(4/24/00)
Lon Chaney's Quasimodo is considered one of his greatest performances and it deserves to be. He shows hate, he shows pain, he is like a wild animal. He feels love and is kind to those who have been kind to him. When Patsy Ruth Miller doesn't respond to him hist expression subtly changes and you hurt.
The Hunchback of Notre Dame is a big, impressive production. It's well done. It has a lot of action. It tells an intricate story with a lot of characters. It has vile villains, deceit, but also nobility. It's larger than life. There is torture and there is betrayal.
It is set in Paris in the late Middle Ages, but the action seems to revolve around Notre Dame Cathedral. The cathedral, beautifully reproduced, dominates the film. Maybe it's a representation of the spirit of the time. It certainly represents an ideal that the characters of the story fail, for the most part, to live up to.
Esmerelda is the great exception. She is almost a personification of the Virgin, an embodiment of the values that the cathedral represents. But she is so sexually desirable that she represents Venus as well as the Virgin. We first see her as an attractive gypsy dancing girl, but as the film progresses it is her attractive spirit which comes to dominate our image of her.
I liked Patsy Ruth Miller in the opening scenes. When we first see her in closeup--in the scenes with Norman Kerry at the inn (or wherever they stop to eat)--I didn't find her so attractive. But maybe that was a response to the shift in how she is presented because she seemed quite suitable as the film progressed.
Some of the scenes that impressed me were the ones in which Esmerelda gives water to Quasimodo after he has been whipped and when the woman who has been cursing Esmerelda because her own daughter had been stolen by gypsies rips the locket off of her and realizes that she is her own daughter. Both are powerful scenes. I unfortunately lost focus and missed what happens to the woman who we have learned is Esmerelda's mother. I think she was killed, but I missed how.
This film was unfortunately shown in a very worn 16mm print and without music. I would really love a chance to see it under better conditions.
(4/26/00)
A couple of other points about The Hunchback of Notre Dame:
It is fascinating to watch Lon Chaney flick his tongue, sort of like a snake. In fact, he seems very animal-like in a lot of his footage. And I also wanted to mention that after Phoebus arrives, he and Esmerelda just blithely go off together, leaving Quasimodo to die alone. This is sad, especially in view of the fact that Esmerelda is basically a kind person.
Showing posts with label Wallace Worsley. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Wallace Worsley. Show all posts
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Friday, October 9, 2009
The Penalty. 1920. Directed by Wallace Worsley.
(2/17/00)
This was a fascinating film, but an unsatisfying one. The main titles were very nice and the film openedwith a shocking sequence about a boy whose legs were amputated unnecessarily. Another doctor agrees to lie to cover up for the surgeon who made the error. The boy overhears this but nobody believes him. This is pretty strong stuff.
Lon Chaney plays the role of that boy as an adult. It is a fabulous performance not only because of the painful job of concealing his legs, but because of the character he created in which bitternesss and love struggle.
Chaney's character is a master criminal and he is an attractive character because of his energy. He is known as "Blizzard" and he is a sort of titan. He reminds me of the master criminal in some of Fritz Lang's films.
It is fascinating that as part of his plan of revenge he poses for a sculpture of "Satan After the Fall." This is a fascinating motif in the film, as he is a Satanic figure. It is like he wants to be able to study this part of himself in a sculpture.
He models for the daughter of the doctor who had amputated his legs. He says something about wanting to corrupt her, but it is never clear just what he intends to do, what his plan is. So there doesn't seem to be that much of a point to his modeling for her.
At the end he tries to force the girl's father to graft the woman's fiance's legs onto him. But the doctor operates on his head instead, explaining that he was insane and not responsible for his actions. For me, that explanation robs the film of its significance. Chaney's character was far more interesting as a man consumed by bitterness and a desire for revenge than as a man not responsible for his actions and who just needed an operation.
I will say that Chaney did seem insane when he was describing his plan for looting San Francisco. So the ending was prepared for.
I liked the San Francisco locale very much at the beginning of the picture, but there wasn't enough of it to sustain my interest for too long. It was an interesting picture about a master criminal and Chaney was always interesting to watch. He played the piano with a woman doing the pedaling for him. One great moment was when he lost control and told Ferris's daughter that he loved her and she laughed at him. The vulnerability and the menace was incredible. And his relationship with Rose was touching, how he wouldn't do anything to her even after he discovered she was a police agent.
The film was full of passion, an exciting story and Chaney's wonderful acting. But it wasn't as great as it could have been.
This was a fascinating film, but an unsatisfying one. The main titles were very nice and the film openedwith a shocking sequence about a boy whose legs were amputated unnecessarily. Another doctor agrees to lie to cover up for the surgeon who made the error. The boy overhears this but nobody believes him. This is pretty strong stuff.
Lon Chaney plays the role of that boy as an adult. It is a fabulous performance not only because of the painful job of concealing his legs, but because of the character he created in which bitternesss and love struggle.
Chaney's character is a master criminal and he is an attractive character because of his energy. He is known as "Blizzard" and he is a sort of titan. He reminds me of the master criminal in some of Fritz Lang's films.
It is fascinating that as part of his plan of revenge he poses for a sculpture of "Satan After the Fall." This is a fascinating motif in the film, as he is a Satanic figure. It is like he wants to be able to study this part of himself in a sculpture.
He models for the daughter of the doctor who had amputated his legs. He says something about wanting to corrupt her, but it is never clear just what he intends to do, what his plan is. So there doesn't seem to be that much of a point to his modeling for her.
At the end he tries to force the girl's father to graft the woman's fiance's legs onto him. But the doctor operates on his head instead, explaining that he was insane and not responsible for his actions. For me, that explanation robs the film of its significance. Chaney's character was far more interesting as a man consumed by bitterness and a desire for revenge than as a man not responsible for his actions and who just needed an operation.
I will say that Chaney did seem insane when he was describing his plan for looting San Francisco. So the ending was prepared for.
I liked the San Francisco locale very much at the beginning of the picture, but there wasn't enough of it to sustain my interest for too long. It was an interesting picture about a master criminal and Chaney was always interesting to watch. He played the piano with a woman doing the pedaling for him. One great moment was when he lost control and told Ferris's daughter that he loved her and she laughed at him. The vulnerability and the menace was incredible. And his relationship with Rose was touching, how he wouldn't do anything to her even after he discovered she was a police agent.
The film was full of passion, an exciting story and Chaney's wonderful acting. But it wasn't as great as it could have been.
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