sol- Viewed for a second time, the Danny Kaye version of 'The Secret Life of Walter Mitty' is not quite as fresh and original, but it still stands up as one of the more offbeat films of its year - and far superior to the Ben Stiller version. Bright-eyed Kaye is well cast as a perpetual daydreamer cartoonist who uses fantasy to escape the mundane nature of his everyday life. The first third of the film is spent acquainting us with the flaccid border between fantasy and reality in his mind before the plot sharply veers towards absurdism as Kaye encounters Virginia Mayo's damsel in distress and finds his life thrown into disarray with a more elaborate conspiracy than anything he had ever dreamed of - just like one of his comic book heroes' lives. The Technicolor sets and costumes (especially the hat show) are great. Further delights include a brief but brilliantly menacing Boris Karloff performance and a thoughtful audio design linked in with the fantasy/reality divide. Not only are the "tapocketa, tapocketa" sounds a great running gag, but many background noises in the film are also played at louder than usual volumes during the reality-based scenes. Less delightful are the musical numbers that Kaye is stuck with singing. The tunes are decent but jar with the narrative flow and the first one goes on for way too long as Kaye imitates a former lecturer. Never to mind, the film's celebration of the human imagination is nicely tantamount to a celebration of the power of cinema itself; after all, how far removed is writing cartoons from writing inventive motion pictures?

Leofwine_draca THE SECRET LIFE OF WALTER MITTY is an amiable, imaginative comic fantasy starring everyone's favourite jester, Danny Kaye. Kaye plays an ordinary and rather boring fellow who escapes the humdrum of modern life by venturing into various fantasies where he's always cast as the hero, rescuing damsels in distress and defeating nefarious enemies.Unfortunately for him, soon reality and fantasy begin to collide when he meets a classic Hitchcock femme fatale who propels him into a world of murder and intrigue. What follows is a riotous 'wronged man' style comedy with plenty of slapstick and broad shenanigans to recommend it. Overall this is a colourful and lively production, boosted by Kaye's endless energy and the interesting casting of key roles, like the excellent Boris Karloff as a sinister psychiatrist.The only flaws here for me were the actual fantasy sequences themselves, particularly the early ones. Some of them feel quite twee and dated and seem go on on forever, like when Kaye's singing that stupid song. It feels like they're there for padding rather than any proper reason. Still, THE SECRET LIFE OF WALTER MITTY works much better when it's taking place in the real world, and that slapstick is hard to dislike.

gamay9 I gave this film a '4' for Technicolor. Otherwise, it would be a '3.' Danny Kaye, like Jerry Lewis, has never been a favorite of mine; same with The Three Stooges, Laurel and Hardy, etc. I don't care for slapstick.Had the antics of Danny Kaye been eliminated from the film it would have been improved upon. Author, James Thurber didn't like Kaye nor the music. Thurber's short story is void of music and Kaye isn't a good songster.I saw this film when it opened in 1947. I was barely six years old, fell asleep toward the end and missed the part where Walter actually was NOT fantasizing; no big deal - I still hate the film 66 years later. I also daytime and nighttime dream but write them down and turn them into narrative. I sell enough to supplement my measly social security benefit which I paid for during 45 years of an internal audit career. With a college degree, CPA/CIA, I get $18,000 a year on social security with a recent 1.5% increase for 2014. Throw a dog a bone. Back then, we sent our kids to college, vacationed, bought new cars and spent our money enjoying life. Social security and a small pension was supposed to be enough. Dream on, Walter Mitty.

bkoganbing James Thurber's whimsical day dreamer Walter Mitty was a perfect character for Danny Kaye to apply his many talents with. Make note however this is not film based on Thurber's short story, The Secret Life Of Walter Mitty, but the character is used to fashion a plot whereby this day dream believer gets into a real life adventure. And gets the girl one only dreams about.Poor henpecked Danny Kaye as Mitty works as a proofreader for publisher Thurston Hall who specializes in putting out pulp fiction works of adventure and romance. He's put upon by everyone, from his mother Fay Bainter to his girlfriend Ann Rutherford, her mother Florence Bates, his best 'friend' Gordon Jones and not the least by his boss Hall. His escape is in daydreaming and it's in these imaginary sequences that Kaye's real talents of singing and mimicry are given full range. During one of those sequences while at a fashion show Kaye does one of his most famous routines Anatole Of Paris.While on a train Kaye meets the beautiful girl of his dreams Virginia Mayo who is carrying some documents vital to her native Dutch government. And she's being pursued by the kind of international criminals that appear in James Bond or Austin Powers. Konstantin Shayne is the master criminal known only as 'the Boot' and he's assisted in his nefarious schemes by Boris Karloff. After he meets them poor Danny spends the rest of the film trying to help or rescue Virginia Mayo and convince the others in his life that he's in a real situation. The rest of his circle put his ravings down to an overactive imagination and he's even referred to a psychiatrist who turns out to be Boris Karloff. I'm not sure who was playing straight for who in the psychiatrist sequence, but it's funny nonetheless.It's not James Thurber. Thurber's story would be almost impossible to create accurately for the screen since it's all in his protagonist's mind. But as a character for Danny Kaye, Walter Mitty is a natural.