One has to wonder whether anyone at Universal Studios in 1922 realized the irony — and potential problems — of launching the most expensive film production of the time, ”The Hunchback of Notre Dame.” After all, Quasimodo, the title character in this silent film, rang the giant bells in the great French cathedral, and the ringing of the bells actually played a significant role in the story. Of course, there would have been live musical accompaniment in some theaters, but whether that would suitably portray the bells could be problematic.
That won’t be a problem, though, when the film screens as part of The News-Gazette Film Series at 1 and 7 p.m. May 25 at the Virginia Theatre in downtown Champaign.
As a special treat, Chicago’s foremost photoplay (silent-film) organist, Jay Warren, will be providing music and sound effects for the film on the Virginia’s historic Wurlitzer pipe organ for both screenings. As a regularly featured organist for the Silent Film Society of Chicago, he has accompanied most of the great silent films during his 30-year career. The 1923 “Hunchback of Notre Dame” is best known, though, for the title performance by Lon Chaney, renowned as “the man of a thousand faces,” who crafted here the first of his two most famous grotesque characters (the other, of course, being the title character in “The Phantom of the Opera” two years later).
Makeup artist was not a regular job on film sets at the time, and Chaney created all his own make.
