Desk Set (1957)

Desk Set
Directed by Walter Lang
Written by Phoebe and Henry Ephron from a play by William Marchant
1957/USA
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental

[box] [Richard gives Bunny a personality test] Richard Sumner: Now what is the first thing you notice in a person?

Bunny Watson: Whether the person is male or female.[/box]

It is 1957 and Katharine Hepburn once again plays a desperate old maid.  Fortunately, Spencer Tracy is one of the men in her life in this romantic comedy.

Richard Sumner’s (Tracy) baby is an “electronic brain” named EMERAC.   Sumner’s friend, the CEO of a television network has brought Sumner in to install EMERAC as part of a top-secret plan that Sumner is forbidden to discuss.  Sumner heads to the research department where he finds department head Bunny (!!!) Watson (Hepburn) has a brain as impressive as his machine’s.

In the meantime, Bunny spends much of her time agonizing about whether her long-time boyfriend Mike Cutler (Gig Young) will ask her to a dance and waiting impatiently for a marriage proposal.

Naturally, it is Richard and Bunny who are made for each other and the rest of the movie details their comic courtship and Mike’s growing jealousy.  The entire time the research librarians are positive they will be out of a job once the machine is up and running.  They try to prove that they are irreplaceable.  With Joan Blondell and Dina Merrill as Hepburn’s subordinates.

I felt embarrassed for Hepburn for much of the film.  She is required to act really silly and to play below her age.  Once the romance with Tracy properly gets going, things are much better.  The computer angle is interesting.  I couldn’t help thinking about how computers and the Internet did end up winning the research game after all.

Trailer