The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty Information

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (1947) is a Technicolor comedy film, loosely based on the short story of the same name by James Thurber. The film 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.

Synopsis

Walter Mitty (Danny Kaye) is an "inconsequential guy from Perth Amboy, New Jersey", henpecked and harassed by everyone in his life: his bossy mother (Fay Bainter), his overbearing, idea-stealing boss Bruce Pierce (Thurston Hall), his childishly dimwitted fiancée Gertrude Griswold (Ann Rutherford), her obnoxious would-be suitor Tubby Wadsworth (Gordon Jones) and her loud mother Mrs. Griswold (Florence Bates).

His 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 awakened 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 chapeaux 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 kick him around.

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
Florence Bates as Mrs. Griswold
Konstantin Shayne as Peter van Hoorn
Reginald Denny as Colonel
Henry Corden as Hendrick
Doris Lloyd as Mrs. Follinsbee
Fritz Feld as Anatole
Frank Reicher as Maasdam
Milton Parsons as Butler

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. 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".

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.

Reception

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty ranks 479th on Empire magazine's 2008 list of the 500 greatest movies of all time.

Adaptations to other media

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty was dramatized as a half-hour radio play on the November 3, 1947 broadcast of The Screen Guild Theater with Danny Kaye and Virginia Mayo in their original film roles.

Remake

Producer Samuel Goldwyn, Jr., whose father produced the 1947 film adaptation, conceived the idea of doing a remake in 1994 with Jim Carrey in mind for the title role. Walt Disney Pictures was enthusiastic to purchase the remake rights, but Goldwyn instead chose New Line Cinema, who held a positive working relationship with Carrey on Dumb and Dumber and The Mask. The studio bought the rights in 1995 with the understanding that The Samuel Goldwyn Company would be involved in creative decisions. Babaloo Mandel and Lowell Ganz turned in the first draft of the screenplay in July 1997. Ron Howard entered negotiations to direct that same month, as well as cover producing duties with Brian Grazer and Imagine Entertainment. Howard and Imagine Entertainment eventually left the project in favor of EDtv, and The Secret Life of Walter Mitty languished in development hell over the challenges of using a contemporary storyline.

In May 1999 New Line hired Mask director Chuck Russell to rewrite the script and serve as Howard's replacement. Filming was set to begin in early-2000, but was pushed back. Around this time, Peter Tolan worked on rewrites. In May 2001 Goldwyn filed a lawsuit against New Line over breach of contract purposes. Goldwyn claimed that the studio extended their 1995 deal until May 2001, but then announced that it wanted to transfer the rights for the remake to another company and have Goldwyn surrender his creative input. In November 2002 New Line was forced to revert the film rights back to Goldwyn, who won his lawsuit and took the property to Paramount Pictures. During pre-production discussions between Paramount and DreamWorks on Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events (which starred Carrey), Steven Spielberg, head of DreamWorks, rekindled interest in working with Carrey; the duo previously considered Meet the Parents, but the outing fell apart. In May 2003 Spielberg agreed to direct, and brought in DreamWorks to co-finance The Secret Life of Walter Mitty with Paramount (who would acquire DreamWorks in 2006).

By November, Zach Helm was rewriting the script, but Spielberg and DreamWorks vacated the film in April 2004 in favor of War of the Worlds and Munich. "The goal is to go back to the short story and capture not only the content but the original spirit," producer John Goldwyn (son of Samuel) told The Hollywood Reporter. Richard LaGravenese entered discussion to write a new script following Spielberg's departure. Sam Goldwyn commented that LaGravenese's script had a momentous and unique approach compared to others. "I'd always felt that unless we got a great script, the movie disintegrates into a series of wonderful gags," Goldwyn explained. "Writers always fixated on that. ... (Richard) worked for 10 months on umpteen drafts, and he solved it." In March 2005 Paramount hired Mark Waters to direct LaGravenese's script for Walter Mitty, but Carrey had to drop out due to scheduling conflicts. He was replaced by Owen Wilson.

Despite not having a final budget, Paramount scheduled a December 12, 2005 start date because their option on the remake rights was to end one week later; they would lose the rights if they did not start filming before December 20. However, Wilson dropped out in October 2005 over creative differences. The Hollywood Reporter also speculated that Walter Mitty began to falter after Paramount failed to cast a female lead to star opposite Wilson. Scarlett Johansson had reportedly emerged as the front-runner after screen testing with Wilson earlier in October, but a deal was never signed with the actress. Paramount executives Brad Grey and Gail Berman decided to put Walter Mitty in turnaround in November 2005. Goldwyn found favor at 20th Century Fox and, in May 2007, it was announced that Mike Myers was attached to star in the title role. Jay Kogen was hired to write a new script that would be specifically tailored for Myers.

In April 2010, Sacha Baron Cohen was offered and attached to star in the lead role. Later that month, The Pursuit of Happyness writer Steven Conrad was hired to pen the screenplay, with Gore Verbinski announced as director in June 2010.

In April 2011, it was announced that Ben Stiller had landed the lead role, and in July 2011, it was announced that he was also due to direct the film.