The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1967)
In 1962, Story Artist Bill Peet suggested a more interesting story with higher stakes than in most Disney films up to this point. He inquired to Wolfgang Reitherman about
The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo and acquired the rights to it in April. This would be the first film to be made wholly independent of Walt, and the end product would greatly reflect that. The film rights to
Hunchback were acquired that April after being considered for ten years. Peet favored largely adhering to the dark, dramatic, edgy, and sinister tone of Hugo’s novel while making many of the characters less ambiguous in their moral standing like Frollo, Phoebus, and Clapin. Voice casting was underway by 1964, and animation commenced in June 1965. Unlike other films before it, animators were in charge of developing entire sequences due to the frequent character interactions. All in all, the Disney studio was hoping that
Hunchback would be better received than
Alice and
Melody Time.
Abandoned outside the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris at the age of four, the deaf, one-eyed, hunchbacked named Quasimodo is (out of kindness) taken in by the Archdeacon of Josas, Claude Frollo, and introduces Quasimodo to the bell tower where he finds freedom and shelter from the real world. Frollo’s inner dark side slowly unveils itself when he sees a young gypsy lady named Esmeralda dancing in the Parisian streets. Because Frollo had never dealt with this before, his inner lust makes him go insane and tries to kidnap Esmeralda (while using Quadmodo for muscle for this job). The attempt is foiled by Frollo’s archrival Phoebus, Captain of the Archers. Frollo has Quasimodo take the fall, though, and thus the latter is arrested and sent to the stocks. It is there where he meets Esmeralda for the first time and, unlike every other woman in Paris, Esmeralda likes Quasimodo for who he is and does not let his deformities overshadow his heart. Her kindness causes him to view Esmeralda as an angel but puts him into conflict with an increasingly unstable Frollo who develops a simultaneous lust and loathing toward Esmeralda.
The Hunchback of Notre Dame was released theatrically on October 18, 1967, in the United States as Disney's 19th full-length feature film. It was a solid box office success, earning $11.5 million on its $3.7 million budget during its initial theatrical run. The film earned mixed reviews from both contemporary audiences and critics. The story itself was seen as middling, and its dark themes such as antizagnism, damnation, genocide, lust, and sin were polarizing. Yet the visuals were considered the strongest among the first three Disney films to use the Xerox method, and its message of tolerance gave it a large following in light of the civil rights movement and other movements of 1960s America. The scene where Frollo kills Quasimodo near the film's finale was named one of the most controversial scenes in animation history, and some of that controversy still lingers to this day. On the other hand, the contrasting character arcs of Frollo and Phoebus have gotten praised more highly over time. In March 1997, during a special 30th-anniversary release in Paris, France, it was named one of the greatest films of all time. In North America, it experienced great success on home video before its initial DVD release in 1999.
A/N: In essence, this is a mashup of the original book and OTL's version of Disney's Hunchback plus the inclusion of a scene considered for the finale of the 1996 version. Also, this film ITTL will have a greater impact on film than people will realize at the time since it will be one of the first animated films, if not the outright first one, to receive a PG rating upon its re-release in 1970s under the 1972 ratings system.