Because director Jean Delannoy is not highly regarded by the new wave of French critics, very few of his wonderful movies are available on DVD. One exception is his 1956 version of Victor Hugo's "Hunchback of Notre Dame" which is actually available on two DVD labels. True, screenwriters Jacques Prevert and Jean Aurenche have made some odd changes to the novel. One I approve (minimizing Phoebus' role – he's a dull character anyway) but the other is puzzling: Frollo acts like a priest but is no longer a priest in this version. Instead he seems to be a sort of caretaker or janitor at Notre Dame where he is free to carry out his alchemy experiments. Thus the force of the drama is weakened considerably. So-so acting by Gina Lollobrigida (at least she looks great), Anthony Quinn, Jean Danet and Robert Hirsch in other main roles doesn't help. In fact, the only really impressive performance is Jean Tissier's Louis XI (a role which has been cut to the bone). Never mind, the spectacle, the action, costumes and sets carry the night anyway. A technical note: Although widely advertised as a vehicle for CinemaScope, the movie was not photographed in that process at all. No way could Michel Kelber have achieved such glorious effects and noirish panoramas with Bausch & Lomb's rinky-dink lenses. Instead the film was actually photographed in Franscope with lenses manufactured by Professor Ernst Abbe. The producers dared Fox to sue them for appropriating the title of Fox's widely advertised but vastly inferior process. Fox, of course, did not take up the challenge. The last thing chief executive Zanuck wanted was another humiliating court case (after the "You Lucky People" affair) in which Abbe would make mince-meat of both Darryl and other Fox executives who had wasted $6 million buying and "perfecting" a process that was actually in the public domain.
Review of The Hunchback of Notre Dame
