The Hunchback of Notre Dame

Chaney's first big-budget film, and the one which made his reputation. Laden down with massive sets and milling extras, bowdlerised even by comparison with the Laughton version of 1939, it emerges more as a historical spectacle than as a horror movie - and a rather tedious one at that, thanks to Worsley's often painfully ponderous direction. Worth seeing mainly for Chaney's remarkable performance; even bowed and constricted by the heavy weights he used to help simulate Quasimodo's crippled gait, his body remains extraordinarily expressive.