The Hunchback of Notre Dame


1923 silent adaptation

Rating: 15/20 (Shelby: 13/20; Christian: 17/20; Maylin: 2/20; Ryan: 8/20; Kayla: 1/20; Jackie: 1.5/20; Ashlyn: 5/20; Kearsten: 4/20; Skyrece: 1/20; Angeles: 1/20; Ashley: 2/20; Eduardo: 3/20; Antifath: 1/20; Lyllie: 10/20; Carlos: 15/20; Jahmir: 15/20; Eric: 2/20)

Plot: The titular hunchback gets entangled in a love triangle, the kind of thing that could really interfere with a dude's bell ringing.

Jackanapes! There's a word that I need to incorporate into my vocabulary. It's ironic that I learn more words from silent movies than from movies in which you can hear the characters speak.

Speaking of speaking, my 8th grade students didn't seem to enjoy this silent movie. We've had testing, and I didn't want this one class I had to get ahead of the others, so we watched this 1923 movie over two days. I picked it because it's something I decided that I wanted to see. Screw them.

Lon Cheney, under pounds of make-up, brings his usual physicality to this performance. He does so much with his legs and tongue here. After seeing lots of Cheney from the silent era, I'm suspecting that these are the sorts of things that were his choices more than the directors he worked with. His Quasimodo is very human instead of the sideshow freak he could have easily been in a 1920's drama, and it's all because of what Cheney brings to the table. Or the bell tower.

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