Daily Dialogue — February 6, 2017

Dink: What’s happened?
Champ: Nothing, Dink. All of a sudden, I turned and faint dead away. The ground came up and socked me right square in the face. I won the fight, didn’t I, Dink. 
Dink: I’ll say you did. 
Champ: Ain’t ya proud of your old man now?
Dink: Aw, gee, Champ, I always was.
Champ: You were gonna throw that towel in and stop the fight. You would have saved me yourself. 
Dink: Uh, huh. Champ! Champ! 
Champ: Aw, nix, Dink. Keep your chin up, don’t cry. Come on, give your old man a smile.
Dink: Champ, open your eyes, look at me. It’s little Dink talking. Please open your eyes. Look at me.

— The Champ (1931), story by Frances Marion, dialogue continuity by Leonard Praskins, additional dialogue by Wanda Tuchock

The Daily Dialogue theme for the week: Deathbed.

Trivia: The film did fine at its first preview until the last reel. As originally written, Champ loses his comeback boxing match, then dies as his son weeps. After going along with the sentimental story until that moment, audiences felt cheated by the downbeat ending. As a result, production chief Irving Thalberg ordered the final scene re-shot so that Champ won the match. At the next preview, the audience cheered at the end.

Dialogue On Dialogue: Melodrama was a popular narrative idiom back in the 1920s and 1930s, and it doesn’t get much sadder than this ‘deathbed’ scene in the 1931 movie The Champ.