THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME (1939) - the pick of the hunch

THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME
(1939, USA)

I recently watched three movie versions of The Hunchback of Notre Dame and completely revised my opinions of all of them. The Lon Chaney (1923), Charles Laughton (1939) and Disney musical (1996) versions were the three most lavish and serious attempts at visualising the story. But which stands as the best?

The novel by Victor Hugo (who also wrote Les Miserables and The Man Who Laughs) centres on the clash between the gypsy population and the citizens of 15th century Paris. Violent unrest threatens the peace of the city when a young gypsy girl is framed and takes sanctuary in Notre Dame cathedral, protected by the deformed deaf-mute bell-ringer. They're all unaware that they're being manipulated in a bid to ridding the city of travellers...

The Disney version, which I enjoyed first time around in the cinema, updated the story with the feisty gypsy girl matching the chief of the police in both strength and wit. There was also an unusually adult portrayal of a predatory religious hypocrite, for Disney anyway. But seeing it again, the heavy use of modern, anachronistic puns and sight gags, together with too much unfunny slapstick, spoiled it for me considerably. Perhaps I wasn't in the mood for a musical (rarely am). I don't think it's aged as well as many other recent Disney features.

Next I watched the version I'd assumed would be the best, with Lon Chaney in the silent movie epic. The versatile actor has had a considerable amount written about him in recent years, particularly three exhaustive and impressive books by Michael Blake. Chaney's films are amongst the most watchable and available silent movies on home video, certainly of interest for fans of early horror and the macabre. I really enjoy Lon Chaney's Phantom of the Opera (1925) the most of all the Phantoms. It's a must-see silent movie and horror film.

So I expected Chaney's previous portrayal of the Hunchback, Quasimodo, would be similarly impressive, but I found the film to be slow and too talky. Quite a feat for a silent movie. Chaney's portrayal of Quasimodo was also hard to take seriously because of the make-up. His mop of Scarecrow hair and unreal facial disfigurements were part of his most elaborate and extensive make-up, but not his most successful. Of course, it's impressive that he designed and applied the look of his spectacular characters. But I'd say that the 1939 version easily outshines his work here.


The Charles Laughton version, directed by Wiliam Dieterle, is a masterpiece. Even worth highlighting for your attention here. A movie that looks like it actually might have had a cast of thousands. The plot still holds surprises, including some a sublimated sexual undercurrent, as Esmeralda gets caught in a love quadrangle (she's that popular!). There's a superb cast, particularly the treacherous Frollo, exceptionally played by Cedric Hardwicke (The Ghost of Frankenstein, Rope).


Full honours have to go to the astounding performance by Charles Laughton (Night of the Hunter, The Old Dark House), in a flawless make-up. Laughton plays Quasimodo deaf and dumb, struggling to communicate with everyone around him. Impressively he still acts up a storm without the power of clear speech and under a ton of make-up. The actor is almost completely unrecognisable, in a role reminiscent of John Hurt as Joseph Merrick in David Lynch's The Elephant Man (1980).


There's a misleading early scene with him acting like a typical Frankenstein sidekick, lurking in the shadows, chasing a helpless girl while doing his master's bidding. It's fun but feels out of character. A bigger minus for modern audiences could be the overly theatrical turn by a young Edmund O' Brien (Fantastic Voyage), who is overacting to the heavens, because he's playing a smitten theatrical type.

Hopefully the drawbacks are be outweighed by the spectacularly huge sets, beautiful black-and-white cinematography, gigantic crowds and action scenes, and a top-rate cast milking the intense drama that feels decades ahead of its time.

It was an RKO picture, so I shouldn't have been surprised that the late Robert Wise edited it, shortly before he also did Citizen Kane for the same studio.

All three versions of Hunchback are out on DVD in the US. But while the 1939 film used to play regularly on British TV, it isn't on DVD in the UK.

Finally here's the trailer for the 1939 The Hunchback of Notre Dame on YouTube.

My Real Childhood Heroes

I was a lucky kid, I had a older brother who would mostly put up with me and my dad was a manager for Toys R Us while I was growing up. For some reason I recall this moment over and over again as a kid: Me and Kevin (before mentioned older brother) were counting up our GI Joe's and finally reached that magical kid number that at the time seemed like the largest number in the world, we has finally counted up our Joe's and had 100 of them.

While this moment resonates in my mind is a mystery, but it does and I can remember being in his room for the final count. It seemed like we accomplished something that day, but really all we did was collect 100 GI Joes that cost $3.99 a pop. GI Joe was my toy, it was the cartoon I would watch and love as a child. I own the GI Joe animated movie from 1987, some kids were into Transformers I had my real american heroes. I can remember that playing with the Joes was a way of bonding for me, not only with Kevin but also with kids at school. I would often hang out with kids and play and compare GI Joe's it was an instant way to get to know them.

This was suppose to be about the new GI Joe movie titled G.I. Joe: The Rise Of Cobra. I guess GI Joes were more then just a toy to me, but they held many great memories. I was a tad to young to be hardcore into Star Wars (that would come during my teen years) and besides The Real Ghostbuster toys for me it was pretty much Joe or nothing.

I mean look at these character designs, who can look at Snake Eyes, Storm Shadow, or Firefly and not say they look fucking awesome (and have kick ass code names to boot). Snake Eyes never even talks and he is on the coolest guys in cartoon/toy history, I would even go as far to say he is somewhat Boba Fett like.

You also had some hot chicks, Baroness and Scarlett. Even the bad guys were cool looking. Destro with his shiny metal dome head and Cobra Commander had some good suits, the classic Blue hood look is my favorite. I know they are not wearing the suits in the movie, I am sad but I really understand. It worked mostly for the X-men franchise, and I am not sure if you have seen some of those old uniforms but they would not work in real combat situations.

So the movie? Sure I have some issues with it, like I wish it was made with a better cast but some early reviews are showing that it could be a fun summer action flick. I am really looking forward to seeing it because it reminds me of a simpler time when I was just a kid who would go outside and make my own little world with my toys. The movie sucking will not take that away. If the movie is good it will just add more interest to going back to my childhood and buying some more of those cool new GI Joe toys, I always look at them when I go to target...who knows maybe I will buy some next time I see them.

SPIRAL (1998) - first and best of the RING sequels

SPIRAL

(1998, Japan, Rasen)

Continuing a series of reviews from the Ring phenomenon

The success of Ring (1998) in Japan lead to a successful sequel Ring 2 (1999) and a prequel Ring 0 (2000). But their stories were drastically different to Koji Suzuki's original books, and ignored the events of the very first sequel, Spiral, which was actually released at the same time as Ring. While Ring was immediately popular, Spiral wasn't, encouraging producers to pursue a different storyline for Ring 2 the following year.

Ring 2 gave audiences more of what they (we) wanted - more videotapes and more twitchy, scary Sadako. But Spiral primarily uses ideas from Suzuki's second novel, with a subtler but ultimately far more horrifying scenario where Sadako could become more powerful than you could possibly imagine...


Spiral begins the day after the events of Ring, with a pathologist being called in to perform an autopsy on a former colleague, the latest victim of Sadako. He finds himself haunted by his former friend and how he died, mixed in with his suicidal despair over the accidental drowning of his young son (shades of Suzuki's Dark Water).

The cause of death makes no sense to him, neither does talk of a cursed videotape. He teams up with a journalist to investigate, while more and more witnesses continue to die mysteriously.

When Sadako appears, she's not shrouded in black hair and a shroud, but a sexy nightdress. Another change of tactics is to spread her curse in other ways besides boring old videotape...


When I first saw this, when it was confusingly being sold around Asia as Ring 2: The Spiral, I was disappointed with the lack of videotape deaths and the twitchy, jerky Sadako that we all love. But over the years, and being less impressed by re-watching Ring 2, Spiral is now my favourite of the sequels. A better story, that doesn't suffer by repeating the highlights of the first film.

This is as much a medical thriller as a horror. But the scares are subtle and effective. The growing realisation of what Sadako is planning is both dramatic and very powerful, reminiscent of Kiyoshi Kurosawa's Pulse (Kairo). Director Joji Iida went on to direct Another Heaven and the post-apocalyptic Dragonhead.

It's also interesting for Ring fans to see the same characters, with the same actors, following completely different paths than they take in Ring 2. Suzuki's books are so full of ideas that the stories about Sadako can spin off in many directions.

As a title, Spiral is an undescriptive name and the original generic poster art didn't help. Ring: Virus would have been a more apt title, but confusingly the South Korean remake (1999) was called that. Speaking of which, I'll review that one next. Eventually I'll also plough through the TV series made of Rasen in 1999.

Spiral is available in the US Ring Anthology boxset, under the Japanese name, Rasen. It also used to be available in the UK as Spiral (artwork at top).

There's plenty of screengrabs, but a less good review over at The Ring Cycle site.

Links to the other Ring movie reviews are here on the Ring Overview.

RING 0: BIRTHDAY - the young Sadako's downfall

RING 0: BIRTHDAY
(2000, Japan, Ring 0: Basudei)

Ring, Ring 2, then back to Ring 0...

Just finished the fourth Koji Suzuki book in his Ring series and it reminded me to continue my look at the extended family of movie adaptions.

While the Japanese sequel Ring 2 had taken the story of Sadako further away from the events of the books, Ring 0: Birthday rewinds to the events before Ring, following the young Sadako's life in 1960's Tokyo when she joined a theatre company. But even when she's alive, in the traditional sense, Sadako is surrounded by creepy trouble. When a member of the cast dies suddenly, the other actors are slow to realise who she is and the strange powers that made her mother infamous. While Sadako aims for a career on the stage and maybe even a boyfriend, a reporter is closing in on her, wanting to stir up the past.


The script is largely based on the short story 'Lemon Heart' from Suzuki's anthology Birthday, but confusingly not on the story 'Happy Birthday', leaving the title almost disconnected from the plot. To spring some new surprises, there's an added twist in the script that upends everything revealed about Sadako so far, one to keep Ring enthusiasts' minds' whirring.

Set thirty years before Ring, it barely looks like the 1960s, with only the tape recording machines to date it. The movie itself looks old-fashioned, with many rather dated scares. Not until the climax does it feel like a Ring movie, made in this decade.


Director Norio Tsuruta is good at tense and slightly creepy (especially effective with the scarecrows of Kakashi), but takes a long while to get to the horror, which should have been easy for a Ring movie. Ring 0 is a fascinating backstory for Ring fans, especially as it portrays Sadako as such a sympathetic character, a dimension which made the first two films all the more tragic.

Yukie Nakama plays Sadako as a scared heroine, but fails to show any hints of the vengeful demon in her that will eventually surface. The object of her affection is a thankless drippy role, as is Shigemori the one-dimensional slimy director of the play. The interesting roles are all for women. Miyaji, the reporter looking for Sadako, and the eldest actress in the troupe who senses trouble before the rest.

Helpfully, all the supporting characters who've appeared in previous films, are all played by the original actors, to subtly help us in the flashbacks.

For a sequel, Ring 0 is good at standing on its own - you don't really need to have seen the other films. It remin ded me of the Twin Peaks prequel Fire Walk With Me, that recounted Laura Palmer's final days, an increasingly dark, occasionally scary, tragic drama.


I snapped up the early DVD releases of the Ring trilogy in the UK, but they were pretty poor in terms of image quality. Birthday had a slightly defocused look, was poor for dark detail and even looked slightly squeezed. But all the films have since been remastered and new boxsets have been issued in the UK and US, made up of different collections of movies and extras.


The US boxset has the trilogy, (Ring, Ring 2, Ring 0) plus Rasen (aka Spiral), an adaption of Suzuki's second Ring book. The UK boxset has the trilogy with Sleeping Bride, an unconnected children's drama also by Ring director Hideo Nakata.

There's a fuller review of Ring 0, with plot spoilers, on the Ring Cycle fansite.

My own short overview of all things Ring is here.

Soon, I'll dive into the alternate Japanese movie sequel, Spiral.

THE CHASER (2008) South Korean thriller verging on horror

THE CHASER
(2008, South Korea, Chugyeogja)

Heard this was a hit serial-killer thriller and decided to have a look. Easy enough, because it's already been released in cinemas in the UK and now on DVD. The Chaser was a big hit in South Korea. While very good, it's not a classic like Oldboy, despite many comparisons and similarities. It's already good enough to soon get remade in Hollywood.

I can't give up too much of the story, as much of the enjoyment is how it unfolds. But our unlikely protagonist is a pimp who's having trouble keeping track of his women. Two have gone missing and he starts to suspect that a third might be in danger of being abducted by a rival. We soon know different, following her to the client, where she realises that she's not in a pimp war, but actually being prepared for slaughter...

There's enough South East Asian movies that pit serial killers against inefficient detectives to fill a whole sub-genre (including Zee-Oui, The Untold Story). This is particularly a key issue in South Korea where serial murders are a new phenomenon (Memories of Murder was about the first ever case). The plot highlights dozens of faults by the investigators and legal team, that cause it all to drag on. It's a far cry fom the high tech methods of CSI. In fact it's so slack that many moments are intentionally funny, in the darkest possible way.

After the film, I learnt that this was an actual recent case. While the story deviates from the truth on many points, it must have helped the box office.

I was thus reminded of Dirty Harry, itself inspired by the Zodiac killer, but also because it takes a renegade working outside the system to cut through the legal red tape, cynical policing and party politics in order to help the innocent.


Though in The Chaser, there's a damaging lull in the centre section of the film as everyone is so completely off track that the audience has to sit and wait until the 'ticking clock' can continue. While the director may have intended this to be suspenseful, I was losing interest because so many of the characters were hopelessly lost in the case.

That said, this could be an effort from first-time director Hong-jin Na to avoid movie cliches. The opening half hour is superb and gripping. The cast are excellent, the film is technically top-notch. But the story ignores many loose-ends and uses far too many coincidences. It's certainly unpredictable and full of surprises, possibly because this is what actually happened. But far too flimsy for a fictional story.


The Chaser is still an undeniably powerful, dark, surprising and watchable thriller. With a couple of moments that are unwatchable. Well, I certainly couldn't bear to look. But, I will look forward to the director's next film, The Murderer.

This is out in the UK on DVD from Metrodome, in a good-looking 2.35 anamorphic presentation.

Old Top Ten Lists

Being a movie lover since birth I felt it necessary to keep track and rate almost every movie I have ever seen. I started grading movies and keeping track of those movie starting in 1997. Here are my top ten lists since then, looking back I somtimes question my choices but its still fun to see what I was thinking back then and what I think now. 

1997

1. L.A. Confidental 

2. The Game 

3. Men In Black

4. Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery 

5. Jurassic Park: The Lost World

6. Face/Off

7. Chasing Amy

8. The 5th Element

9. Starship Troopers

10. Scream 2

1998

1. Saving Private Ryan

2. The Truman Show

3. Good Will Hunting

4. Armageddon

5. Titanic

6. Out Of Sight

7. As Good As It Gets

8. Ronin

9. The Wedding Singer

10. Halloween: H20

1999

1. American Beauty

2. The Sixth Sense

3. Go

4. Rushmore

5. Dogma

6. The Matrix

7. Fight Club

8. Three Kings

9. Office Space

10. Star Wars- Episode 1: The Phantom Menace

2000

1. Best In Show

2. The Green Mile

3. X-Men

4. Cast Away

5. Mission Impossible 2

6. High Fedelity

7. Charlies Angels

8. Unbreakable

9. The Perfect Storm

10. Girl, Interrupted

2001

1. Lord Of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring

2. Life As A House

3. Traffic

4. The Royal Tenebaums

5. Oceans 11

6. Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back

7. The Mummy Returns

8. Snatch

9. Shrek

10. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

2002

1. Bowling For Columbine

2. Spider-Man

3. The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers 

4. Road To Perdition

5. Signs

6. Catch Me If You Can

7. Austin Powers in Goldmember

8. The Ring

9. Van Wilder

10. Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones

2003

1. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

2. Lost In Translation

3. Kill Bill Vol 1

4. School Of Rock

5. Bubba Ho-Tep

6. Big Fish

7. Finding Nemo

8. X2: X-Men United

9. Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl

10. T3: Rise of the Machines

2004

1. Garden State

2. Spider-Man 2

3. Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind

4.  The Incredibles

5. Sideways

6. Kill Bill, Vol 2

7. Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle

8. Napoleon Dynamite

9. Farenhiet 9/11

10. Saw

GU GU THE CAT (2008) - not what you think

GU GU THE CAT
(2008, Japan, Gou-Gou datte neko de aru)

Hollywood makes a lot of dog movies. I live in a nation of cat-lovers which doesn't make cat movies. I didn't know much about Gu Gu The Cat when I bought it, but I just fancied seeing a cat movie, figuring that if the Japanese are as cat crazy as the British, it could be fun. I was expecting something fluffy, trivial, with lots of cute cat action. Slightly right and mostly wrong.

If I was Japanese I might have known about Gu Gu from from its series of manga, which features a cat but centres around its owner. The story is actually autobiographical and leads us through a crisis point in the life of the artist/writer Yumiko Oshima.

In the story she's called Amiko and it begins with her finishing her latest manga. She supervises a team of four woman who help ink and correct all the final artwork at her home. After a late night deadline, when everyone's gone, she discovers that her 15 yr old cat has passed away while she was busy. Distraught at losing her companion, she completely stops writing, leaving her team out of work.

After several worrying weeks, her team are relieved when Amiko gets a new kitten, Gu Gu. But this new bundle of fun doesn't break her writer's block. On top of losing her old muse, her mum is pressuring her middle-aged daughter to go out and find a husband...

This is largely a lightweight comedy freewheeling along from day to day, portraying life well away from the centre of Tokyo in the district of Kichijoji, which is good for parks and creative types. It could be called a chick-flick, but doesn't conform to any Hollywood cliches, other than having a cast of mostly women. It's a little unconventional but not at all challenging. My favourite scene was a gently surreal dream sequence, where Amiko talks with her cat. This isn't done the usual Disney way, but far more mystically, serious and low key. A gentle comedy, it gets a little more serious when Amiko gets ill, just as the author did.


While the rambling plot establishes many characters and storylines, there are few payoffs. If the film wasn't called Gu Gu The Cat, you wouldn't even consider the cat was a main character. But this wasn't a problem as I was in an undemanding mood and enjoyed just drifting along with this slightly soapy slice of life, dreaming of living in suburban Tokyo. This an area renowned for writers and authors and it's interesting to see how Amiko is politely revered as a local treasure, and that the launch of a new manga is mounted as serious as any highbrow booklaunch. The ubiquitous Kazuo Umezo (who also popped up in Yaji & Kita) cameos in a couple of scenes - so that's where he lives!

It's a refreshing portrayal of the lives of several different modern day Japanese women, who are usually missing from the kinds of films that I usually watch. But I would still have liked to see more of Gu Gu the cat, despite his pivotal role. Throughout the film, a part-time narrator speaking in English and Japanese is slightly scary because of his faltering acting and his huge perm. Don't worry when he pops up to the set the scene at the beginning, he's not in it too much, and he improves as it goes along.

The Chinese DVD I watched had English subtitles on it, as does the Japanese release. In the extras it was also fun to see a TV ad tied to the film release, promoting a new sort of cat litter tray!

Here's another review at Lunapark6.