Greetings,
Yes, we are going to go there today. We are going to talk about my all-time favorite Christian Bale movie, Newsies. Now some of you may know about how much I love Batman, and, therefore, you may be wondering why one of those films isn't my favorite. Well, I do love Batman, but I also love music. So if you put together music and the man who would eventually portray the Dark Knight, you get magic. In my world, you do, anyway. Seriously, though, I have always been one to come to the defense of this film. Initially, it was a major failure, both commercially and critically, but it has become very much appreciated in the years since its release. I think for a long time it was just basically forgotten, but then, once Christian Bale got a lot of success, people wanted to go back and see what else he had been in. It may have been then when they discovered Newsies and realized that it was not nearly as bad as so many have said. Is it perfect? Of course, not. But is it good? Well, let's find out, shall we?
Newsies is a 1992 Disney movie musical based loosely (VERY loosely) on the 1899 Newsboys Strike, wherein young newspaper sellers went up against Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst to get compensated appropriately for their child labor. That strike lasted about two weeks and was somewhat successful. But can "somewhat successful" lead us to the full on happy ending that we want? Probably not, so we better add some music.
So after a brief "history" lesson, our musical begins in a orphanage of sorts, where the young boys who live there sing of their upcoming day of newspaper selling in "Carrying the Banner". Here, we are introduced to some of the characters like Racetrack Higgins and Crutchy, who is called that because he has a crutch, so what else the heck are we going to call him? And, of course, we see, for the first time, Jack Kelly as portrayed by the aforementioned Christian Bale. He is something of a leader amongst the boys and has dreams of one day traveling to Santa Fe to be a cowboy. Sure, why not? And if he doesn't make this dream clear enough, he eventually does an entire musical number called "Santa Fe". He was fine at the acting part of this performance, naturally, but the singing? Yeah, let me just sum it up by saying this. I would wager that Christian got on quite well with Gerard Butler when they filmed Reign of Fire, since they obviously had some things in common. Point made. Let's move on.
Now the boys go out to buy their papers from Mr. Wiesel, or Weasel, as he is often called, played by Michael Lerner, a wonderful character actor who I think is one of the best things about this film. While there, Jack meets a new newsboy named David and his little brother, Les, who are working instead of going to school because their father is injured and can't work. Jack takes them under his wing, and by that I mean he wants to partner up with them because he thinks that cute little Les could help sell more papers. He's probably right. So David agrees to this and then, after the three of them are chased by a cop, they go to Irving Hall to see a performance by Medda "Swedish Meadowlark" Larkson. Whatever. She's played by Anne-Margaret because she was available. Honestly, I never got what the point of this character was. I suppose she may have been there to serve as something of a surrogate mother for all these orphaned Newsies, but, if that is what they were going for, I don't think it worked. Anyway, after the show, David and Les bring Jack home to meet the family, which includes a mom and a dad and a sister named Sarah who will, of course, not be a forced love interest for Jack, at all. Yeah.
All of that is the personalized aspects of the plot. Now we get to the historical, sort of, stuff. As I said, the newsboys had to buy the papers to sell, but when what they are charged goes up, they decide to strike. They lay out their plan in "The World Will Know" and solidify it in "Seize the Day". I guess I should take this opportunity to mention the actor playing our nemesis, Joseph Pulitzer. It is none other than Robert Duvall. Yep. Wonderful, honor worthy, "warm my heart with your greatness" Robert Duvall is in this movie. Obviously, I love this man, and in moments, his superb acting does shine through, but other times, not so much. Yeah, he made some odd choices in this role that I just don't understand. But, whatever, it's Robert Duvall. Can't stay mad at him for long. Moving on.
So, the Newsies continue on with the strike and even get some help from a reporter named Bryan Denton played by, the man, Bill Pullman. He gets the boys some headlines of their own, and that certainly gets them excited. So much so that they sing another song, of course, called "King of New York". They also enlist the help of newsboys from other parts of New York, even - GASP! - Brooklyn! I guess this was before Brooklyn was cool. Now there is a bit of a plot line where Jack turns his back on his friends, but it doesn't really last long enough to matter. It's called "padding", and every movie needs some.
But, in the end, we get exactly what we were expecting. They win. Just like they did in real life. Kind of. I suppose it's close enough to the truth, but not too close that we go into scary Gangs of New York territory. Can't go there. Gotta keep it nice and clean for the kids. Although, despite all of the glaring inaccuracies when it comes to the actual history of the Newsboys and New York itself at the time, I still really like this movie. And I have liked it for twenty years. I didn't just jump on some "Christian Bale is cool now, so that means Newsies is, too" bandwagon. I was faithful.
Seriously, though, like I said, this is film is far from perfect, but it is still quite entertaining to watch. The boys they hired to play the titular characters were actually pretty talented, especially with the singing and dancing. And, speaking of the music, I thought it was very well written. Again, not perfect, but still really good. And, yes, I do own the soundtrack to which I sing along often. In fact, should I ever meet the star of this film, it will probably take all of my self-control to not start singing one of these songs in his presence.
Look, however it came to be, I am just happy that Newsies is getting some recognition for being better than what people originally thought and said. It became so subsequently popular that it even got a Broadway show based on it. That's saying something. You know who else said something about Newsies? Mr. Christian Bale himself. He once said that "You say something bad about Newsies and you have an awful lot of people to answer to". You are correct, sir. Very correct.
Love and full moons,
Becky the Writer
