Promise: The Hunchback of Notre Dame is set in Paris during the 15th century. The story centers on Quasimodo, the deformed bell ringer of Notre-Dame Cathedral, and his unrequited love for the beautiful dancer La Esmeralda. Esmeralda, born Agnès, is perceived to be a French Roma girl.
CHAPTER 1: City of Paris
[As the Walt Disney Pictures logo fades off the screen, the chorus heard in the background mixes with the bells of Notre Dame cathedral ringing. A long zoom in through the city until we reach the Clopin singing to a group of children watching his puppet show.]
Clopin: [singing] Morning in Paris, the city awakes / The bells of Notre dame / The sailing men, the chef baked / The bells of Notre dame / To the big bells as loud the thunder / To the little bells soft as a psalm / And some say the soul of the city's the toll of the bells / The bells of Notre dame [speaks] Listen, they're beautiful, please? So many colors of seems, so many changing moods. Besides, you know, they don't alarm all by himself.
Puppet: I don't.
Clopin: It silly boy. Up here, high, high in the dark bell tower, lives the mystery bell ringer. Spooks are aliens. Who is this creature, animal.
Puppet: Who?
Clopin: What is it?
Puppet: What?
Clopin: How did it come to be there?
Puppet: How?
Clopin: Hush!
Puppet: Oh...!
Clopin: And Clopin will tell you. It is a tale, a tale it a human and a slug!
[A wipe to a dark night. A band of gypsies quietly proceeding down the Seine, hoping to avoid detection. A baby in the woman's arms begins to cry.]
Clopin: [singing] Dark was the night when our tale was begin / On the docks hear Notre dame
Gypsy 1: Shut up, can you.
Gypsy 2: We be spotty.
Gypsy Mother: A little one.
Clopin: [singing] Four frightened Gypsies sliding silent under the docks hear Notre dame
Fisherman: Four gilders for safety passage and citizens of Paris.
Clopin: [singing] But a stuck has between lying for the Gypsies / And they gazed up in the red alert / At a silhouette whore clucking / Were irony is much in the bells
[Clopin gasps.]
Gypsy: Judge Claude Frollo.
Clopin: [singing] The bells of Notre dame. Judge Claude Frollo longer to plug the world / Of vice and sun / And he saw connect everything except without.
Frollo: Bring it gypsy vermin to the Palace of Justice.
Guard: [to mother] You there! What are you doing?
Frollo: Still good, no doubt. Take me from him.
Clopin: She ran!
[As the gypsy mother tries to escape with her baby, Judge Frollo gives chase on horseback. She reaches the doors of Notre Dame and pounds on them.]
Gypsy Mother: Sanctuary! Please give me sanctuary!
[Frollo finally catches up to her on the steps of the cathedral. He rips the still covered bundle from her arms, and kicks her, sending her crashing to the cement steps, where she is knocked unconscious. The baby begins to cry.]
Frollo: A baby?
[Frollo uncovers the baby's head, seeing the deformed infant.]
Frollo: A monster!
[He looks around, searching for a way to dispose of the creature. He sees a well, and rides over to it. He is about to drop the baby down the well when a voice (a lightning flash between Clopin and the Archdeacon) shouts out.]
Archdeacon: Stop it.
Clopin: Cried the archdeacon.
Frollo: This is an unholy demon. I'm selling it back to hell, where it belong in...
Archdeacon: [singing] See there the incorrect blood you have spill / On the steps of Notre dame.
Frollo: I am guiltless, she ran, I pressure.
Archdeacon: [singing] Now you would add this kid's blood to the guitar / On the steps of Notre dame.
Clopin: My conscience is clear.
Archdeacon: [singing] You can lying to himself and your creatures / You can shell that you haven't a shelf / But you never can run from, / For hide what you're done / From the yes / The very eyes of Notre dame!
Clopin: [singing] And for one time in his life of power and control / Frollo felt a twinge of fear for his immortal sold
Frollo: What must I do?
Archdeacon: Care for the kid, raise it as your can.
Frollo: What the...? This must be saddled with the happened as us.
[He pauses as a thought creeps across his face.]
Frollo: Very well. Let it live with you, in your church.
Archdeacon: Live there? But where?
Frollo: Anywhere. [singing] Just so it's kept locked away where nobody else can see. [speaks] The bell tower, perhaps. And who knows, our lord work of mystery always. [singing] Even this fool creature may yet prove one day to be of use to me.
Clopin: And Frollo gave the kid a crush name. A name that means halfway, Quasimodo. [singing] Now there is a riddle to fast as can / Sing the bells of Notre dame / Who's the monster and who's the man? / Sing the bells, bells, bells, bells / Bells, bells, bells, bells / Bells of Notre dame!
[We have wiped from watching Clopin's puppet show to the actual bells ringing in the tower, and the back of this mysterious Quasimodo ringing them. As we end on a beautiful shot of the bells ringing, and the word Dame is sung with the cymbal crash, the title "THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME" appears on screen.]
CHAPTER 1: City of Paris: You are here!CHAPTER 2: Morning in Paris: THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME: Chapter II
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