There once was a time when I paid enough attention to Disney films that each of their releases was a major event on the calendar. The Hunchback of Notre Dame came at the tail end of this period for me, arriving as it did when I was busy in university. This meant that I never watched it and was barely aware that it existed. Apparently the same held true for my wife as she had never watched it as well, which was why she asked for it to be added to our list.

Quasimodo is the child of a gypsy mother who dies while fleeing persecution from the evil Judge Frollo, the Minister of Justice in Paris. Though he initially intends to murder the hideous child on the steps of the cathedral of Notre Dame, Frollo is guilt-tripped by the church’s archdeacon into raising the baby as his own. Forbidden to step foot outside the cathedral and given the job of ringing its bells, Quasimodo naturally longs to be part of the crowd having fun on the streets instead of merely looking down at them. He gets his chance during the Festival of Fools, sneaking out and is entranced to meet the beautiful gypsy dancer Esmeralda. In the meantime, the handsome Phoebus is appointed the captain of the guard and is smitten by her too. Frollo too becomes obsessed with the girl and is determined to find the fabled Court of Miracles where the gypsies hide out and stamp them out once and for all.

For the most part this is pretty standard Disney fare, right down to the three animated gargoyles who provide the comic relief, so it’s hard to think of anything really interesting to say about it. I did enjoy the callback to a time before computer generated graphics and was especially impressed by the opening shot of a bird’s eye view of Paris. The detail in that shot seems comparable to Japanese anime. Unfortunately the rest of the art has the flat look with no shading effects that seemed to have been Disney’s house style at that time. The music felt okay to me but there may be too much of it. You get the point that the song is trying to convey from the first few bars and then the rest of it seems superfluous.

The only big surprise I got here is how dark this film gets by Disney standards. Frollo openly lusts for Esmeralda and offers her the choice of either being his or being burnt to death. The film tries to pull some punches by making the character a minister of justice rather than a priest as in the original story but he still pretty much justifies his methods using religion, arguing that she must surely be a creature of Hell sent to Earth to tempt virtuous men. I was disappointed that the actual archdeacon of Notre Dame never really confronted him about it so there’s no satisfactory resolution here but it’s still a fair bit bolder than I would have expected out of Disney.

Overall this seems like a fairly typical Disney offering from that period. It’s pleasant enough but there’s nothing outstanding or even very memorable here.