Ryan Watches 50 Movies

Two weeks ago I watched a Lon Chaney, Sr. movie. Last week I watched a Lon Chaney, Jr. movie. This week it's the elder Chaney's turn again as I watched 1923's The Hunchback of Notre Dame . I've never read the Victor Hugo book, and the only other adaptation I've seen is the Disney musical which I assume took one or two liberties with the original story. But I do happen to own a copy of Marvel Comics' The Incredible Hulk versus Quasimodo from 1983: Is that cool or what? It was written by longtime Hulk writer Bill Mantlo, with art by Sal Buscema and Steve Mitchell, and features the Hulk actually fighting the hunchback in the cathedral of Notre Dame. But of course, I'm here to talk about the classic movie, not some silly comic book, so let's proceed. Synopsis The Notre Dame cathedral is a big ol' church in Paris. It serves as a sanctuary for many of the city's impoverished, and today it's the site of the Festival of Fools , a big ol' party ...

First of all, I want to mention that I just spent 20 minutes wandering around my apartment looking under things because I could not find my notes on this movie, before finally finding them in an unlikely place. Now, it may just be that I misplaced them, but I don't think that's the true explanation. I'm almost certain that my notes were, in fact, stolen and hidden from me by... THE PHANTOM ! The Phantom of the Opera is a 1925 silent film starring Lon Chaney (Senior), based on the 1909 novel by Gaston Leroux, which was of course based on the Twiggy episode of The Muppet Show , in which the theater is haunted by the Phantom of the Muppet Show. These days, of course, when most people think of the Phantom story, they think of the Andrew Lloyd Weber musical. I've seen the musical, but fortunately I had forgotten enough of it that I didn't know everything that was going to happen in the movie. Synopsis The Paris Opera House is enormous, and grand, and palatial... and...