THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME (1939)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *uncanny* 
MYTHICITY: *good*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *psychological, sociological*                                                                                                                            In my review of Victor Hugo's original novel, I wrote:                                                                                                                                         "Hugo is sometimes linked with the artistic movement called "Romanticism," but I don't think HUNCHBACK is a Romantic novel, as are both MOBY DICK and FRANKENSTEIN. It contains larger-than-life scenes that everyone with a basic education knows, like Quasimodo's public flogging and the mercy shown him by his sort-of victim Esmerelda, and the hunchback's dramatic rescue of Esmerelda from the hangman's noose. But HUNCHBACK also contains reams of incredibly prolix prose, as Hugo burns up space descanting on the foolishness of the Parisians, from the highest to the lowest. Hugo acts as if he thinks he invented satire, with the result that most of the other characters are superficial. HUNCHBACK is one of those rare novels which has become a sort of secular literary myth, at least in the sense that most people have at least a broad knowledge of its contents. Yet Hugo's mythopoeic powers are at odds when his didactic ones."                                                                        

 For me, the 1939 film adaptation successfully adapts the Romantic elements of Hugo's novel and either downplays or elides the many ironic elements that, in my opinion, worked against the larger-than-life spectacles and emotional intensity of Hugo's basic situation. I'm sure that, given that Hollywood generally prefers happy endings to unhappy ones, scriptwriters Sonja Levien and Bruno Frank were probably tasked with giving this HUNCHBACK a moderately upbeat outcome, somewhat akin to the conclusion of the 1923 Lon Chaney Sr adaptation. But Levien and Frank seem to have been given broad cachet to retool other aspects of the novel to highlight themes important to 1939 moviegoers. The idea of societal progress through education, which is of dubious merit in Hugo, is one of the main themes, and was almost certainly a response against the rise of fascism in Europe, given some of the biographical history of Sonja Levien. None of the film's triumphalism does anything to anneal the dark tragedy of the Notre Dame bell-ringer Quasimodo, of course. But in the 1939 HUNCHBACK, idealism counterpoints irony, rather than being overwhelmed by the latter.                                                       

The character of Esmerelda (Maureen O'Hara) is one informed by a more idealistic stance. In the novel, she and her fellow gypsies have occupied Paris for some time, and she hangs out with the reprobates of the Court of Miracles even though she herself does not seem to be a thief. In the movie, she and her fellows attempt to enter Paris but are blocked by exclusionary laws, and Esmerelda enters illegally, which causes her to hide from the law amidst the thieves, even though she's so good as to be almost saintly. Audiences in 1939 could not have failed to recognize the gypsies' exclusion as a mirror of the sufferings of displaced people in Europe. The desire to make the gypsies sympathetic may have been pivotal in the producers' decision to exclude the part of the book-plot that reveals that as infants Quasimodo and Esmerelda were switched at birth, which would have confirmed the canard that gypsies were child-stealers. Selfless Esmerelda is also more religious than the one in the book, and wants to appeal to King Louis XI (a much more progressive figure in the film as well) to help her fugitive people.                 

The voice of progressivism, however, arises from the much-altered character of Pierre Gringoire. In the book, this alleged poet is a self-centered gasbag, and the best thing about him is that, after Esmerlda saves him from death in the City of Thieves by marrying him, he at least respects her boundaries and doesn't try to take her by force. (The fact that the gypsy girl carries a concealed knife might have had a lot to do with his reticence, though.) The film's version of Gringoire, passionately ostentatious as played by Edmond O'Brien, believes firmly in the advancements of the rights of all men, symbolized by the recent invention of the printing press, ensuring the proper dissemination of knowledge. In contrast to the 1923 version, this HUNCHBACK promotes Gringoire as the romantic lead for O'Hara's gypsy, and her initial attachment for the better-looking Phoebus is simply dropped after the guardsman is conveniently killed off by the story's villain. There's never really any romantic spark between Gringoire and Esmerelda, but given her limited choice of suitors, the poet ends up with the prize by a process of elimination.                                               

 Said villain Claude Frollo (Cedric Hardwicke) is more or less true to his prose model even though he's demoted from his position of Notre Dame's archdeacon to the more secular position of chief justice. His brother Jehan, who's no more than a wastrel in Hugo, gets promoted to Notre Dame's archbishop, presumably because the producers did not want to antagonize religious moviegoers. In the resultant script, the Church is just as much a friend of progress as the liberalized Louis XI, and most of the societal evil comes from the rampant cruelty of the common folk. Still, Frollo's sexual obsession with Esmerelda is true to the book, and the script even gives Frollo a little more development than Hugo did.                                                                   

Of all the characters, though, Quasimodo is the least changed, even though the progressive discourse of the script makes him more the victim of human ignorance than a victim of cosmic tragedy. Charles Laughton's spirited performance, despite his being impeded by heavy makeup, remains a tour-de-force that has not yet been equaled in film history. Every time Quasimodo is on screen, whether silently suffering on the pillory or dramatically rescuing Esmerelda from the hangman's noose, proves a captivating experience, with the result that every actor who shares the screen with Laughton-- particularly O'Hara--suffers by comparison. But as stated before, he benefits from a script that gives depth to his sufferings, and fine direction from William Dieterle that enhances the spectacle. This film, far more than Hugo's novel, is one of the greatest exemplars of the Romantic tradition.