Desk Set (1957), starring Spencer Tracy, Katherine Hepburn
In Desk Set, a TV-network researcher with an amazing memory humors an efficiency expert. He’s been sent to improve her department – and lay off her staff? This is progress?
Product Description
The mysterious man hanging about at the research department of a big TV network proves to be engineer Richard Sumner, who’s been ordered to keep his real purpose secret: computerizing the office. Department head Bunny Watson, who knows everything, needs no computer to unmask Richard. The resulting battle of wits and witty dialogue pits Bunny’s fear of losing her job against her dawning attraction to Richard. …Desk Set (1957)
Editorial review of Desk Set courtesy of Amazon.com
One of the later Spencer Tracy-Katharine Hepburn matchups, this time pitting efficiency expert–sorry, that’s “methods engineer”–Richard Sumner (Tracy) against TV-network research whiz Bunny Watson (Hepburn) over adding a new-fangled computer–again, sorry, that’s “electronic brain”–to her department, thereby threatening her and her colleagues’ livelihoods. Gig Young appears as Bunny’s beau, an ambitious network executive who strings her along and becomes apoplectic at the idea that she doesn’t need him. But as always, it’s Hepburn and Tracy’s bickering-flirting that makes this such a winning enterprise–a lunch date that turns into an interrogation and their sly repartee during a Christmas party are a couple of the movie’s hilarious highlights.
Interestingly, what starts out as something of a technophobic exercise–Hepburn fears for her job, and a computer goes haywire–takes an abrupt turn (perhaps the IBM product placement had something to do with that). Briskly scripted by Henry and Phoebe Ephron (Nora and Delia’s parents) from a play by William Marchant. —David Kronke
Cast of characters
- Spencer Tracy (Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner) … Richard Sumner
- Katharine Hepburn (Bringing Up Baby) … Bunny Watson
- Gig Young (The Three Musketeers 1948) … Mike Cutler
- Joan Blondell (Topper Returns) … Peg Costello
- Dina Merrill (I’ll Take Sweden) … Sylvia Blair
- Sue Randall (Leave It To Beaver) … Ruthie Saylor
- Neva Patterson (V: The Original Miniseries) … Miss Warriner
- Harry Ellerbe (The Fall of the House of Usher) … Smithers
- Nicholas Joy (Joan of Arc 1948) … Mr. Azae
- Diane Jergens (The FBI Story) … Alice
- Merry Anders (The Time Travelers) … Cathy
- Ida Moore … Old Lady
- Rachel Stephens … Receptionist
