The Extraordinary Dreams of the Ordinary Man

Two Sides of One Story

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (1947) – Walter is an ordinary man with extraordinary dreams.  When he finds himself involved in an international spy ring, it’s almost as if his daydreams trained him for his moment.

Directed by Norman Z. McLeod

Starring Danny Kaye, Virginia Mayo, Boris Karloff

Why I Liked It – Some typical lighthearted fun with Kaye and Mayo.

Reaction to this movie falls into two camps – those who dislike the liberties taken with the original classic Thurber short story, and those who love watching Danny Kaye be Danny Kaye.  The story’s author, James Thurber, fell firmly in the first camp.  You can choose which camp you wish to join.  (I suppose there’s a third camp of people who don’t like Danny Kaye.  I refuse to bring that kind of negativity into my life.  But, you do you.)

James Thurber was a brilliant writer and cartoonist, known best for his work for The New Yorker magazine.  He specialized in the ineffectual little man, often showing him dominated by a larger, assertive woman.  

This story is his most famous.  It appeared in The New Yorker in March of 1939.  This little man with dreams that outsize his life blossomed into a cultural touchstone, even becoming the name of a medical syndrome.  Walter isn’t just a daydreamer. His dreams allow him to escape a world that belittles him.  In the original story, Mitty is always the hero, but often a tragic one.  He often cannot complete the fantasy before reality interrupts his life again.  It’s not surprising that Thurber did not like the changes made by studio boss, Samuel Goldwyn.  The movie version moves well away from Thurber’s Mitty.

On the other side, Goldwyn tailored the material to his star.  Danny Kaye earned fame for his fast patter comedy, often including stretches with nonsense words.  He was an original, versatile performer who regularly brought together his oddball comedy and the ordinary guy character.  The movie includes several comic songs, one of them written by Kaye’s writing partner wife, Sylvia Fine.  In the MGM version begins with Walter being harangued by his mother (rather than his wife).  She is arranging a marriage for her son with the perfectly lovely but vacuous Gertrude (played by Ann Rutherford).  Walter’s “best friend” Tubby (Gordon Jones) has been trying to steal Gertrude away and treats Mitty with jovial condescension.   A quick encounter on a train with the beautiful and brainy Rosalind (Mayo) takes him in a new direction.  In some ways, Kaye’s Mitty is more pathetic than the original, and Hollywood insists on finding a happy ending that doesn’t exist in Thurber’s version.  Danny Kaye is fun, especially in the over the top dream sequences, most of which are consistent with the originals.  Boris Karloff gets a small but delightfully creep supporting role as a bad guy.

In the end, the big screen Mitty lacks the depth of the short story, but makes up for it with Danny Kaye’s classic manic silliness.

Rating – *** Worth A Look