Two BD releases of The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923), both riddled with restoration artifacts.

Flicker Alley (FA)

I like that it’s a color scan of a tinted print, which allows the subtle, imperfect color variations inherent in the process. The tints on Universal’s version are recreated.

The most common artifact comes from either poor compression or automatic spot removal gone awry (I’m guessing the latter):

Most of the time they look like specks of dirt, but if you look closer, they are hard tiny blocks.

Also frequent is frozen temporal cloning:

The next three examples each have multiple instances of frozen temporal cloning:

Sloppy retouching:

Quick-reverse temporal cloning:

Quick-reversing is when frames are repeated in the manner of ABCDCDEF. It’s often applied to entire frames. For this edition, Flicker Alley combined it with temporal cloning. It’s no better than frozen temporal cloning, as you can see the picture “seize up.” Maybe not all the time, but done enough times, you’ll start to notice something’s off.

One thing I’ve heard in commentaries and interviews from the people that produce restorations is that these artifacts aren’t visible in motion. Well, up next, straight-from-the-disc at 21.5fps:

Stabilization:

Stabilization was applied relatively sparingly. I don’t particularly care for stabilized silents; they have a tendency to float and rotate around the center. Here is an egregious use of it:

Lon Chaney was in front of a wall, facing a camera locked to a tripod. Stabilization warps every bit of this shot.

Universal (UNI)

Universal’s restoration is available from both Kino and Eureka. At first glance, it looks to be a big improvement, but it also has a lot of restoration artifacts. The one thing they got right is the very nice grading.

Sloppy retouching:

Look at the line at top. It originally went across the entire frame. The retoucher only did part of the line, and not well:

If the line wasn’t so bad that part of it was allowed to stay, then better to leave it alone.

Another half-ass repair.

Interpolation:

The technicians applied interpolation to both entire frames and combined it with spot retouching.

At first glance, nothing’s wrong:

But interpolation destroys her face (click for full size):

Extended interpolation. This doesn’t look natural at all:

Yet Flicker Alley has this same shot intact:

Quick-reversing:

Quick-reversing is abundant. Most of the time, it’s combined with temporal cloning. It’s easy to tell because the source area often has a scratch, causing the damage to propagate two frames later. No examples here, but it’s really easy to spot, starting with the opening titles.

Full-frame quick-reversing:

You should be able to tell the QR frames in the above sample. Now imagine that applied to spots. The entire movie.

Comparison

Interestingly, neither version is more complete than the other. They each have footage not found in the other version.

Music

FA provides a compiled score by Donald Hunsberger, with Robert Israel conducting his orchestra. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn’t. I’ve heard better compiled scores. Israel, as always, gets the most out of the music. If it tends to sound too cheery, well, so does Verdi’s Macbeth.

The score on UNI’s release is by Nora Kroll-Rosenbaum and Laura Karpman. It takes this movie very seriously, forgetting that Esmeralda lives at the end. I like its initial approach, but the music soon turns excessively cerebral and intent on avoiding even the appearance of Mickey-Mousing. Too often, the music sounds like it’s ignoring the picture. It’s a snoozer. I fell asleep and didn’t miss what I missed.

And another thing, FA used a real orchestra, while UNI gave us simulated instruments. I’m not opposed to modern electronic music for silents, but I’ve never encountered a fellow fan who got excited over faked instruments. This is deep-pocketed Universal Pictures here. We know they’re just being cheap.

FA’s release is transferred at 21.5fps and encoded at 24fps. UNI’s runs at 24fps, which is too fast; there are titles that don’t stay on screen long enough to read.

So, which version to get? Why, the DVD from Reelclassicdvd! I don’t have it (yet), but it has a score by Ben Model, who is always a treat, and I bet the picture is nicely not-restored.

Neither BD is better than the other. The Hunchback of Notre Dame has yet to get an excellent restoration in our modern era.