Seeing pictures in Boston frequently poses a problem of sorts, an end-result of the Hub's almost inevitable end-of-the-line spot when first-run dates are being dished out. Thus it often is difficult to find films free from the deluge of critical acclaim or dismay that the New York papers and the weekly magazines unloose. Such a case is the one at hand, for the sheaves of outpourings, pro and con, in regard to this Danny Kaye extravaganza make it rather difficult to uncover anything new to say.

To the ignoscenti, however, a word or two of explanation may still be necessary. Let it be said, then, that Samuel Goldwyn and Friends have taken a little but justly-famous Thurber short story from a "New Yorker" of a few years back about mild, henpecked Walter Mitty and his daydreams of grandeur--and upon it they have based a full-sized picture, complete with Goldwyn Girls. The original was simple, poignant, and pathetically amusing. The greatly expanded, glamorized, seat-song-studded cinema product is not; as indeed it could never be. But is this kind of comparison a fair one? Does the mere fact that a picture has lost just about all the spirit of the story that prompted it condemn the picture itself as a separate entity? James Thurber seems to think so, but then maybe he's prejudiced.

Forgetting all about Thurber and the "New Yorker", and considering "Walter Mitty" as just another motion picture, we can measure it by its own individual merits--and we can find it wanting. Perhaps this feeling comes because Danny Kaye cannot seem to exude any of the real Mitty atmosphere; perhaps Kaye's species of facial-contortions-and-mouth-noises humor has begun to be rather tedious; perhaps slapstick is still, as always, a poor substitute for wit. Or perhaps the five dream-episodes, (three from the original story), funny as they may be, just don't completely redeem a routine "comedy-mystery"--routine even to the extent of including Boris Karloff.