The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (film)

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The Secret Life of Walter Mitty
DVD cover
Directed by	Norman Z. McLeod
Produced by	Samuel Goldwyn
Written by	Ken Englund Everett Freeman Philip Rapp James Thurber
Starring	Danny Kaye Virginia Mayo
Music by	Sylvia Fine (songs) David Raksin (score)
Cinematography	Lee Garmes
Release date(s)	1947
Running time	110 min.
Language	English
Allmovie profile
IMDb profile

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty is a 1947 comedy film, loosely based on the short story of the same name by James Thurber. It stars Danny Kaye as a young daydreaming editor for a book publishing firm. The film was adapted for the screen by Ken Englund, Everett Freeman, and Philip Rapp, and directed by Norman Z. McLeod. It was filmed in Technicolor, a rarity at the time.

1 Synopsis
2 Cast
3 Production
4 Remake
5 See also
6 References
7 External links

[edit] Synopsis

Walter Mitty is henpecked and harassed by everyone in his life: his bossy mother (Fay Bainter), his overbearing, idea-stealing boss (Thurston Hall), his childishly dimwitted fiancée (Ann Rutherford), her obnoxious would-be suitor (Gordon Jones) and her loud mother (Florence Bates).

His only escape from their incessant needling is to imagine all sorts of exciting and impossible lives for himself, fueled perhaps by the pulp magazines he reads every day as an editor at the Pierce Publishing Company. But his dreams only seem to land him in more trouble.

In one scene, while stoking the heating boiler, he dreams what it would be like to be an RAF fighter pilot. He is awoken from this daydream by his mother, who orders him to come to dinner. Believing he is still a British fighter pilot, he salutes, and places a red-hot poker under his arm -- only to burn a hole in his suit jacket.

The film includes many of Kaye's trademark patter-songs and one of his best remembered dream characters, "Anatole of Paris", a fey women's milliner whose inspiration for the ridiculous chapeaus he creates is in actuality his loathing of women. The Anatole character is based on "Antoine de Paris," a women's hair-salon professional of the era, known for creating preposterous hairstyles. The lyrics to the song Anatole of Paris were written by Kaye's wife, Sylvia Fine.

Things become much more complicated when he runs into a mysterious woman, Rosalind van Hoorn (Virginia Mayo), who just so happens to perfectly resemble the girl of his dreams. Rosalind is working with her uncle, Peter van Hoorn (Konstantin Shayne), to help secure some Dutch crown jewels hidden from the Nazis during World War II.

Caught up in a real-life adventure that seems unbelievable even to him, Walter attempts to hide his double life from his mundane family and friends. Eventually, he acquires the courage to stand up to those who push him around.

[edit] Cast

Danny Kaye as Walter Mitty
Virginia Mayo as Rosalind van Hoorn
Boris Karloff as Dr. Hollingshead
Fay Bainter as Mrs. Eunice Mitty
Thurston Hall as Bruce Pierce
Ann Rutherford as Gertrude Griswald
Gordon Jones as Tubby Wadsworth

[edit] Production

Ken Englund and Everett Freeman reportedly began work adapting James Thurber's story in January 1945. According to Thurber, producer Samuel Goldwyn rejected the Englund and Freeman script in December 1945, and sent Englund to consult with Thurber, who worked with him for ten days. Thurber later complained that at one time the psychiatrist scene contained "a bathing girl incident which will haunt me all the days of my life." He was repeatedly consulted by Goldwyn, but his suggestions were largely ignored. In a letter to Life Magazine, Thurber expressed his considerable dissatisfaction with the script, even as Goldwyn insisted in another letter that Thurber approved of it. ^[1] Thurber also mentioned that Goldwyn asked him not to read part of the script, because it was "too blood and thirsty." Thurber said that he read the entire script anyway, and was "horror and struck".

In moving away from Thurber's material, Goldwyn instead had the writers customize the film to showcase Kaye's talents, altering the original story so much that Thurber called the film "The Public Life of Danny Kaye".^[2]

Goldwyn also briefly changed the film's title to I Wake Up Dreaming in response to a Gallup poll he had commissioned. However, he soon changed it back to Thurber's title in response to the angry protests of Thurber fans, as reporting in a May 1947 article in Collier's Weekly.^[1]

[edit] Remake

The remake of the film (more accurately a new film adaptation of the original short story) has a troubled on-again off-again history. At first, producer-directors Ron Howard and Steven Spielberg, with a host of screenwriters, and Kevin Anderson as Mitty, were going to re-do the film, but it fell through. Then it was to be made at Paramount Pictures, by producers Samuel Goldwyn, Jr., his brother John Goldwyn, and Richard Vane, with director Mark Waters and Owen Wilson cast as Mitty, with a screenplay by Richard LaGravenese. It was supposed to be released in 2007. It has since been taken over by 20th Century Fox, with Mike Myers in the title role, and scheduled to be shown in 2009.

Probably owing to the production of this film, the DVD release of the 1947 version was withdrawn from distribution and was briefly an expensive collector's item.