Main Cast: Anthony Hopkins, Derek Jacobi, Lesley-Anne Down, Robert Powell, John Gielgud
Release Year: 1982
Country: UK/US
Run Time: 102 minutes
Plot
While most people are familiar only with the Lon Chaney Sr. and Charles Laughton versions of Victor Hugo's The Hunchback of Notre Dame, this 1982 TV adaptation was the fourteenth filmization of the Hugo novel. Anthony Hopkins, barely recognizable under mounds of disfiguring body makeup, plays Quasimodo, the deformed 15th-century bellringer of Notre Dame cathedral in Paris. Leslie-Anne Down plays Esmerelda, the gypsy girl who wins Quasimodo's unswerving loyalty when she offers him water after he is publicly flogged. And Derek Jacobi plays Dom Claude Frollo, the hypocritically pious archdeacon of Notre Dame, who'll do anything to claim Esmerelda for himself. Produced by Norman Rosemont, The Hunchback of Notre Dame originally aired February 4, 1982, as a Hallmark Hall of Fame presentation. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
David Suchet - Trouillefou; Kenny Baker - Pick Pocket; Timothy Bateson - Commerce; Eunice Blalck - Clergy; Joseph Blatchley - Albert; Rosalie Crutchley - Simone; Roland Culver - Bishop of Paris; Hugo de Vernier - Nobility; Donald Eccles - Judge; Nigel Hawthorne - Magistrate; Jack Klaff - Officer; Norman Lumsden - King's Attorney; Tim Pigott-Smith; Gerry Sundquist; Alan Webb; Dave Hill - Coppenhole; David Kelly - Tavernkeeper; John Rutland - 2nd Old Man; Antony Carrick - Auditor; John Kidd - 1st Physician; Stanley Lebor - Torturer; Wally Thomas - 1st Old Man
Credit
Irene Lamb - Casting, Phyllis Dalton - Costume Designer, Michael Tuchner - Director, Keith Palmer - Editor, Ken Thorne - Composer (Music Score), John Stoll - Production Designer, Alan Hume - Cinematographer, Norman Rosemont - Producer, John Gay - Screenwriter, Victor Hugo - Book Author
In the novel, the story, which takes place in medieval Paris, is about Quasimodo, a deformed, barely verbal hunchback who is feared and hated by the townspeople. His only friend is Dom Claude Frollo, a priest so stern and cold he ignores Quasimodo when he's being publicly tortured for kidnapping the beautiful young gypsyEsmeralda, a crime that Frollo himself instigated out of a mad lust for her. She is the only character to show the hunchback a moment of human kindness: as he is being whipped for punishment and jeered by a horrid rabble, she approaches the public stock and gives him a drink of water. Because of this, he falls fiercely in love with her, even though she is too disgusted by his ugliness to even let him kiss her hand. Meanwhile, she is obsessed with a shallow, self-centered, but a handsome soldier named Phoebus whom she believes once protected her. Frollo wounds Phoebus in an attempt to murder him, and allows Esmeralda to be accused of the crime and arrested for witchcraft. Crazy with frustrated lust, the priest has her condemned to death. As she is being led to the gallows, Quasimodo swings down by the bell rope of Notre Dame and carries her off to the sanctuary of the cathedral. After an uneasy respite, a mob storms Notre Dame, and although Quasimodo tries to fend them off, Esmeralda is seized and hanged. In despair, the hunchback kills the priest and crawls off to Esmeralda's tomb to die with his arms around her body. Years later, an excavation group finds both their skeletons intertwined. When they try to separate them, Quasimodo's bones crumble into dust.
The ending of the 1982 movie is very different. Not only does Esmeralda survive, but she recognizes Quasimodo's kindness toward her and kisses him goodbye before she leaves in safety with the poet Gringoire. Shortly after Quasimodo's killing of Frollo (committed in self-defense in the film), soldiers pursue him and he plunges to his death from the parapet of Notre Dame, with the word "Why?" on his lips. The film ends without the audience knowing if Esmeralda learns of his death.
Several plot elements not in the novel are borrowed from the 1939 film as well. Not only does Esmeralda survive at the end, but she eventually comes to love Gringoire, and, again as in that film, it is strongly implied that they stay together after he rescues her.
