporting her relationship with Captain Phoebus, who, like in the Esmeralda opera, and I see a lot of similarities between this adaptation and the Esmeralda opera libretto.

It might be a coincidence, but there were a zillion adaptations on the stage in the 19th century that followed very similar tropes to that adaptation. This is the heroic Phoebus, and this movie kind of feels like the last of those melodramatic plays and operas from the 1800s, where you have secularized frolos and heroic Phoebuses that are actually in love with Esmeralda. But, and here's my hot take, I think Phoebus might be the most developed character in this adaptation.

Unlike in the Esmeralda opera by Louise Bertin, he has an arc. He starts off as a cad, but gradually realizes, hey, I shouldn't take advantage of women, right? All women are queens.

Esmeralda is someone I should respect and give her the patience that she deserves.

[Leslie] All women are queens. Does that include his fiancée? Because Fleur-de-Lys, like in the book, is introduced as Phoebus' fiancée, we see them flirting with each other and, you know, playing around with each other during the first and really only scene that she's in in this movie, and then he completely abandons her for this other chick named Esmeralda.

We don't see them break up. He invites Esmeralda to a ball that his fiancée's aunt is holding in his honor and fully says at that ball, in front of his fiancée and her aunt, "Esmeralda, did you not promise to be my bride?" Did he break up with Fleur-de-Lys at some point in this movie?

We don't see that.

[Patrick] He's looking to upgrade. But, you know, he feels bad at one point and shows some remorse and tries to be more noble and heroic rather than a cad. Even in Fleur-de-Lys's first scene with Phoebus, she remarks that "you would say as much to any woman."

So Phoebus has a character arc, and I think the heroic Phoebus in this version is earned, even though, like any version where you're going to keep the idea of him cheating on his fiancée, maybe not the most ideal romantic relationship, but it's something. It's kind of like "Titanic," where, oh, you're crossing the class boundaries, and that's so romantic that you almost forget that, wait a minute, weren't you going to get married and have a stable life?

[Leslie] Yeah, right after Phoebus rescues Esmeralda from Quasimodo, he takes her to this seedy tavern called "Eve's Apple." Get it? Apple?

Seedy? Anyway, it's the same name as the tavern from the book. And as they walk in, we see a shot of a moth caught in a spider's web, which is imagery from the novel.

However, in the novel, that imagery is used to represent Frollo and Esmeralda. Here it's used to represent Phoebus and Esmeralda, and they're sitting in this tavern, and he's looking at her like he's trying to imagine her without her clothes on, and he reaches over and pulls down her shirt sleeve and exposes her entire shoulder. I know the dudes in 1923 went crazy over that shot.

My goodness. But then Esmeralda starts talking about her long-lost mother and talking about her status as an orphan, and we see shame flood Phoebus's face, and he returns her sleeve to her shoulder and gets up and offers to escort her home. You're right, Patrick.

We do get to see Phoebus having his first taste of respect women juice. He does have a character arc, and that's why I agree that their reunion at the very end of the movie, when he rushes into the cathedral and walks off with her, I think that's earned as well. And I think Quasimodo would agree with me.

You know, as he is actively dying from being stabbed by his former master, he looks up and he sees that Esmeralda is in the arms of a knight in shining armor, and rather than lament this, rather than say, oh, of course she's in love with a man who is 10 times more handsome than I'll ever be, the look on his face, at least this is how I interpreted it, tells me that Quasimodo was happy in that moment, thinking, oh, thank God, there's someone who loves Esmeralda who's going to take care of her after I'm gone.

[Patrick] You mentioned Esmeralda's long lost mother. That was a subplot from the book where Esmeralda was concerned that if she lost her virtue, her virginity, she would not be able to find her mother. That plotline kind of exists in this version.

They set it up, but it is resolved extremely quickly.

[Leslie] Yeah, at the beginning of the movie, we see this ragged urchin who lives in this underground cell, yelling at Esmeralda, heckling her, making her afraid, and then we get this woman's entire backstory, which is pretty much the exact same backstory from the novel. The woman believes her daughter was kidnapped and killed by the Romani, and that has morphed into intense prejudice against the Romani, and that is why this woman hates Esmeralda so much. We spend a pretty significant amount of time establishing that backstory only for this character to run out of her cell while Esmeralda is being brought to the pillory where she is to be executed.

The character grabs Esmeralda accidentally pulls an amulet off of her neck and realizes, wait a minute, this is the amulet I gave my daughter. Oh my gosh, this young Romani girl is my daughter. Oh, please save her.

And then this woman, The Sack Woman, as she's referred to in the book, just collapses and dies in the street, and that plotline is really never resolved. We never get to see a reunion between Esmeralda and her mom. Esmeralda never finds out that her mom was alive.

This woman kind of just dies in the middle of the movie after we spent so much time establishing her backstory. That was really disappointing to me.

[Patrick] All right, so I can't fully defend this subplot about Esmeralda's mother, because even though it's set up well, it ends two thirds of the way through the story instead of the way it should, and it makes no sense.

[Leslie] And Esmeralda never finds out that her mother was alive the whole time, so what's the point?

[Patrick] I think this was an intentional creative choice. It's not a goof-up. It's not the result of a bunch of lost footage, maybe just a small amount of lost footage.

This was intentional. You know how earlier I mentioned that the guy who wrote the screenplay also wrote a novelization of the movie? This novelization is an interesting read, and in that novelization, Perley Poore Sheehan argues, oh, Gudule dies, but before she dies, she prays that God will watch over her daughter, a.k.a. Esmeralda, and will deliver her from evil and save her.

[Leslie] That makes sense, because when Esmeralda is being attacked by Jehan during the siege of Notre Dame, and he's trying to force himself on her, he says, "Why do you struggle?" And she says, "God will protect me." So that's a thread that is being pulled throughout the film, then.

And in this case, I guess, Quasimodo would function as the will of God, like he does in the novel.

[Patrick] If we take the novelization as canon, Quasimodo is literally sent by God.

[Leslie] Yeah, The Sack Woman says, help my daughter. Quasimodo answers the call and helps Esmeralda. And later, when Esmeralda is being attacked by Jehan, she says, God will protect me.

Quasimodo runs right in and fights Jehan off of her. So, yeah, in this movie, Quasimodo is functioning as the will of God. He's kind of like an angel.

[Patrick] Here's what Sheehan writes in the novelization. There he turned and held her aloft, his rusty voice bellowed out like the clang of a long-neglected bell. "Sanctuary, sanctuary."

"It was as if the dying petition of this girl's mother, she who had been known as Sister Gudule, had reached the throne of God."

[Leslie] And speaking of Esmeralda's parents, she has a father in this movie. In the novel, Clopin is the king of the beggars, and he refers to Esmeralda as a sister, but I don't think he has any close, personal relationship with her. He refers to her as a sister probably in the way that he would refer to any female member of the Court of Miracles as a sister.

In this movie, Clopin is Esmeralda's adoptive father. The title cards tell us that he bought her when she was very young, which, in the world of this movie, might be the way Quasimodo became Jehan's slave. Maybe Jehan also bought him.

It's really cool to see Clopin in the role of a father. I feel a lot of adaptations don't really know what to do with his character. I mean, in our previous episode, we talked about the opera "La Esmeralda," in which Clopin is Frollo's lackey and student in sorcery, but we never really get to see that fleshed out.

In the Disney movie, he's kind of a narrator slash master of ceremonies, kind of like the MC from "Cabaret." He plays a different role in every different adaptation, but I really like his role here. Not only is he sort of the father of everyone in the Court of Miracles, he is the king of the beggars, he dreams of lifting his people out of poverty and initiating a revolution against the oppressive French aristocracy.

He is also Esmeralda's dad, and he has a soft spot for her. I mean, she's probably the only person who can convince him, hey, take that noose off of that guy you're about to hang. I don't care if you think he's an aristocratic spy.

Have you so little misery that you must create more?

[Patrick] And going with characters whose relationships are changed from the novel, you mentioned the guy who gets cut down, that's Gringoire, right? Gringoire is Captain Phoebus' sidekick for a lot of the movie. I don't know how they know each other.

Granted, most of the scenes with Gringoire are lost to time. He had a lot more to do in the script, and in the movie that we have today, he's a fairly minor role. He nearly gets hanged in the Court of Miracles, he sits around during the festival scene, he delivers messages to Captain Phoebus, and he's very hungry.

There's a really funny scene after Gringoire delivers a romantic message from Esmeralda to Phoebus, where Phoebus is so lovestruck, he just wants to keep talking about Esmeralda. And poor Gringoire, who is a starving poet, literally a starving artist, is lustfully looking after a chicken and just keeps getting interrupted as soon as he wants to start eating. It's classic silent comedy.

I think Phoebus and Gringoire make a good pair comedically. They don't really interact in the novel, but I think there's some potential. I hope other adaptations play with that character dynamic.

[Leslie] Handsome knight in shining armor who is completely head over heels in love with a beautiful maiden, and this lanky, bumbling idiot sidekick who, oh, sir, yes, sir, I'll do whatever you say. Kind of like Gaston and LeFou, but a lot healthier.

[Patrick] Now, in the screenplay, there were excerpts from Gringoire's poems, and he had a lot more to do. He was very involved with a character who gets a title card in the movie we have today, but doesn't do anything. Marie, the Queen of the Romani, who's not from the book.

[Leslie] Yeah, Marie, Queen of the Romani. She is introduced with her own title card. We see her at one point comforting Esmeralda after the ball scene, where Esmeralda realizes she and Phoebus can't be together because of their differing economic classes.

Does she have a lot more to do in the footage that's cut? Because it seems as though she's set up to have a larger role than she ultimately does.

[Patrick] Yeah, same with the archdeacon in Gringoire, and, frankly, the King of France who barely has any scenes.

[Leslie] He's in this twice, I think. Once during the Festival of Fools scene, and once when he promotes Phoebus to Captain of the Guards, which, it's really cool that we actually get to see Phoebus promoted in this movie.

[Patrick] Well, most of the King's scenes were in that treasure subplot, so when they go, he goes.

[Leslie] Is there a place where our listeners can read this screenplay online for free? It seems like it includes a lot of really interesting information about this movie that might not be available through more conventional outlets like YouTube.

[Patrick] Not necessarily. The screenplay was preserved in book form in the 80s by Philip J. Riley, who preserved a lot of universal screenplays for movies featuring the macabre and the supernatural.

Quasimodo is, in his own way, the first universal monster. Without the success of this movie, you wouldn't have had "The Phantom of the Opera," or "Dracula," or "Frankenstein," or "The Mummy." And that book is long out of print.

It was bundled with Patsy Ruth Miller's memoirs as a small press book in the 80s, and is very expensive even today. But about a decade ago, it looks like another independent publisher got the rights to that copy of the screenplay, which is the director's personal copy, Wallace Worsley's, with his notes and his X's and little details in the margins. You can still get that today.

So as for where you can get it for free, I can't really help you with that right now, even though the screenplay is obviously in the public domain. It's more than 100 years old.

[Leslie] Yeah, it's not often you get to talk about a film that's over 100 years old.

[Patrick] And everyone in this movie is dead.

[Leslie] Even that little girl in the Sack Woman, Esmeralda flashback scene is probably dead. Her children are probably dead.

[Patrick] That's a bummer. I think Bear Manor Press sells the screenplay, so if you want to get a copy and see some of these deleted scenes, you can find them there. There's a ton of little scenes that we haven't mentioned.

This would be a three-hour podcast if we talked about everything that is missing from this movie and all the publicity. There are scenes of Quasimodo bartering with a merchant to get some clothing for Esmeralda after she gets saved in Notre Dame. And there are a lot of great photographs of these missing scenes, but just look around Google.

You'll see pictures, and if you see something that doesn't look like a scene from the movie, it's probably a deleted scene.

[Leslie] There are a couple moments of violence that completely cut away from what we probably should be focusing on and then cut back once the violence is over. And by that I mean we don't actually see the whip hitting Quasimodo's back, but we see the torturer holding the whip over his head, we cut away for a moment, and then we see Quasimodo crying out in pain. It's the same with Phoebus' stabbing.

We see Jehan lunging out and raising the dagger over Phoebus, and then we cut to the interior of Notre Dame for a moment, and then we cut to Phoebus collapsing onto the ground while Jehan runs away. Those little moments of violence, save for the moment Quasimodo gets stabbed, are omitted from this movie. Like you said, Patrick, there were censorship concerns at the time, and those really difficult moments of violence that Victor Hugo paints so beautifully and so gruesomely in his novel, we can't see those visually in this movie.

[Patrick] There are those limitations, but I think they're done rather tastefully. You don't need to see the cat-of-nine-tails strike against Quasimodo's hump, and then gore the pavement with blood like it does in the novel. We're able to put two and two together, and even though we don't see Quasimodo get whipped, I feel as the audience, it's as if we do see it, just because of the reactions.

We see, you know, someone raises a whip, then in the next shot, they cringe and scream. We feel it more than if we actually saw the violence. It's like how in "Jaws," you don't actually see the shark so much, but you do hear the score, and you see the POV, and people talk about the shark.

It builds up suspense. And with Phoebus being stabbed, when we cut to the interior of Notre Dame, that's not just a random cut. It's a shot of Quasimodo blowing out a candle, as if he is blowing out Phoebus's life after he gets stabbed.

So I think that's a clever way to censor and cut around the violence. So yes, it is tamer than Hugo's novel, but I think if you are going to show the wimpy version, it's tastefully done. It's a lot more tastefully done than the censorship of, say, oh geez, you ever seen "The Big Lebowski?"

[Leslie] Indeed I have, multiple times.

[Patrick] Well, that's a movie that has a lot of foul language, and you can't show that on TV at 2 o'clock in the afternoon. So all of the swear words had to be redubbed. And let me just say, in the original cut of the film, John Goodman's character did not say that's what happens when you find a stranger in the Alps.

I will leave it at that. You know, that's the sort of uncouth and awkward censorship that this movie avoids, and is able to do rather tastefully.

[Leslie] But for some reason, for all of this censorship, we do get to see Jehan plunging a dagger into Quasimodo's back. I guess because deformed people don't deserve the same level of sensitivity and censorship that other people do?

[Patrick] I know, it's one thing to show a knife going into a handsome guy's back, like that's too much. But a hump?

[Leslie] Yeah, I mean it's probably just hollow in there. You can smack it, it'll make like a bongo sound. Thump.

[Patrick] It must not be hollow because Quasimodo dies in this version. Whereas Phoebus, he gets full-on stabbed and he's completely fine.

[Leslie] Yeah, totally fine. Just walks off with the woman of his dreams on his arm and, yay, we can be together now because your dad is dead.

[Patrick] Maybe it's because the actor playing Phoebus was made of wood. I don't think Norman Kerry's a terrible actor, but I also don't think that he enjoyed acting very much.

[Leslie] He looks a heck of a lot like Orlando Bloom, in my opinion, so he's got that working for him.

[Patrick] In real life, Norman Kerry was sort of like Phoebus from the novel. Just very handsome and an airhead. And in contrast to Lon Chaney, who took his craft as an art.

He took being an actor very seriously. Norman Kerry was more about alright, don't look at the camera, don't giggle during the love scenes, and don't forget to pick up your check on Friday. Norman Kerry did not last very long in the era of sound movies once that technology gets invented because, oh dear, now I have to do more than be a pretty face.

But you know, he's pretty good at being a pretty face in this version.

[Leslie] There's a story I love. Norman Kerry was also in Universal's film adaptation of "The Phantom of the Opera" that Lon Chaney starred in. And yes, listener, Lon Chaney did his own makeup for that one too.

On the set of that movie, Norman Kerry said something to the effect of, "I became an actor so that I wouldn't have to get a real job." And Lon Chaney was just absolutely disgusted by this. And well, there's a reason why we're still talking about Lon Chaney as one of the greatest actors and makeup artists who ever lived today, and you don't really hear Norman Kerry's name said aloud.

Patrick, before we wrap up here, what are your overall thoughts on Universal's "The Hunchback of Notre Dame?"

[Patrick] I really like this movie. It is not just a good first silent movie. It's one of the most important movies, period.

It helped to make Universal a legitimate player in the film business. It made Lon Chaney a internationally recognized superstar. And it blew up the name, "The Hunchback of Notre Dame."

You know, before then, yes, there had been translations of the novel that used the term Hunchback of Notre Dame, and they had been used interchangeably throughout the 19th century. But this movie being such a big hit and inspiring so many movies after it, really solidifies that in the English-speaking world, "Notre-Dame de Paris," for better or for worse, is "The Hunchback of Notre Dame." And as iconic and important as this movie is, I'm willing to admit that it does have a few flaws.

You know, Wallace Worsley is not an amazing director. We do not have the same creative shots that you might have in, for example, a lot of German silent films of the time, like "Der Golem" or "Nosferatu" or other such macabre films. But the strengths of this film, visually, are the sets, costumes, and actors.

I love looking at this movie. The strengths of this film, visually, are the sets, costumes, and actors. I love looking at this movie.

The costumes are so good, and the sets are so believable. I think that I am looking at footage of the Middle Ages even though this is only a hundred years ago. It is fantastic to look at just as a world.

I love being in the world of this movie. Even if the plot doesn't always connect super well, it's a lot of, this happens, and then this happens, and then that happens, versus plot point A, therefore plot point B, therefore plot point C. It's very meandering, especially in the first half, but the action is good.

I enjoy the characterizations, and Lon Chaney's performance as Quasimodo is simply unforgettable. I'm not going to promise that the average moviegoer is going to have the ideal experience, but if you do see this movie, and you should, try to see it live with an audience where you have musicians playing alongside the film, maybe with a small orchestra, or I was privileged enough to see, alongside Leslie, a playing of this film with the Wurlitzer organ, which is basically like a one-man band in the form of a piano. It was great. There were sound effects, there was clapping, there was bells.

It was an amazing experience. And seeing a silent movie with a live audience is the way to go. There are plenty of over-the-top moments.

For example, when Jehan is up to no good, he will lift his cape in front of his face like Dracula. That's a relic from the days of melodrama in the theater. It doesn't really belong in the movies, but boy, is it funny.

But when you see a character doing stuff like that, or the very over-the-top love scenes between Phoebus and Esmeralda, see it with a live audience. So when you see the bad guy being bad, people boo and hiss. When you see the love scenes, people say awe.

When you see Quasimodo defending the cathedral, people cheer. Silent movies were never silent. This movie was designed to be a super jewel, a crowd pleaser.

It's the Hollywood version of Hugo's novel. And, you know what? I don't mind a bit of Hollywood now and then.

Where are you at, Leslie?

[Leslie] Yeah, I totally agree with you, Patrick. And shout out to the Empire State Theater and Musical Instrument Museum, which is where you and I saw this movie played with live accompaniment from a gentleman from Michigan on the Wurlitzer organ, which is unfortunately a dying instrument. There are only a handful of people left in the world who know how to play it.

We were privileged that one of them played for a showing just about an hour away from where we live. It was such a wonderful experience. He played an original accompaniment that he wrote by himself for this movie specifically.

It was really great to hear his artistry and talk to him after the screening. And you're right, seeing movies live with a live audience is such a special experience, and it's why I pray to God every single day that movie theaters stay in business and they stay full. So, listener, keep an eye on your local happenings.

If something like this is happening within driving distance of you, please go see it. It is such a fun experience. But even if you can't, this movie is available for free on YouTube.

That is one of the many privileges of us covering something that is in the public domain. You guys can take an hour and forty minutes and watch it wherever, whenever, without paying a dime. I respect this movie so much for everything it accomplishes.

It fixes all of the problems that I and I'm sure many other readers had with Victor Hugo's Esmeralda. It brings Lon Chaney's artistry to the character of Quasimodo, which is just a match made in heaven. Without Quasimodo, like you said, Patrick, there wouldn't be Universal Monsters.

We wouldn't have "Frankenstein," or "The Phantom of the Opera," or "The Mummy," or "The Wolfman." And without Lon Chaney and Irving Thalberg, we would not have this movie, which was a huge risk to Universal at the time. It was a super jewel production.

One of the most expensive films ever made. There are an incalculable number of extras in this movie, with elaborate sets and beautiful costumes, and that risk paid off. This is still a very highly talked about film, one hundred and three years later.

And I am so excited to continue revisiting this film throughout my life. Is it my favorite Hunchback adaptation? No, but I do enjoy it, and I think it's a very interesting watch, and it's a fantastic relic of Hollywood history.

Pat, before we wrap up here, it's time for our game we like to play at the end of every episode. Out of everyone and everything we discussed today, who or what would you A. meet at the inn, B.

turn to dust with, and C. throw off of Notre Dame?

[Patrick] I would meet the zesty fellow who appears at Madame de Gondelaurier's ball. He is a portly guy, he's the fat guy with the mustache who gets really offended when the vagabonds enter, and he's very prissy and upset by what's going on.

[Leslie] Yeah, listener, go watch the movie. You'll know exactly who we're talking about.

[Patrick] Can I say zesty on this show?

[Leslie] You can say obviously gay. There's nothing wrong with that. I've never heard a gay man described as zesty.

That's a great word.

[Patrick] Critics like Michael F. Blake believe this character is a gay stereotype, and you shouldn't stereotype people. However, I think I would get along with this guy, so we're going to the inn.

As for who I'm turning to dust with, I'll turn to dust with this version of Clopin, because the revolution will not be televised. I appreciate his over-the-top Eastern European appearance. He has this great action about him and a sense of menace.

Ernest Torrance, who plays Clopin, is perfect as a silent film actor. I'm turning to dust with him, not just because I found him interesting as an actor, but because of his softness towards Esmeralda. You know, Clopin's heart burned to the injustice of the world, and softened only at the thought of his foster daughter.

That's a trope I like, where you have the big tough guy who's soft for the one person he cares about, which appears in several ways in Hugo's novel and in this story, and Clopin definitely embodies that in this version. As for who I'm throwing off of Notre Dame, listen, I tried to defend the creative choices with this character by going outside of the movie itself, and going to the screenplay and the official novelization, but even with quasi-canon explanations, I can't justify the subplot with Esmeralda's mother. So, Sister Gudule, you don't do anything.

Even though the actress does a good job, and I like those scenes, the fact that she dies two-thirds into the movie with no resolution on screen just leaves me as an audience member wondering, what is the point? Why are we sitting here and watching this? Is this just pathos for the sake of pathos?

So, you know what? And she's being thrown off of Notre Dame with an explanation. The explanation being, in the movie, she didn't get one for why she dies.

Where are you falling on this game, old Leslie?

[Leslie] Hopefully not off of Notre Dame. I am going to meet the treasure of Notre Dame at the inn. Partially because I like shiny things, you know, Patrick just gave me this beautiful diamond engagement ring.

Lab-grown, of course, no blood diamonds on my hands. So, more of this, please. That would be wonderful.

But also because I want to get to know the treasure of Notre Dame. What are you? What was your purpose in this story supposed to be?

I would love to get to know that, so I'm going to take the treasure to the inn for a nice date, where I stare at it while it sparkles in the candlelight.

[Patrick] Based on the surviving photographs of the scenes talking about the treasure of Notre Dame, it looks like a single treasure chest with, like, three crowns in it.

[Leslie] I'm going to turn to dust with Irving Thalberg. He seems like a very sweet guy. You know, I have a lot of pity for the image of this little sickly boy, with his nose pressed to the window, wishing he could go out and play with his friends, but instead he makes friends out of books and he's cuddled up in bed with maybe a stuffed animal or two and "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" by Victor Hugo.

I don't know who thought to give that to a child. I have a couple questions for his mom, but thank god she did, because thanks to his insistence that this movie not only get made, but receive a massive budget, we have this visual spectacle that we know and love today. And this movie did change Universal.

So thank you, Irving Thalberg. I'm going to turn to dust with you, my friend. As for who I'm throwing off of Notre Dame, I'm going to take whoever lost the 20 minutes of footage of this movie that we will probably never get to see, and I'm throwing them right onto the pavement and they're going to go splat.

I wish we saw more of Marie, Queen of the Romani. I wish we found out what the heck this treasure of Notre Dame actually was. There is so much of this movie that thanks to your historical insight, Patrick, I didn't know I needed to see.

So I'm going to find that person who just didn't think those scenes were worth preserving after they tumbled to the cutting room floor, and I'm throwing him off of the cathedral.

[Patrick] And with that, another episode of "The Hunchcast" comes to a close. Clothes? Shirt?

Socks?

[Leslie] There are a lot of clothes in this movie. And there are going to be a lot of clothes in the next movie we're covering. Listener, tune in next time to see what that is.

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