In the latest Ben Stiller movie, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, one of the central components of the film are the enormous Life magazine covers scattered throughout the office where Walter works.

Some beautiful cover images, most emblazoned in our American memories already.

But, here’s the thing….they’re all fake.

Completely.

The production designers, working closely with the archivists of the great American institution, Time Life, created the magazine covers just for the film.

Production designer Jeff Mann said. “We worked really, really hard to select photos that were novel, naïve — in the best possible way — and that featured significant twentieth-century people, places and events.”

Sure, some of these images were in Life magazine once, but none of them were lucky enough to have graced the cover.

Until now.

Enjoy

Life was a published weekly magazine from 1936 until 1972, when it became a monthly issue until 2000.

In recent years, Life.com existed until 2012.

As you can tell, amazing photography was a focus.