Talk:The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

Untitled

Eh... anyone else thing this article needs re-writing? If nothing else, that second paragraph seems to come out of the left field of an agenda. It's been ages since I've seen this movie though. Also, as a side note, I've heard that Thurber didn't like the movie, felt it made a mockery of his story. -Fuzzy 19:33, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Rewrite May 23, 2006

I realize some of the changes towards succintness and readability may be subjective, but I think these changes provide a much more coherant structure for the future edits of one of my favorite movies.

Notable Changes & Deletions

1. synopis had a few things out of order (e.g. Walter leaving his fiacee) and injected POV (e.g. "Walter predictably ditches his fiancee")
2. took out ta-pocketa-ta-pocketa-ta-pocketa. i agree the running gag should be mentioned, but it is not one of Kaye's patter-songs
3. removed Antoine de Paris facts. these stray from the point of the article and belong in a dedicated article about Antoine himself
4. the mention of lyrics having something to do with ridiculing gays doesn't make sense, especially the way it was written. of course, if you can find a source for it- be my guest to put it back in.
5. the sentence, "The studio was more interested in making a financial success for Kaye's singing and comedic abilities, rather than what Thurber had intended." may be true but such an accusation needs a source!
6. sectioned synopsis off from paragraph about Thurber's reaction and Anatole of Paris trivia

-User:Bantosh 16:45, 22 May 2006

Color versus B&W

moved discussion to Talk:The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (1947 film)

Rather absurd reference to British crime fiction

Please see Talk:Anthony Berkeley Cox for a discussion. <KF> 17:03, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Film

This page most definitely needs to be split into a film page and a short story page. The Film portion takes up more space than the original story does RSido 02:55, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Considering the stature of this short story, the current article is extremely unbalanced - the story is barely mentioned except in connection with this unsourced Anthony Cox theory. As it stands now, the 1947 film gets most of the copy, followed by the remake, followed by the unsourced theory, with the short story, which should be the article's primary focus, running a distant fourth. I'm going to go ahead and spin off the 1947 film so that we can start fresh on covering the story itself. Okay? Okay! Karen | Talk | contribs 05:15, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

InfoBox

Hello. 1. Should we hyperlink James Thurber in the infobox within Wikipedia? 2. Should we make a 'See Also' section with one of the hyperlinks linking to Walter Mitty en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Mitty? Thanks. --Mayfare 00:22, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes, and yes. Done. Thanks for the suggestions! -- Karen | Talk | contribs 07:01, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Why omit a root ????

Obviously, the title of the story refers to an (if you allow) erotic novel by some "Walter" (supposed to be Hery Specer Ashbee, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Secret_Life) titled "My secret life" in which this "Walter", a victorian age gentleman, describes how he seduced numerous (1200?) young ladies. Maybe someone can add a clue how Thurber got to "Mitty". (Awaler (talk) 21:06, 26 April 2008 (UTC))

Considering that the construction "Secret Life of..." is extremely common (possibly inspired by this story), I think it's a bit of a stretch to make the claim that My Secret Life is the definite source of the Thurber title. I'm not saying you're wrong, but we would need a reliable source to make that connection, not just the confluence of the words Secret, Life and Walter.--Karen | Talk | contribs 07:45, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Unfortunately, I am unable to give you a "reliable source" on this. The thing is not my invention, a (deceased) teacher mentioned it in my English class 40 years ago. On the other hand, we are talking about the author of "Is Sex Necessary ?". I see a parallel there. The title alludes to sex, but the text frustrates any pertinent expectations. --Awaler (talk) 23:45, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Theater scripts for Walter Mitty and others plays that would be free for educational use

I work at the Washington State School for the Blind and we have a small intranet radio station on site for the kids to practice oral skills, reading skills, and learning about radio production.

We are currently looking for any theater play script that can be adabted for radio, is free, and is kid/family freindly. We are particularly interested in the Secret Life of Walter Mitty but will appreciate any theater script possiblities. Could you help us in our search?

Please contact Renee Corso at renee.corso@wssb.wa.gov or by mail at Renee Corso - WSSB- 2214 E. 13th Street - Vancouver, WA 98661 360-696-6321 extension 121 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 164.116.48.2 (talk) 16:22, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress

There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (disambiguation) which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 06:15, 6 December 2013 (UTC)

Wife is the mother

I never read the original story, but if I read this right, they gave his wife's role to his mother in the 1947 film. His mother is the one who criticizes his driving and sends him off with a shopping list, just as his wife did in the original tale. Just thought it deserved a mention.Thetrellan (talk) 21:56, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

Thurber's "wife" characters were all based on his own wife (apparently a classic nag); his "mother" characters, in the same way, seem to be based on his own mother (according to him a stereotypical "dotty old lady", absent-minded and comically ignorant and fearful of "modern" technology). To a certain extent you always know what's coming when a character of a particular category comes up in a Thurber story - in a perverse way this adds piquancy to the humour. --Soundofmusicals (talk) 22:19, 16 January 2014 (UTC)