Review of The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (1947) by Toni S — 26 Feb 2015

Based on the 1942 short story by James Thurber, and directed by Norman Z. McLeod (Monkey Business (1931), Horse Feathers (1932) and Casanova's Big Night (1954)), this adaptation was a passion project of Hollywood producer Samuel Goldwyn, who with director McLeod molded the project to suit the talents of Danny Kaye, who made the project his own and stole the show.

Walter Mitty (Kaye) works for a magazine, and he's put upon by his overbearing mother (Fay Bainter), his boss Bruce Pierce (Thurston Hall) steals Mitty's ideas, and Mitty's fiance Gertrude Griswold (Ann Rutherford) is incredibly childish.

Mitty escapes from these bugbears of life by escaping into daydreams, which he gets into trouble for. However, when he meets Rosalind van Hoorn (Virginia Mayo), whose uncle Peter van Hoorn (Konstantin Shayne) is search for stolen Dutch crown jewels which went missing after World War 2, Mitty finds himself living an adventure that is very real, but everyone else around him thinks it's just another fantasy.

It's very well made for it's day, and it still holds up to this day as a proper piece of family entertainment. Kaye is a very likable presence, and he changes personalities with each fantasy, and it clearly having the time of his life in this role.

It's certainly a different breed of film to the 2013 remake.