The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

Walter Mitty is a daydreaming young man who escapes his dull life by imagining himself as a hero in a series of adventurous roles. In reality, he works at a New York publishing house, lives with his overprotective mother and is engaged to a woman who treats him with indifference. His fantasies take a turn when he meets a mysterious blonde woman, Rosalind van Hoorn, who draws him into a real conspiracy involving a hidden book and a search for Dutch crown jewels. Mitty is unsure where his imagination ends and reality begins, and those around him do not believe what he is caught up in.

The film is a comedy, fantasy and romance from Samuel Goldwyn Productions, directed by Norman Z. McLeod and written by Everett Freeman and Ken Englund. It was released in 1947 and runs 110 minutes. McLeod's credited directing work includes comedies from the 1930s through the 1950s, among them Horse Feathers, Alice in Wonderland and The Paleface, the latter arriving after this film. Danny Kaye stars as Walter Mitty alongside Virginia Mayo as Rosalind van Hoorn, Boris Karloff as Dr. Hollingshead, Fay Bainter as Mrs. Mitty, Ann Rutherford as Gertrude Griswold and Thurston Hall as Bruce Pierce. On IMDb it holds a rating of 6.9 from around 7,500 votes, with a TMDB rating of 6.8 from a smaller number of votes; a critics' rating of 6.2 from 13 reviews places it in similar territory to the audience scores.