THE SECRET LIFE OF WALTER MITTY: Beautiful Dreamers and Thurberesque Schemers

This post is being republished as part of the "For the Boys" Blogathon hosted by The Scarlett Olive from November 19th to November 20th, 2011.

Some of the otherwise knowledgeable younger classic film fans I know have barely heard of the great entertainer Danny Kaye (1913--1987). I’m here to help change all that! Director Norman Z. McLeod and screenwriters Ken Englund, Everett Freeman, and an uncredited Philip Rapp transformed one of my favorite stories by one of my favorite authors, James Thurber, into one of my favorite movies, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (TSLoWM — patience, you might find an ad before the trailer). Samuel Goldwyn transformed Thurber's classic short story into a delightful and surprisingly soulful 1947 musical comedy-thriller. This was the very first Danny Kaye movie I ever saw when I was a child growing up in the Bronx, watching it on TV on WPIX. My mom had turned me on to the film, being a fan of both Kaye and pretty clothes. I think she enjoyed watching little me ooh and aah at Irene Sharaff’s gorgeous fashions (especially the hats; Mom could rock a chapeau like nobody’s business!) as much as we both enjoyed Kaye’s zany slapstick and wordplay. Frankly, Kaye became my first celebrity crush, thanks to the miracle of movies on TV. It’s still my favorite Kaye film, as well as one of my favorite movies of all time. Such Kaye classics as Wonder Man and The Court Jester might be more consistently wacky, but TSLoWM especially appeals to me because it brings out Kaye’s vulnerable side. 

If Walter marries Gertrude, they'll have to change the title to The Dreary Life of "Walty Mittens!"

It usually drives me up the wall when I see movie characters allowing themselves to be as put-upon and henpecked as Kaye's Walter Mitty is here, but I found myself able to sympathize. In this Goldwyn version, Walter is a shy young man still living with his mother (Oscar veteran Fay Bainter) in Perth Amboy, NJ. The gentle, hapless Walter is henpecked almost to the point of emotional abuse. The poor guy gets it from all sides! His well-meaning mother treats him like a child. (Am I the only one who finds it a tad creepy when an adult parent kisses an adult child on the lips, as is done here and in many other films?)  His fiancée, Gertrude Griswold (Ann Rutherford of Gone with the Wind; Two O'Clock Courage; Red Skelton's Whistling In... comedy-mystery film series), while pretty and perky, is nevertheless a stuffed skirt who’s more concerned about appearances, her yappy dog Queenie, and her domineering mother (veteran screen battle-axe Florence Bates of Rebecca; On the Town; I Remember Mama) as she bosses Walter around in her maddeningly cutesy way. Then there’s Tubby Wadsworth (Gordon Jones of McClintock!; My Sister Eileen; You Belong to Me), who keeps proposing to Gertrude—which was fine with me, because I thought those two tiny-minded twits deserved each other (hasn’t Walter suffered enough?)! 

How to Meet Cute Shy Guys, Lesson 1: Slip a little black book listing hot jewels into Shy Guy's briefcase. It's a great little ice-breaker!

Speaking of bosses and bossing, Walter has what should be a way cool job as a proofreader of pulp fiction at the Pierce Publishing Company in New York City. Too bad boss man Mr. Pierce (Thurston Hall of Lady on a Train; Theodora Goes Wild; The Great Lie) is always belittling Walter one minute and stealing his ideas the next. Under the circumstances, who can blame Walter for living in his daydreams (nice use of the song “Beautiful Dreamer”)? That’s where he leads one heroic life and musical production number after another as a fighter pilot, ship captain, Mississippi riverboat gambler, and Western gunslinger, each daydream wittily spoofing the genre stories Walter proofreads. 

Our hero is happy to hold the Mayo!

But our hero is put to the test when lovely, wholesome Rosalind van Hoorn (frequent Kaye co-star Virginia Mayo, great together in comedies like Wonder Man, as well as Mayo's dramatic performances in White Heat; Flaxy Martin; The Best Years of Our Lives;) finds herself becoming a damsel in distress. Seems that Rosalind and her Uncle Peter from Holland (free “Dutch uncle” joke, go wild) are up against bad guys led by a no-goodnik known only as “The Boot” (not to be confused with “Das Boot”), with his cohort Dr. Hugo Hollingshead (the scene-stealing Boris Karloff) and henchman Hendrick (Henry Corden, before he became the second actor to give voice to Fred Flintstone, including a brief but memorable bit in The Asphalt Jungle). These nasty jaspers want a little black book, but this book doesn’t have fair maidens’ phone numbers; it lists jewels and art treasures hidden from the Nazis. Paranoia, adventure, hilarity, and budding romance abound. Will Our Man Mitty’s dreams of heroism come true, and will his and Rosalind’s tulips meet?

There’s a sweetness about Danny Kaye in this role that’s always had me rooting for Walter instead of merely growling, “Oh, tell 'em all to go to hell already.” As a result, it's that much more satisfying when Walter finally does tell off his obnoxious so-called friends and loved ones (unlike such “comedies of cruelty” as, say, 1990’s Madhouse, where the last 10 minutes of Revenge Against The Oppressors was the only entertaining part of the film)! James Thurber reportedly tried to buy off Goldwyn to keep the film from being made, and hated the finished product. With all due respect to Thurber, I think perhaps he wasn't being quite fair. First off, books and movies have different storytelling requirements, and second, the first 10 minutes are almost straight from Thurber's story, except it's Walter and his nagging mom instead of a nagging wife. 

James Thurber by Rick Geary

It’s easy to let yourself become distracted by Goldwyn’s fabulous production values—to say nothing of the fabulous Goldwyn Girls—but look sharp and you’ll catch Thurber’s sting-in-the tail wit. As Walter's literal and figurative dream girl Rosalind, Kaye's frequent leading lady Virginia Mayo was thoroughly beguiling and never looked lovelier—and hey, the radiant Mayo was a size 12 and nobody considered her a "plus size," thank you very much! TSLoWM also contains two of my favorite Danny Kaye/Sylvia Fine musical numbers: “Anatole of Paris” and “Symphony for Unstrung Tongue;” in the latter, am I the only one who finds the line “He gets so excited that he has a solo passage” to be subtly salacious? My husband Vinnie and I like to think that Uncle Peter's grand home must be located in the Riverdale section of the Bronx, where we lived for over a decade, since it reminded me of the kind of homes we used to see while strolling in the Fieldston area. Also, it didn't seem to take horrifically long for Walter and Rosalind to drive there from the Flatiron district of Manhattan; of course, that could simply be the magic of filmmaking.

Could Rosalind's Uncle Peter be Bruno Antony's neighbor?!

Incidentally, I've always thought the interior of the van Hoorn home looks a lot like the interior of evil Bruno Antony's home in Strangers on a Train; does anyone here know if these scenes might have been shot in the same house/set? I wish the few extras had included deleted scenes; there's a bit in the trailer with Karloff and Corden in a pub that I definitely don't recall seeing in the finished film. On the DVD and LaserDisc (yes, we still own the latter—good thing, too, since we can’t seem to find TSLoWM DVDs that aren’t Korean), it was nice to see the intro and outro with Virginia Mayo still alive and well at the time (and bigger than the "size 12" mentioned in the fashion show scene, but on her it was pleasant plumpness, in my opinion!), even though Mayo only had time to say one line each about her co-stars: "Ann Rutherford was delightful...Fay Bainter was a consummate actress...Boris Karloff was a true gentleman..." Anyway, if you’re not already a Danny Kaye fan, TSLoWM just might make you one!  

"That does it: from now on, I'm working from home!"

Mayo's aghast, Kaye's agape, and Karloff's a ghoul!

Critical Criteria and Query Copy for THE PARANOIA CLUB

One of the things I'd like to accomplish with "Tales of the Easily Distracted" is to get some feedback on my fiction, with your kind indulgence. I'm currently going over my first novel, The Paranoia Club, with ghost editor Nicole Bokat in order to make sure that when we're done, PClub will be as high-quality as possible before I start marketing the manuscript to real live editors. Susan Shapiro's "Secrets of Selling Your First Book" seminar was a big help in crafting my query letter copy. Here it is, for your consideration:

Surviving a fire at New York's most celebrated therapeutic preschool as a child, Sean Wilder hasn't let the odd recurring nightmare keep him from growing up a capable young man in a family of eccentrics. Now two decades later, Sean is overjoyed by the return of his childhood sweetheart Claire, but horrified to learn that people connected to that long-ago fire are turning up dead. Coincidence? Are Sean and Claire next? His fugitive brother Gordie might have the answers, but can their detective sister Cori pin him down long enough to ask the questions?
The Paranoia Club is a character-driven New York-set thriller with an undercurrent of humor. The story unfolds from the third-person limited viewpoint of protagonist Sean Wilder. Think of it as Donald E. Westlake meets Andrew Klavan.
I also have a list of critical criteria which I started just to keep me focused (I am, after all, easily distracted :-)), though my friends and fellow writers in LinkOnline and First Draft Online, among others, have also found it helpful. Here it is, in case y'all find it helpful, too:

Dorian’s Critical Criteria



1) Does the story hang together well?


2) Are the characters engaging and/or realistic? Do you care what happens to them one way or another?


3) Are the characterizations consistent without the characters being one-note? Is their behavior in keeping with their established personalities?


4) Is the dialogue bright and snappy — or powerful — without sounding phony or stilted?


5) Does the story have a good pace?


6) Does it accomplish what it sets out to do; e.g., did the comedy make you laugh, was the thriller suspenseful, etc.?


7) Is it unpredictable without being uneven?


8) Is it holding your interest?


9) If something comes up in a chapter that doesn’t seem to have anything to do with anything else, just take it for granted that it will be important later.  Having said that, if I’ve introduced the new element in question awkwardly, feel free to suggest more graceful ways to work it in.

Next time: Chapter One of the most-polished-to-date draft of The Paranoia Club, just so you can see what I'm blathering about! :-)

(Photo taken in New York City by Isarda Sorensen, August 2010)