The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (1947)

Save your money for something good and enjoyable

Best movie ever!

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

This movie is pretty interesting. Its entertaining with good acting. I'd recommend watching this.

A delightful comedy-fantasy showcasing the many talents of Danny Kaye in James Thurber's popular short-story, although it's interesting that the author didn't want it filmed and apparently hated Kaye in the lead.And so what, says I! Yes, helmsman Norman Z MacLeod, perhaps worn down from his days as the director of the Marx Brothers in the 30's, does indulge his star a little too much by unnecessarily giving him two lengthy patter-songs which while highlighting his tongue- twisting and accent-mangling skills, nonetheless don't belong in the film and likewise our hero's pratfall goofiness is overdone too.Nevertheless when, I suspect, Kaye sticks more to the script, there is some genuinely funny humour, often of the grown-up variety, like the scenes where Kaye's Mitty attempts to intercept the delivery of a corset (containing the Maguffin of the mysterious little black book listing Dutch art treasures pursued by a German criminal mastermind) to an unknown female with a suitably large and jealous husband, Virginia Mayo undressing to her slip after being out in the rain and the funny exchange where Mitty is convinced by evil psychologist Boris Karloff that he sees fully-dressed women instead in bathing-suits. Along the way, the movie gently satirises the then fashionably popular pulp-fiction magazine business, international women's fashion and of course various movie genres in Mitty's various day-dreams and it's in the latter that the film is most successful and funny.The pleasing conclusion where Mitty finally comes out of his shell and bites back at everyone that's trodden over him in the past from his mother on down is slightly let down however by a pointless final scene where Mitty at last gets his overdue promotion, but I won't hold that against it. Kaye and Mayo, here teamed for the third of four movies, combine delightfully and are well backed by their supporting cast, especially Karloff spoofing his horror-movie past. Filmed in glowing Technicolour around contemporary post-war New York, (even if some of the location shots are clearly processed), this is a vibrant, funny feature from Hollywood's Golden Age.

The original, and best (the 2013 version doesn't come close). Great story, well told. What takes it to a new level, however, is the performance of Danny Kaye. He is superb in the role of Walter Mitty: hilariously funny, especially in the day dream skits. While the dialogue is incredibly sharp and funny, you can't imagine anyone else delivering the lines so incisively. His slapstick stuff is also something to behold.So funny and original you can actually see the influence (direct or otherwise) of Kaye's performance on acts like The Goon Show, Monty Python, Robin Williams, and even Michael Richards (esp as Kramer in Seinfeld). Rest of the cast put in solid performances. Virginia Mayo is particularly good, and beautiful, as Rosalind van Hoorn. However, the supporting cast are just the straight men to Kaye's antics. He IS the movie.Only negative is that it does get a bit too silly and farcical towards the end, in the real life parts. The day dream stuff is brilliant and there the movie doesn't put a single foot wrong.

Talk about a problem with source fidelity! "Monkey Business" director Norman Z. McLeod and scenarists Ken Englund of "No, No, Nanette" and Everett Freeman of "George Washington Slept Here" kept one scene from James Thurbers' short story "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" and jettisoned everything else. Indeed, Mitty is still a day dreamer in the story as he is in the film. The filmmakers replicated one scene from the story and changed everything else. The Walter Mitty that comedian Danny Kaye incarnates is a mild-mannered bachelor who lets his overbearing mother bully him. In the story, Mitty is married, but he is only dating a girl in the movie. The scene that was lifted from the short story is the surgery scene when Mitty repairs a piece of hospital equipment so doctors can operate on their patient. Since the story is pretty short, the filmmakers had to flesh things out and have they ever more fleshed things out. Mitty works for a firm that publishes crime and romance magazines. In the short story, we never learn what business that Mitty is in as a career. The premise of "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" is that the Dutch are trying to recover famous artwork and Mitty has a notebook about these artifacts. Mitty meets the heroine, Rosalind van Hoorn (Virginia Mayo of "White Heat"), and she is trying to locate with the help of another man a number of valuable paintings that disappeared during World War II. Everybody is searching for a black notebook and nobody believes Mitty when he tries to convince others that he is up to his ears in trouble with some ruthless characters. Danny Kaye is perfectly cast as the eponymous character. Fay Bainter plays is obnoxiously overwrought mother who constantly reprimands him. Mitty day dreams about surviving a storm at sea in the opening moments. Naturally, our bumbling hero thwarts the villains, "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" is a hilarious comedy.