"The Hunchback of Notre Dame" might be a cute Disney cartoon, but it's actually a rather tragic story. It has been committed to film and stage many times, and even this silent film from 1923 isn't the earliest adaptation.

Jehan has fallen in “love” with the beautiful gypsy Esmeralda after seeing her dancing in the town square. The captain of the guards, Phoebus, is also quite taken with her, and she with him. Jehan has Quasimodo, a deformed man living in the church, kidnap her. When he’s caught and subjected to beating and humiliation before the townsfolk Esmeralda is the only one to show him compassion.

Jehan, not to be so easily thwarted stabs Captain Phoebus and allows Esmeralda to take the blame. Condemned to be executed this time it’s Quasimodo to her rescue. But how long can this man and the head of his church protect the girl before the king’s justice is carried out against her?

There’s romance, tension between the aristocratic Capt. Phoebus and Esmeralda’s gypsy family, and a mystery surrounding her lineage. It’s an impressively complex and involved story considering it’s done without dialogue in this silent film version although the crime for which Esmeralda is accused is not convincing. The story can sometimes be predictable but is often not, especially considering Quasimodo is not the typical hero (being the initial villain and all). 

I've always thought "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" was supposed to be a horror movie. It's really not. While the original story has some tragedy to it, about the only bit of “horror” in the movie is the deformity of Quasimodo, but even then he is not anything monstrous. He's just a man who made some poor choices initially but comes to act heroically later. There is some suspense with the kidnapping and the stabbing which is evidently enough to take what might otherwise be considered a slightly dark drama into the league of movies about vampires and reanimated corpses.

Lon Chaney has been a couple of cinema’s more recognizable monsters from days of yore. He seems to play deformed men rather than actual monsters but each one is very distinct. Quasimodo is nothing like his Phantom of the opera. I wouldn’t have guessed they were the same man behind the makeup if I didn’t know the actor. His physical presence in this one, being hunchbacked with an odd gait, adds a lot to the scenes he’s in without coming across stupidly as many of his later imitators do.

There are some significant differences from the original story which is far too long to depict accurately from beginning to end. Don Claudio (Claude Frollo in the original), the archdeacon of Notre Dame, is considerably different and less important to the story in the movie than the book. His brother Jehan takes his place as the primary antagonist. The movie ends significantly earlier than the book and ends on a far different note. Pierre Gringoire, the original protagonist, and the trained goat (which added some levity to the story) are ommitted completely as far as I can remember. And Esmeralda's backstory gets much less attention.