Word: laughtons
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...horror film in which the late Lon (Man of a Thousand Faces) Chancy, with the help of an elaborately repulsive makeup, set a standard for cinema frightfulness hard to beat. So hard, that the more repulsive make-up (by Perc Westmore) with which British Cinemactor Charles Laughton proposed to beat it was a devoutly cherished secret of this production. Thirty-four pounds lighter than Lon Chaney's, Laughton's make-up consists of a sponge-rubber right cheek and false eye socket, which covers Laughton's own right eye, keeps his face drawn in a deformed grim...
Even more amazing is the make-up magic by which Westmore somehow transfers burly, bulging Cinemactor Laughton's paunch to his shoulder...
...Charles Laughton's contribution is one of his best performances, as he manages to make hunchbacked Quasimodo not only monstrous but pitiably human...
Highest high jinks: Charles Laughton having himself a wonderful time in the turret of Notre Dame, playing the bells with his feet, swinging apelike from the bell ropes, dropping building blocks and raining a vast cauldron of molten lead through gargoyles' mouths down on his fellow citizens in the square below...
...Charles Laughton's expert mugging, the acting of Sir Cedric Hardwicke and Walter Hampden, and a host of new and pretty faces don't redeem the crude bungling of the psychological plot at the hands of the Hollywood hair raisers. Confidentially, it's only fair...