Universal built a full-scale reproduction of the Notre Dame plaza on its studio lot -- reportedly the most expensive set built in Hollywood up to that point -- and populated it with thousands of extras for the film's climactic siege. Lon Chaney designed and built his own Quasimodo makeup and body rig, including a twenty-to-thirty-pound rubber hump and harness he wore through the entire shoot in the California sun. The "sanctuary" the film's plot hinges on was real medieval law: a church genuinely could shelter a fugitive from secular arrest, at least temporarily, and that specific legal technicality is what the climax turns on.Universal built a full-scale reproduction of the Notre Dame plaza on its studio lot -- reportedly the most expensive set built in Hollywood up to that point -- and populated it with thousands of extras for the film's climactic siege. Lon Chaney designed and built his own Quasimodo makeup and body rig, including a twenty-to-thirty-pound rubber hump and harness he wore through the entire shoot in the California sun. The "sanctuary" the film's plot hinges on was real medieval law: a church genuinely could shelter a fugitive from secular arrest, at least temporarily, and that specific legal technicality is what the climax turns on.
Universal built a full-scale reproduction of the Notre Dame plaza on its studio lot -- reportedly the most expensive set built in Hollywood up to that point -- and populated it with thousands of extras for the film's climactic siege. Lon Chaney designed and built his own Quasimodo makeup and body rig, including a twenty-to-thirty-pound rubber hump and harness he wore through the entire shoot in the California sun. The "sanctuary" the film's plot hinges on was real medieval law: a church genuinely could shelter a fugitive from secular arrest, at least temporarily, and that specific legal technicality is what the climax turns on.