"Actor: Patsy Ruth MILLER"

• THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME (Masters of Cinema) Special Edition Blu-ray | Blu Ray | (17/10/2022) from £15.49   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  ! Eureka Entertainment to release THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME, the million-dollar super-production of Victor Hugo's famous novel, starring Lon Chaney. On Blu-ray for the first time ever in the UK as a part of The Masters of Cinema Series, presented from a 4K restoration. Available from 17 October 2022, the first print-run of 2000 copies will feature a Limited-Edition O-card Slipcase. Perhaps the grandest of Universal's silent filmsand featuring arguably its first iconic movie monsterThe Hunchback of Notre Dame stars Lon Chaney in the role which transformed him from a respected character actor to a global superstar. Chaney stars as Quasimodo, the mocked and vilified bell-ringer of Notre Dame who selflessly protects the star-crossed street performer Esmerelda (Patsy Ruth Miller), who is in an ill-fated love affair with the dashing Captain Phoebus (Norman Kerry). A Super Jewel adaptation of Victor Hugo's novel, Universal spared no expense on this lavish production, and were rewarded with the most financially successful silent film they had released up to that point. Lon Chaney's performance and make-up work are already legendary, but the rest of the film is as deserving of praise a beautiful nightmare now fully restored in 4K and making its UK debut on Blu-ray as part of the Masters of Cinema series. Special Features Limited Edition O-Card Slipcase (First print-run of 2000 copies only) 1080p presentation on Blu-ray from a 4K restoration conducted by Universal Pictures Music by Nora Kroll-Rosenbaum & Laura Karpman (presented in uncompressed LPCM stereo) Brand new audio commentary with author Stephen Jones and author / critic Kim Newman Brand new interview with author / critic Kim Newman on the many adaptations of Victor Hugo's novel Brand new interview with film historian Jonathan Rigby PLUS: A collector's booklet featuring a new essay by journalist Philip Kemp, illustrated with archival imagery

• The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Silent) | DVD | (16/11/2009) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Lon Chaney, the man of a thousand faces, was best known for playing Quasimodo and the Phantom of the Opera. But the former role in The Hunchback of Notre Dame was clearly the most ambitious of his illustrious career, full of such longing and anguish. It's as though his entire being was consumed by this ugly outcast with a heart as big and beautiful as Notre Dame itself. And the makeup is still astonishing. The rest of this unrequited love story is pretty effective as well, with the re-creation of medieval Paris a standout for its lavishness. Like all great silent films, it delivers a poetry of life that is abstract and tangible at the same time. --Bill Desowitz

• Classic Horror Volume 1 (Nosferatu, Hunchback Of Notre Dame, The Phantom Of The Opera, George Orwell's 1984) | DVD | (31/03/2014) from £11.05   |  Saving you £1.94 (17.56%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Nosferatu (1922): Vampire Count Orlok expresses interest in a new residence and real estate agent Hutter's wife. Silent classic based on the story Dracula. Nosferatu, released in 1922, was the first screen adaptation of Bram Stoker's Dracula. Nearly 80 years on, it remains among the most potent and disturbing horror films ever made. The sight of Max Schreck's hollow-eyed, cadaverous vampire rising creakily from his coffin still has the ability to chill the blood. Nor has ...

• The Sheik | DVD | (19/04/2004) from £5.85   |  Saving you £4.14 (70.77%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Desperate to woo English socialite Diana Sheik Ahmed kidnaps her and whisks her away to his luxurious desert tent. At first she resists his advances but when she is kidnapped by ruthless desert bandits she begins to realise that she has true feelings for her sultry lover. But will the Sheik arrive in time to rescue her from the clutches of the bandits...

• Chiller Theatre Features | DVD | (03/02/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  It's difficult sometimes to fathom how compilers think. This Chiller Theatre threesome consists of two classic silent horror films, plus a low-budget B-movie from the early 1960s. The connection? You decide! Yet these are films that belong in any self-respecting collection, and this package is a good way of acquiring them. Of those featuring Lon Chaney, it's the original 1923 The Hunchback of Notre Dame that comes across best. Chaney's grotesquerie is shot-through with pathos, and Patsy Ruth Miller's Esmeralda has enduring freshness. Wallace Worsley handles crowd scenes and cathedral stunts with aplomb, and there's an atmospheric "posthumous" soundtrack, though anyone looking for accuracy in the depiction of medieval French society is in for a shock. 1925's The Phantom of the Opera is slow-moving and uneventful by comparison, with Rupert Julian's direction never escaping the narrow Gothic trappings of the novel. Chaney cranks (or is that camps?) up his range of gestures to the limit, and Mary Philbin is an eye-catching heroine, but the denouement in the Paris sewers seems endless--with looped extracts of Schubert and Brahms as a hardly appropriate soundtrack. Cut to 1962, and The Carnival of Souls--made in Kansas for under $100,000--is an undeniable cult classic. Herk Harvey sustains the increasingly surreal narrative with ease, Candace Hilligoss is striking (if a tad gauche) as the young organist caught on the cusp of this world and the next, and Gene Moore's organ soundtrack is a masterly backdrop for the motley assemblage of ghouls who pursue her around the seaside pier in a memorable closing sequence. On the DVD: Chiller Theatre is very acceptably remastered--with 1.33:1 aspect ratio and 12 chapter headings per film--and decently if minimally packaged. --Richard Whitehouse

• The Hunchback Of Notre Dame | DVD | (18/01/2010) from £12.13   |  Saving you £-2.14 (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  The Hunchback Of Notre Dame