I just watched the movie of 'Newsies' again recently and will add that the film villains, Pulitzer and his henchmen, ARE 'buffoonish, cartoon characters.' They're not playing Shakespeare. Robert Duvall (as Pulitzer) was nominated for a Razzie Award for Worst Supporting Actor, so let's not pretend the villains were played for depth. It's a melodrama. Expecting the bad guys to depicted more seriously is like asking why Rooster or Miss Hannigan aren't deeper characters in 'Annie,' or since we're dealing with musicals with lots of kids, Fagin in 'Oliver!' ... Besides, Pulitzer, Hearst, etc., were real-life villains who DID try to squeeze their profits out of the newsboys. If you want to write a show that's more sympathetic and portrays cuddlier newspaper barons, go right ahead. I never said cuddlier.
In the movie, when Pulitzer decides to charge the newsies for the papers, someone says, "Those poor boys." Pulitzer's reaction is, "Nonsense! It's good for their work ethic, it will make them want to work harder!" He thinks he is helping the boys and honestly can't fathom that it would be cruel.
In the musical, when someone says, "Those poor boys," his reaction is, "Who cares aout them, it's good for me!" and then bursts into a song about greed.
A villain who sincerely feels they are doing the right thing is always a more complex, interesting, realistic, and, in my opinion, scary character than one who is simply evil for the sake of being evil. By making Pulitzer the latter, they made him MORE cuddly and less threatening.
Also, in the movie, Duvall plays Pulitzer as eccentric. In life, he was nearly senile by then. It might be silly sometimes, but it's no more a cartoon than Leonardo DiCaprio in The Aviator. THAT'S what I mean by they made the villains into cartoon characters. They reduced them to stock types, "evil villain," "cackling henchman," etc. when the movie at least tried to give them conflicts and personalities and make them real, interesting people. (Wiesel and Snyder were always pretty two-dimensional, my comments were directed at Pulitzer and his crew.)
More specifics, since I feel that my opinion is getting totally dismissed just because I am a fan of the movie (skip this if you really want to avoid spoilers).
Act One ends with the standoff between the newsies and the scabs at the newspaper headquarters. Dave (or maybe it was Jack) gives a moving, impassioned speech about how they all have to stand together, because if they can't trust each other, then there's no way they'll win. The boys all throw down their papers and join the strike, Wiesel and the Delancey brothers start fighting, the cops come, Crutchy gets beaten up and arrested, it's basically the same as that point in the movie. Intermission.
At the opening of Act Two, the next morning Jack has quit the strike because he doesn't want anyone else getting hurt. Dave comes to talk to him and Jack says, "There is no strike! I saw guys outside selling papers today!" Dave says, "Well, yeah, I was out there too, I gotta sell papers or my family doesn't eat." So, that speech in the first act meant nothing? Are the boys on strike or aren't they? The tension and the drama comes from the fact that these boys are sacrificing so much, their only income, in order to achieve their rights. If they are not actually on strike, they're not sacrificing anything. Why does Pulitzer ultimately give in? Why should we care about the strike when it's clearly not all that important to them?
Jack never gets arrested and never goes to the refuge. He talks about the last time he was there when he escaped, but we don't get to see it, and he never faces his greatest fear of going back there. Instead of a dramatic confrontation in front of all of the other newsies to arrest him, he is just brought into Pulitzer's office alone. Pulitzer threatens to have him arrested if he doesn't end the strike. Jack agrees and gets shown into the basement to spend the night. No riot, no resisting arrest, no refuge, no despair. No tension. (If you're counting, this is now the second time Jack has quit the strike. Again, if he doesn't care, why should we?)
I can see what they were trying to do by making the female reporter Jack's love interest, and I almost understand it. But they ruin it at the end. It turns out that the reporter is Pulitzer's daughter, so of course Pulitzer finds out everything. That's when he calls Jack into his office to convince him to end the strike. Katherine feels bad though, because she loves Jack, so she convinces him to write his own paper and distribute it to the other child workers in the city.
In the movie, Jack, Dave, Dave's sister, and the male reporter (who has no relation to Pulitzer) break into Pulitzer's basement and secretly use his printing press. In the show, because Katherine is his daughter, she gets the keys and lets them in. Once again, no danger or tension. She also brings some friends of hers to help -- the sons of two other newspaper barons. That reveal makes for a quick chuckle, but suddenly, the scene isn't about some poor kids risking a lot to fight for truth and justice, it's about rich kids sticking it to their dads. Not nearly as compelling.
At the very end, Pulitzer is finally caving. Jack demands he lower the price of the paper back to what it was. Pulitzer says he can't do that, he'd lose face. So then Jack says, "Okay, then we want you to buy back the papers we can't sell." Pulitzer says, "Whoa, whoa, that was never on the table before!" But he agrees. To recap: they did achieve something, but not the lower price they were fighting for. Yet, when Jack comes out from that conversation he simply shouts, "WE WON!!!" and all the boys cheer, dance, and buy their papers to sell. But...they didn't win. Not exactly, and without further explanation, like, "We got him to agree to buy back unsold papers!...But the price is the same," how in the world would the other newsboys know? We see them buy the papers right after, so it's not like Jack explains later, once the curtain comes down. It is more true-to-life (the actual strike ended not with a reduced price, but with the agreement to buy back unsold papers), but it is not nearly as dramatically satisfying, and it requires more explanation than just "WE WON!"
In the musical, Jack Kelly is his real name, not a pseudonym. Snyder, the warden of the refuge, knows his name is Jack Kelly, yet he has not been able to get him back to the refuge since he escaped. At least in the movie, there is the explanation of his real name being Francis Sullivan and Snyder hasn't found him because he is using a fake name. If there is no fake name, why the heck hasn't he been caught already? It makes no sense.
I think I said this in my earlier post, but at least twice, characters come on stage and say, "I just came from so-and-so and this major plot point happened!" Why don't we see those scenes? We don't see Jack go to Brooklyn and the conversation with Spot. In fact, Spot doesn't even appear in the show until Act Two, when he arrives towards the end to save the day. They only talk about him. Also at the end, Medda comes on and says, "I just came from the governor and he is very upset at what you are doing and he is on his way!" Again, why don't we get to see that? It is much more exciting to see something happen than to hear about it. Show, Don't Tell.
I understand that a lot of people don't like the movie. But a lot of others do, and everything they love about it is what has been sucked out of it. It's like the creators didn't trust the story of the newsies strike to be universal or compelling enough, so they relegated it to a subplot and instead focused on Jack and his girlfriend, which turned a great David-and-Goliath real life story into a generic love story. Maybe that's what they intended, but it's not the Newsies I wanted to see and I was incredibly disappointed. I'm actually kind of baffled that so many people on this thread liked it, because all the conversations I overheard on my way back to the city after the dress rehearsal were very similar to my thoughts.
Nothing matters but knowing nothing matters. ~ Wicked
Everything in life is only for now. ~ Avenue Q
There is no future, there is no past. I live this moment as my last. ~ Rent
"He's a tramp, but I love him."
Updated On: 9/20/11 at 11:39 AM
