Daily Dialogue — January 21, 2017

PULITZER: I know we need to make more money. That’s why we’re here: to find out how to make more money.
JONATHAN: I have several proposals. First, to increase the paper’s price.
PULITZER: Then Hearst outsells me and I’m in the poorhouse. Brilliant, Jonathan, brilliant.
JONATHAN: Not the customer’s price. The price to the distribution apparatus.
SEITZ: Charge the newsies more for their papers? Bad idea, Chief.
JONATHAN: Very well. My next proposal, salary cuts. Particularly those at the top.
SEITZ: Very bad idea, Chief.
PULITZER: Wait. What do the newsies pay now? Fifty cents for one hundredpapers? If you raise it to sixty cents…
JONATHAN: A mere tenth of a cent per paper.
PULITZER: Multiply by forty thousand papers a day? Seven days a week?
JONATHAN: It definitely adds up, sir.
SEITZ: If you do this, every newsie we’ve got will head straight for Hearst.
PULITZER: You don’t know Hearst like I do, Seitz. As newspapermen, he and I would cut each other’s throats to get an advantage. But as gentlemen, as businessmen, we also see eye to eye on certain things. Now, if we do it, Hearst and I, if we do it, then the other papers will do it.
SEITZ: It’s going to be awfully tough on those children.
PULITZER: Nonsense, nonsense. It’ll be good for them. Incentive, make them work harder, sell more papers. They’ll look on it as an advantage.

— Newsies (1992), writers Bob Tzudiker, Noni White

The Daily Dialogue theme for next week: Greed, suggested by Jenny McNabb. Today’s recommendation by Will King.

Trivia: This movie was a critical and commercial flop upon its initial theatrical release. However, it gathered a cult following after its home video release, eventually made its filming budget back on rentals, and was deemed popular enough to be adapted into a stage musical, which premiered at the Paper Mill Playhouse in New Jersey in 2011. The musical had music and lyrics by Alan Menken (who composed the movie’s music as well) and Jack Feldman (the movie’s lyricist), and a new book by playwright and actor Harvey Fierstein. This musical moved to Broadway in March 2012 and closed over two years later; a North American tour also launched in 2014.

Dialogue On Dialogue: Commentary by Will: “While to the protagonist, and even to the audience, the antagonist may seem blatantly evil, to themselves the antagonist is always in the right, pursuing the one true course. Here, Pulitzer not only sees squeezing more money from the newsies as a good business plan, but he also believes it to be good for those who will suffer from his decision: it’ll build character, and the newsies will be grateful. Little does he realize what he’s setting himself up for.”