The 1990s were a particularly bad decade for musicals. Disney had several hit animated musicals, but Hollywood produced hardly any big-budget, live-action musicals during the '90s. Several studios actually did have musicals in various stages of pre-production (including adaptations of The Phantom of the Opera and Miss Saigon) in the early 1990s. These films wound up on the back burner for years or were abandoned entirely. There’s a reason for this. Something terrible happened in the world of Hollywood musicals. Something called…
The ulterior motive behind this month’s selection was that I wanted you to see the musical that all but killed the genre for the rest of the decade. There were other factors involved, but if I had to put all the blame for the largely musical-less '90s in one place my finger would be pointing at Newsies. This movie tanked. It was one of Disney’s poorest grossing films ever. It was a failure with both the public and the critics, so if you want to rip it apart for this month’s discussion you’ll be in good company.
There is a lot to criticize about Newsies. Most of the flaws are due to a fact that many of you probably guessed while watching: Newsies was originally conceived as a straight drama and then rewritten as a musical. Goodness knows why. A period piece about a gang of singing, dancing newsboys seems fair enough as concepts for musicals go. Sort of a cross between West Side Story and Oliver! But a musical about an obscure late 19th century labor strike? (One that was not, in real life, as successful as it is in the movie.) The resulting script really should have been revised one more time before shooting. The two theatrical trailers reveal that even Disney’s marketing department wasn’t sure whether to treat Newsies as a David vs. Goliath labor movement drama or a fun-filled musical romp for the whole family.
But I’m not a complete cinematic sadist. That’s why we’re not doing Lisztomania this month. I wouldn’t have chosen this movie if I didn’t think it had entertainment value. I loved Newsies when I was about thirteen. I was just beginning to take an interest in film at that age, and Newsies was actually the first movie I ever taped for myself from TV. I can no longer take Newsies seriously like I did then, but I still see things to enjoy in this movie.
Robert Duvall is a hoot as villainous Joseph Pulitzer. He all but twirls his moustache. Ann-Margret’s role is a gratuitous cameo, but she does a fine job of being Ann-Margret. However, the movie’s real star is young Christian Bale as Jack. I’ve been a fan for so long that I’d almost forgotten that this was where I saw him first. A weaker performer could easily have gotten lost in the crowd, but Bale has enough charisma that I believed the other newsboys would accept Jack as their leader and that Pulitzer would see him as a real threat. Bale’s singing is only passable, but the material doesn’t demand a lot of him. Unfortunately, his Noo Yawk accent is far, far worse than I remembered. As many of the actual Americans in the cast sound equally affected, I can only assume that this was a directorial decision. Personally, I’m willing to let all those “goils”, “muddahs”, and “faddahs” slide as they fit the stagey nature of the whole movie.
Weird as it is, I do find the idea of a musical (melo)drama about union organization appealing. At least it’s not another romance! Newsies crosses a message about the courageous struggle of the proletariat against oppressive capitalist fat cats with a bunch of jump-spins, backflips, and pelvic thrusts. The result is…almost surreal, which I find amusing. Yet I feel Newsies does also deserve credit for taking on subject matter that’s unusual for the genre.
Although Alan Menken did better work for Disney’s animated films, Newsies has some catchy numbers. Until I rewatched the movie for this month’s discussion I hadn’t seen Newsies in at least a decade, but I can’t tell you how many times the songs have popped into my head over the years. I’ve found myself humming “Carrying the Banner” while walking down the street or “Santa Fe” while waiting for my clothes to get done at the laundromat. On one or two occasions I’ve even overheard other people singing “High Times, Hard Times” to themselves. A few days ago, after I’d already written the draft for this post, I discovered four MP3s from the Newsies soundtrack that someone else had saved to iTunes on one of the computers at work. So people still remember these songs.
Finally, the whole thing is just so darn energetic! Everybody’s always jumping around! It seems like these kids really are putting their hearts into things and giving it their all. I confess I know nothing about dance, but the choreography and ensemble dancing seems well done to me.
I think this movie’s chief crime was being in the wrong place at the wrong time. It might have done better in some other era. Newsies is clearly targeted at adolescents, but in 1992 you couldn’t expect teenagers to turn out to see a bunch of fresh-faced newsboys burst into a big production number on the streets of a whitewashed, backlot version of turn-of-the-century New York.
This may have been for the best. Imagine if Newsies had been popular enough to inspire a horde of squeaky-clean and utterly unironic knockoffs. Chills your blood, doesn’t it? For the good of the genre Newsies had to fail, but I don’t know that it truly deserved to fail. Newsies is a cheesy but pleasant youth musical, and I think its good intentions make up for many of its shortcomings.
In true musical fashion there was a happier ending for Newsies after it flopped at the box office. The movie slowly managed to attract its share of fans thanks to endless airings on Disney’s cable channel. I don’t think it ever turned a profit, but it has done far better on video and DVD than it did in the theaters. It eventually developed a small but loyal cult following.
Or, as a friend of mine once put it, “That’s one of my favorite movies ever. It has a bunch of hot guys in it, and they’re dancing!”
Even I can’t argue with that.
I think this and many of the other script problems were due to trying to convert a non-musical project into a musical. A musical plot should be more streamlined. But it felt like they were trying to preserve elements that had been important in an earlier draft (I am assuming that Ann-Margret’s character originally served some larger purpose) but that they didn’t have time to deal with once the musical numbers were added.
