Vintage original 11 x 14 in. US lobby card from the 1940s fantasy comedy/romance, THE SECRET LIFE OF WALTER MITTY, released in 1947 by RKO Radio Pictures and directed by Norman Z. McLeod, in which a clumsy daydreamer (Danny Kaye) gets caught up in a sinister conspiracy.
Printed for the film's 1955 US theatrical re-release by Samuel Goldwyn, the image depicts an interior shot inside the office of psychiatrist Dr. Hugo Hollingshead (Boris Karloff) as he tries to coax Walter Mitty (Danny Kaye) out from behind the couch while his mother (Fay Bainter) and Bruce Pierce (Thurston Hall) try to help. As indicated in the lower right corner of the image area, this is lobby card #4 from the set of 8 cards. It is unused in very fine condition with one set of staple holes in the center of the top border (the prior owner had stapled this unused set together, presumably to keep them all together).
The working title for this film was I Wake Up Dreaming. Author James Thurber offered producer Samuel Goldwyn $10,000 to not make the film. In an unused Mitty dream sequence, Boris Karloff appears as the Frankenstein (1931) monster, which explains Mitty's fear of Karloff's character. Test photos of Karloff in makeup by Jack P. Pierce exist, as well as a letter from Universal Pictures to Samuel Goldwyn Pictures giving permission to use the makeup design. The RMS Queen Mary appears in the background in the scene where Mitty takes a taxi to Pier 47 in an effort to retrieve his briefcase. The Queen Mary, used as a troop transport during World War II, is still painted in its wartime gray in this scene, filmed about a year after the end of the War.