THE SECRET LIFE OF WALTER MITTY (1947)

Danny Kaye

THE SECRET LIFE OF WALTER MITTY (1947). Director: Norman Z. McLeod.

Walter Mitty (Danny Kaye) is an editor at a pulp publishing house that puts out magazines of horror and crime. His own life -- living with his unpleasant mother (Fay Bainter) and engaged to an unappreciative fiancee (Ann Rutherford) -- is dull  enough for him to indulge in a variety of fantasies. He imagines himself as a brilliant physician, a famous pilot in the RAF, a riverboat gambler, old west cowboy, and so on. But then he meets a beautiful blond (Virginia Mayo) and his life suddenly gets more exciting -- and dangerous. The blond is named Rosalind, and she gets Mitty involved with deadly spies who are after a book that lists the location of art treasures hidden away from the Nazis. In their attempts to get the book, Mitty almost loses his life on more than one occasion.

Virginia Mayo with Kaye

Walter Mitty holds the attention for the most part, is generally well-acted, and has some clever and amusing moments -- a shot of Whistler's Mother in a bathing suit -- but it just isn't that funny. A routine Kaye does in which he imitates an old music professor goes on forever and hasn't a single laugh. The song numbers by Sylvia Fine, Kaye's wife, are pretty awful. The ever under-rated Virginia Mayo is luminescent, however, and there's some good work from Fritz Feld as a European designer of women's hats. (Kaye later does an imitation of him with some characterizing the caricature as "homosexual," but I doubt if that was the intention.) Thurston Hall is fine as Kaye's boss, who is near-apoplectic at times, and Boris Karloff shows up as a very peculiar psychiatrist.

Boris Karloff with Kaye

Rutherford does a nice job as the fiancee, and Florence Bates is typically on-target and amusing as her somewhat disapproving mother. Bainter [The Children's Hour] makes Mitty's mother a borderline harridan, treating her son like he's a ten-year-old, and she isn't funny enough to make the character palatable; a very good actress but not a skilled comedienne. Gordon Jones of The Green Hornet serial plays a man who has a romantic interest in Rutherford; Konstantin Shayne [The Unknown Man] is a nasty character known as the Boot; and the ever-cadaverous Milton Parsons plays his butler.

Verdict: Kaye running around amiably but not that memorably. **1/2. 

PANAMA HATTIE

Ann Sothern

PANAMA HATTIE (1942). Director: Norman Z. McLeod.

Down in Panama a singing dancer named Hattie (Ann Sothern of Fast and Furious) has fallen for a wealthy Army man named Dick (Dan Dailey of It's Always Fair Weather), This is bad news for three sailors -- Red (Red Skelton), Rags (Rags Ragland) and Rowdy (Ben Blue) -- who are smitten with the gal and whom she relies on for emotional support. Hattie has some problems with her man when she meets his eight-year-old daughter and a woman named Leila Tree (Marsha Hunt of Smash Up), who is convinced she is more suitable for Dick. Reluctantly, Hattie agrees, at least for awhile ...

Virginia O'Brien with Skelton, Ragland and Blue

Based on an old Broadway show, Panama Hattie is as insubstantial as lint. The only real thing is has going for it, aside from some spirited performers, is the music, which consists of such Cole Porter tunes as "Just One of Those Things: (sung by Lena Horne) and other songs by Edens and Harburg ("Let's Be Buddies"). Sothern at least appears to be dubbed (although she could sing), but we hear the real voice of snappy Virginia O'Brien, who employs her deadpan style in some numbers ("Boy, Did I Get Stinkin' at the Club Savoy") and actually smiles during others ("I'm in Love"). Another highlight is a great dance number by a trio of talented black guys

Virginia O'Brien and Alan Mowbray

In the "slob vs snob" sub-plot, Leila is made as affected and unpleasant as possible, but Hattie really doesn't have much class. When Dick's little girl laughs, not unkindly, at Hattie's over- elaborate outfit, the adult practically calls the child a bitch! More fun is provided by O'Brien, whose character unaccountably develops a hankering for Dick's disdainful butler, amusingly played by Alan Mowbray. There is some tiresome, mildly comical business at the end when the three sailors make like lesser case Stooges, go into a haunted house, and uncover a nest of dangerous spies. Skelton delivers a tasteless gag about having his legs shot off. Ragland was in the Broadway show, wherein Ethel Merman played Hattie. Ben Blue was a comic who started in silent pictures.

Verdict: Easy to forget but with likable players and some good numbers. **1/2. 

THE KID FROM BROOKLYN

Walter Abel, Steve Cochran, Danny Kaye and Eve Arden

THE KID FROM BROOKLYN (1946). Director: Norman Z. McLeod.

Burleigh Sullivan (Danny Kaye) is a skinny milkman who comes to the rescue when his sister, Susie (Vera-Ellen), is bothered by a masher, the boxer Speed McFarlane (Steve Cochran of The Chase). When Speed, the heavyweight champion, is knocked out with one punch, the press wrongly believe that Burleigh delivered the blow. Speed's manager, Gabby (Walter Abel), decides to capitalize on the situation by hiring Burleigh as a fighter, and paying his opponents to take a dive so he can ultimately cash in when Burleigh has a real match with Speed. Complications occur when Burleigh's success goes to his head, and Speed and Susie fall for each other. Kaye is wonderful in this light-hearted, silly, modestly entertaining musical, and the pic is bolstered with fine supporting performances, not only from those already mentioned but from an absolutely gorgeous Virginia Mayo as Burleigh's recent girlfriend, Polly Pringle, and the inimitable Eve Arden as Gabby's acerbic gal pal, Ann. Clarence Kolb of My Little Margie is the head of the milk company, Lionel Stander is as repulsive as ever as Speed's associate (and the one who actually knocked him out), and Fay Bainter [The Children's Hour] has an amusing scene with Kaye when he teaches her how to box and duck. Some of the characters, such as Polly and Susie, seem to over-react when Kaye's behavior changes after his "success" in the ring, but he's never as bad as they make him out to be, making it seem more like they've got sour grapes. Kaye and Mayo would make more movies together.

Verdict: The players help put across this. **1/2.