Desk Set (1957) User Reviews

Life before Google

[jotix100 · 8/10 · 18 January 2005]

This comedy keeps turning on cable any now and then. When faced with the prospect of watching substandard fare, the clear choice is to go to something that is amusing, as well as to entertaining, which is why "Desk Set" is a good bet to watch.

"Desk Set", directed by Walter Lang, evokes those bygone years before automation and the arrival of the computers into one's life. The comedy, adapted from the stage with great care by Henry and Phoebe Ephron, accomplishes all the requisites for a nice way to spend a couple of hours.

The time is the late 50s in Manhattan. The cost controlling expert, Richard Sumner, is hired to make changes in the way the New York firm can cut costs in all areas of business. Mr. Sumner's solution is to start automation in several areas, such as in the payroll department. He faces a formidable task when he takes to task making the research department more efficient, in the days before Google.

Mr. Sumner has to deal with the smart Bunny Watson, who has more facts and figures at her fingertips than any contraption could find at any given moment. Thus begins a tug of war between the man who is perceived as the "terminator of jobs" and the four women in research. They'll teach him a thing, or two.

The best part of the film is the interplay between the two principals, Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn. Its a tribute to them, as actors, they could work so well together. Also, toward the end of the movie, at the company's Christmas party, we see a playful, and drunk Bunny singing Cole Porter's "Night and Day" to the beat of the bongo playing of Richard Sumner. That scene shows a playful Katherine Hepburn having a great time in front of the cameras.

This delicious movie will certainly please anyone looking for a good time. Ms. Hepburn does excellent work as the spinsterish Bunny. Mr. Tracy is equally her match as the efficiency expert who is not in touch with reality.

The women in the research department, Joan Blondell, Dina Merrill and Sue Radall, are quite good. Gig Young has the thankless task of being a man interested in Katherine Hepburn, when it's obvious her heart clearly belongs to Spencer Tracy.

Enjoy the movie, but better yet, enjoy the magic created by Kate and Spencer!

Trivial Pursuit with Emirac

[bkoganbing · 7/10 · 1 May 2005]

Desk Set was the next to last teaming of Tracy and Hepburn and the first one away from MGM. It does have a different look to the product they did at MGM. Still good, but different. Probably because this was done in Cinemascope and Technicolor.

Hard to believe that Cinemascope would be used on a film essentially set indoors and on one set, the set being Hepburn's office. But that was to show the immense size of Emirac the giant computer being installed there which Katharine and her staff think is going to replace them.

Desk Set had been on Broadway two year ago and had a respectable run. It starred Shirley Booth in Katharine Hepburn's part and the rest of the cast were not names by any means. I'm sure Spencer Tracy's role had to be built up from the stage version.

Even so, the film is essentially Hepburn's. As usual in their films she has a rival to Tracy. In the past that part was played by such people as Melvyn Douglas, David Wayne, William Ching, and now Gig Young. It seemed like every movie comedy in the late 50s and early 60s had either Young or Tony Randall as the defeated rival role. Young gives his patented performance here.

A running gag throughout the film are the calls handled by Hepburn's staff at the broadcast network for inane information. Like someone up in the corporate headquarters is playing trivial pursuit.

Also look for good performances by Joan Blondell, Sue Randall, and Dina Merrill as Hepburn's staff and Neva Patterson as Emirac's installer and keeper.

A good addition to the Tracy-Hepburn pantheon.

One of the Better Katharine Hepburn Films

[gavin6942 · 7/10 · 6 November 2015]

Two extremely strong personalities clash over the computerization of a TV network's research department.

Let me get this out in the open right away: I typically dislike Katharine Hepburn. I do not like her voice or her overrated acting (her range is quite minimal). Aside from a handful of films, she is not deserving of the immortal status she has obtained. This film, however, ought to be on her list of great films. And yet, it seems to have been largely forgotten.

Spencer Tracy really carries this film (he is a national treasure), and it has an interesting theme: man versus machine when it comes to useless knowledge. Who knew that fifty years later man and machine would square off on "Jeopardy!" to test this very thing?

The Very Best Hepburn/Tracy Teaming!

[thursdays · 5 June 2004]

Katherine Hepburn is in top form as a middle aged head of the all girls research department who feels threatened when a mysterious "efficiency expert" (Spencer Tracy) is sent in to introduce his great invention "EMEREK", the ultimate information source. Now the ladies in research fear that a computer will make their "human brain work" obsolete.

The boss's favorite, a dapper climber of the success ladder who has been engaged to Hepburn for years but never quite mustered up the courage to pop the question, takes Hepburn's devotion to him for granted and suddenly realizes that she is not the doormat he had seen in her for so long. Tracy, up to this point a bachelor at heart, is quite smitten by this clever research lady. The outcome is predictable.

This is top notch entertainment with a smart script and great acting. The chemistry between the two leads is delicious. Look for the gorgeous fashions flaunted by all women in this movie. With the money a working girl of the 50s took home, such extravagances would have been quite impossible. But after all, this is Hollywood, not the real world. "Desk Set" is a five-star gem!*****

"Desk Set" and How It's Set Up.

[happipuppi13 · 7/10 · 10 May 2006]

Spencer & Katharine,two people who loved each-other and should have been able to spend their lives together,except fate would not allow it. Aside from their well known relationship,it was great that they had the movies to make together.

However,Desk Set's set up is a guy meets girl plot wrapped up in a modern (1950's) technology storyline. It seems that they have "met" in movies and fallen in love several times before,so that aspect here was not a "big" surprise at all. I was sure these two characters would be fighting tooth & nail with each other in their great comedic style (like "Adam's Rib" or such.)

Overall,everyone gives a "nice" performance,there's humor to be had here and I laughed at some of it but still,I expected a grander scale of laughs from them. I think at their age "boy meets girl" is a bit much to play convincingly.

Makes me glad their last film was as great as it was. 7 out of ten,good but somemone should have gone back to their desk or drawing board. (END)

Magnificent color palette and skillful acting. Great movie experience.

[davidtraversa-1 · 9/10 · 4 July 2011]

I watched this movie on You Tube and enjoyed it immensely. The fast wit in practically all the lines, the cleverness in the script, the utter elegance of all the women involved in it (even Joan Blondell, quite "developed" by then with several extra pounds), but specially Dina Merrill, absolutely exquisite in her (natural) ice-blond beauty, and Katherine Hepburn, with an unbelievably slender silhouette, all dressed, made up and coiffed to kill (modest employees with an average office job and complaining about their low salaries), changing outfits on practically every scene (and what outfits!!).

But that doesn't matter, it was escapist entertainment to the nth degree, so all that eye candy was completely acceptable, and so were the sets, that confronted with nowadays sets were like the Sistine Chapel Ceiling by Michelangelo.

When you consider that every single setting was painted cardboard you flip!!: The New York street with all that traffic and the heavy rain, the executive office, the girls office, later their office with the immense computer with all its lights and noises, the terrace of the skyscraper!! Fantastic sets!! and then the color palette for the whole movie.

Palette studied to the last detail, so pleasing to the eye in its entirety. Only one example: Hepburn gives Tracy a striped scarf, later on she wears the same scarf momentarily over a dress whose color matches to perfection those on the scarf. Unreal. And then last but not least, we appreciate the way these people interacted with such decent sentiments, so elegant, with such civilized maturity (so adult!!), that we instantly realize to have lost a lot comparing that generation to the present one.

The acting is sublime, by all of them, from Hepburn to the messenger boy. What a sensational movie! Top entertainment.

Breezy Tracy-Hepburn Workplace Comedy Benefits Mainly from Their Teamwork

[EUyeshima · 7/10 · 1 August 2006]

If you replace the constant use of the term "automation" with "outsourcing", this 1957 workplace-driven comedy would be quite a relevant tweak on corporate restructuring and office politics. As it stands now, it's a light piece of entertainment that benefits primarily from a smart screenplay by Phoebe and Henry Ephron (Nora's parents...must run in the family) and of course, the incomparable Tracy-Hepburn teamwork. It's not their best work, but fifteen years into their relationship, they achieve an easy, laser-sharp rapport here that makes the film easy to enjoy.

Efficiently directed by Walter Lang, the movie focuses its plot on the research department of a national TV network, the so-called Federal Broadcasting System. The four-woman staff is headed by the whip-smart Bunny Watson, who appears to possess a wealth of information and an unfailing memory for the smallest detail. They work like clockwork together in finding responses to often extremely trivial questions, but they do everything manually. Enter Richard Sumner, a befuddled man with a measuring tape and mismatched socks, who turns out to be a brilliant engineer hired by the network CEO to install an electronic brain called EMERAC. Designed to streamline the research process, the monolithic computer has the research staff understandably concerned about pending unemployment. Invariably, Bunny and Sumner start to recognize a mutual attraction through the awkwardness, and further complications arise with the presence of Mike Cutler, a rising network executive who has pompously kept Bunny on a leash for years.

As Bunny, Katharine Hepburn appears to be playing a variation of herself, which in this case, suits the role perfectly. By comparison, Tracy seems a bit tired as Sumner, except when interacting with Hepburn, whether unsuccessfully volleying brainteasers on a freezing rooftop, eating floating islands in their bathrobes, or canoodling between the second-floor bookshelves during the office Christmas party. A terrific supporting cast has been assembled starting with Gig Young in his typical role as the third wheel Mike, which he plays with enough sharp and smarmy aplomb to make Bunny's dilemma palpable. Joan Blondell expertly plays Bunny's stalwart sidekick Peg, and they achieve a genuine chemistry as they banter about the "Mexican Avenue bus".

Dina Merrill and Sue Randall (forever etched in my memory as Beaver's crush-worthy schoolteacher Miss Landers on "Leave It to Beaver") seem a bit too glamorous to be librarians, but they're both serviceable, while Neva Patterson plays EMERAC's coldly efficient "mother", Miss Warriner, to brittle perfection. Even though the sets are pure 1950's-style décor, Leon Shamroy makes full use of the Cinemascope process to bring his color-saturated cinematography to the widescreen. The 2004 DVD comes with a commentary track by film historian John Lee, who provides interesting insight to the production, casting and stage-to-screen translation. Merrill provides some remembrances of her own, but her commentary is spotty and a bit self-serving. A vintage, minute-long newsreel on the film's costumes; a few trailers for other Fox films of the period; and a photo gallery complete the package.

I adore this movie.

[budmassey · 10/10 · 2 May 2001]

It comes as no surprise that the 30-second attention span generation finds this jewel a little dull. There is no quick-cut music video cinematography. The characters are all actually old enough to be believable in their roles. which are not based on clothing or haircuts. It depends on talent rather than hype. And most of all, it is far too intelligent, witty and literate for today's garbage-numbed Philistine.

The story is simple, as all good stories are. Hepburn feels her job, and those of her staff, are threatened by Tracy and his ominous computer. It may not sound like much in this day of computer ubiquity, but substitute dot.com flop or outsourcing for computer and you have a contemporary comedy that still works.

Let's ignore the leads for just a moment. The supporting cast, which includes Joan Blondell as the arch-typical right-hand man, or should I say woman, and Gig Young as the chauvinistic, corporate climbing fiancé, easily outclasses what passes for marquee stars today. Husband and wife team Henry and Phoebe Ephron, parents of Nora Ephron, contribute a brilliantly witty script that, unfortunately for modern moviegoers, isn't peppered with vaudevillian pratfalls to help point out the funny parts. Instead, it relies on the intelligence of the audience and draws on that of the cast to produce a humor that never ages.

Hepburn is almost universally considered the greatest film actress ever. Tracy is utterly magnificent, and the chemistry between the two of them, owing of course in part to their long-standing relationship, is palpable.

I adore this movie, and if there were a Canon of Cinema, this would be in it.

So...how much DOES the Earth weigh?

[moonspinner55 · 6/10 · 12 May 2005]

One of the better Spencer Tracy-Katharine Hepburn films: a light comedy which doesn't necessitate his anger or her stridency. Hepburn heads up a charming group of gals in the research department of a broadcasting firm; Tracy is a computer man eager to install his latest creation in their office. Adapted from the Broadway play--and looking it--with large, flat sets stretched across the screen and all the actors moving from stage right to stage left. Still, the cast is colorful (except for Gig Young, stuck in the eternal Gig Young role, that of an SOB second banana who eventually ends up eating crow), and the thing is bubbly fun right to the end. It disappears from memory as fast as it came, but this kind of lightweight venture can be enjoyable on an afternoon viewing. **1/2 from ****

Office Politics - Then, Now and Forever

[KOALA-18 · 10/10 · 7 October 1999]

Although "computer" dated, this film is the most accurate depiction of office politics I have ever seen.

Having worked in several well-supervised office departments, the environment that a truly gifted supervisor (Hepburn's character) can create is there for all to see. The upper management attitude of keeping workers in the dark as to developmental plans for the company/department and the havoc that philosophy can wreak on morale and gossip was very satisfying and enjoying to watch. (If only management could learn from this lesson.)

Although the stereotypical "office gossip" is almost too delightfully portrayed, the "cliques" and flow of gossip is so true to today's office environment that someone just entering the work force could view this film as an education.

Of course, Tracy and Hepburn, along with a wonderful supporting cast, make this a very entertaining viewing experience.

Thoroughly enjoyable watch

[timothywalton-31924 · 7/10 · 21 June 2023]

Desk Set is a lighthearted, delightful, and thoroughly enjoyable watch courtesy of the effervescent chemistry between one of hollywoods greatest pairings Tracy and Hepburn. Surprisingly, Desk Set, despite its themes about automation and technology, still holds up decently well today, for it realises the power of context and human intuition lacking in any machine(though I might hesitate in saying the same thing in twenty years time given how rapidly technology is advancing). The highlight of Desk Set is of course the sparkling chemistry between Hepburn and Tracy. Hepburn is superb as the assertive, strong willed, sharp minded Bunny, stuck in a relationship with an always missing Mike Cutler, while Tracy plays the very affable Richard, who is self assured of his intellect, and as a result has an air of confidence around him, as if he were always in control of any situation. There is also a wonderful dynamic and camaraderie in the research department, consisting of three other characterful ladies which adds a great deal of charm to the picture. The script is also mildly witty, definitely sharper than the average rubbish around nowadays. Indeed, the film remains a breezy watch, that I cannot find much fault with it. It has an endearing storyline with well written characters that are never too serious. The film may not provide for many hysterical laughs but it does allow for plenty of chuckles. My only objection may be that it slows down in the second half, and the romance between Hepburns and Tracy's character could have been further developed. Regardless, I have to say Desk set is a remarkably fun office Romcom providing some laughs, and a charming office atmosphere which should easily hold an Audiences attention through its runtime. A thoroughly enjoyable watch.

Favorite Tracy-Hepburn Comedy

[harry-76 · 10/10 · 7 April 2000]

Of all the comedies of Tracy and Hepburn, this one is a personal favorite. The two look like they are really enjoying themselves, and no wonder. It's a fine comic script, with delightful lines and great laughs. Gig Young and Joan Blondell provide excellent support, and the entire cast works together just fine. While other T&H films have perhaps more "bite, " "Desk Set" is a film one can "live with" on more repeated viewings. It's just downright good fun to revisit and enjoy the cast's enjoyment of a rich comedy. Viva Em-er-ac, the friendly computer!

Of the Tracy-Hepburn collaborations...in the middle

[vincentlynch-moonoi · 7/10 · 29 January 2012]

First off, I'm updating my review based on the new Blu Ray edition of the film. Is it worth upgrading? A definite yes. It looks the best I've ever seen it. Beautiful colors, although I wish it had been just a little sharper. Great transfer.

This is not the strongest, nor the weakest, of the Tracy-Hepburn films. In a few spots it suffers...seems to drag, but mostly it moves along fine. I was interested to note that the not very successful film (in terms of box office revenue), gets a decent 7+ rating here on IMDb. That is particularly interesting because is some ways the topic -- incoming technology -- seems a tad outdated now.

Particularly fine moments in the film include Tracy and Hepburn in bathrobes after being caught in the rain...and then being caught by Hepburn's initial romantic interest (Gig Young). Watching Tracy here, it seemed as if he was enjoying this sequence very much At the end of this segment, watch for the apparently ad-libbed Spencer Tracy imitating a drunk Red Skelton!

Tracy and Hepburn shine here...as they almost always did. Both with characters who seemed businesslike with love creeping up on them. Hepburn seems just right as the researcher whose personal life seems stalled out. Tracy seems just right in terms of personality for the slightly different kind of efficiency expert, but maybe a tad too old to be a computer expert?

Joan Blondell steals a number of scenes...definitely one of her best appearances in film.

Gig Young has a better role in this film than he did in similar roles where he is the runner-up romantic interest. Here he at least maintains his dignity and acted like a normal man, just on the wrong track for a successful romance.

Dina Merrill may be the only other actor of note here, and she plays an assistant in the research office very pleasantly. Poor Neva Patterson seemed to have copyrighted the somewhat cold personality that we also saw in "An Affair To Remember".

Tracy and/or Hepburn fans will want this on their DVD shelf, others will enjoy watching it at least once.

It's an issue of taste, here...I found it slow and stiff and quaint

[secondtake · 5/10 · 28 July 2010]

Desk Set (1957)

Because of their famous off-screen romance, Tracy and Hepburn make a famous and complex on-screen couple. And they did it often--this is the 8th of 9 films they shared. Here we are fresh into the color, widescreen era, not Technicolor in this case but a very nice, somewhat less sparkling looking competitor. There is a bright flat lighting to the sets that make it feel emotionally flat, not that this is a melodrama. It's a comedy, and it depends on timing and personality more than jokes or sight gags.

And it never quite clicks. There are "moments" that are funny, though I didn't laugh out loud until halfway through, in her well appointed apartment. And there are lots of stiff and even paltry stretches between the moments. If you love either actor, or both together, you'll love to watch them to see another piece to the presence they had over the years. But director Walter Lang (who is not known for a single "great" movie at all, unfortunately), pulls together a competent job. I'm not sure competent is enough in a dated period piece like this.

But for people interested in the period, though, and in the rise of the American business world internationally, and in the rise in IBM in particular (called by its full name still, International Business Machines), you'll be curious. I was. I don't think this is what you'd call an accurate depiction of a typical corporate business, but the architecture and the spaces and color schemes seem right. There is a reference to an early computer that many of you might miss, the EMERAC, which is an invention of the movie, but which is a blur of other early anagram computers ENIAC (1946) and UNIVAC (1951). IBM's own first computer was operating in 1953. The size of the computer toward the end of this plodding movie is actually pretty accurate, though the lights are fictional, sadly.

The two principle actors are a hair out of touch already with these times, miscast in the simplest terms, though that might be because they got fixed in the world's eye by their earlier movies, in black and white, which are much funnier. And warmer. Tracy in particular is a warm actor, easy going to an extreme, and Hepburn a charming one (to an extreme), and it is when they get to show their true selves that the movie works best.

Very enjoyable comedy

[rmax304823 · 4 March 2003]

Well, I suppose it lacks the deeper moral carried by "Adam's Rib," although it does deal with issues that have so far turned out to be less important than gender equality, such as the impact of automation on the work force. But none of that is very important anyway. It's a light romantic comedy set in the research department of a major broadcasting company. And Hepburn's name is Bunny, but again, so what? Would it be a better movie if she were called Mildred?

It has the closed-in act structure of a play too, and it's obvious. There are other theatrical staples as well. How many plays include a drunken party at the end of the second act? (Exactly two hundred and forty-two.) Movies are similarly put together, especially those based on plays: "Long Day's Journey Into Night," "The Boys in the Band," "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" Often the alcohol consumption takes place at a Christmas party, as it does here, and in "The Apartment." Understanding that the characters' higher reasoning centers are partly paralyzed and their judgment impaired gives the writer a chance to have them behave outrageously without having to explain why they've lost their senses, and the audience understands this convention. Drunken conviviality doesn't always work on screen. It can leave the viewer feeling like the only sober person at the bash, which is why John Ford largely left the events up to the viewer's imagination. It doesn't work too well here, either. It's not the actors' fault. They convey that chemically induced jollity very well; it's that the lines are sometimes silly -- that "Mexican Avenue bus" business, for instance. You'd have to have been there to find it as amusing as Hepburn and Joan Blondell do.

None of this undermines the amusement quotient of the film. It's relaxed, pleasant, and sometimes laugh-out-loud funny. The story is well laid out, dated though it may seem to some, the interpersonal relationships clearly delineated and squeezed of every chuckle.

But it's the performers that get the job done here. Blondell's role seems to have been made for her, the down-to-earth blonde. Gig Young too is smooth in his usual careless charming playboy part, a touchstone for his career, as in "That Touch of Mink" and "Ask Any Girl." There are certain lines that no one can deliver better than he. Hepburn has been trying to get him to marry her for a long time and when he finally suggests they tie the knot, there is an argument, and he storms out the office door, but not before delivering his exit line: "Seven YEARS I've waited!" The other "girls" are intelligent and sexy. I have to mention Neva Patterson too, as Emerac's nurse. When the obscene machine begins to pant and puff out smoke, the other staff rush to help, but a hysterical Patterson screams at them, "Don't you TOUCH her!"

Tracey and Hepburn, no longer kids, are superb. They're top notch all the way through, and they have a couple of set pieces that are about as funny as anything they've done on screen. One is a sort of quiz Tracey gives her on the roof. Another, the best in the film, takes place while Tracey visits her apartment to dry his clothes and is caught in a bathrobe by Gig Young, who happens to drop in at the incriminating moment. I defy anyone not to laugh as Tracey clumps out the door with his shoes smoking and his hat pulled down around his ears. The third, having to do with EMERAC's nervous breakdown, is also well done if a bit frantic.

Not a comic masterpiece. It's too relaxed for that. But recommended without qualification.

Hepburn, Tracy, and the Electronic Brain

[gbill-74877 · 7/10 · 15 April 2016]

The script is clever, not great, the plot is cute, but not amazing, and the ending is predictable - but I like it anyway, and I've seen it several times over my life. For one thing, I've always liked the rooftop scene, where Spencer Tracy gives Katherine Hepburn a little intelligence test, complete with tricky riddles and difficult recall problems, and she effortlessly nails it, much to his surprise. She works phones with three other women in a reference library, the sort that people called back in the day pre-Internet, pre-Google, with questions ranging from the simple to the obscure. He's the inventor of the EMERAC, a computer or "electronic brain" as they put it, which threatens to take their jobs. Naturally, there is a question of her abilities vs. the computer's. On that note, it's fun to see the massive size of this computer and how it works in the movie, which aside from being a little silly, reflects how they were viewed in 1957. Oh, if only they could have known just how much computers would evolve, and change the world.

The movie is refined and any age could watch it, but it does bring a smile to see various inappropriate behavior in the office, culminating in a pretty raucous Christmas party. I have to say, it's also great to see three of the main actors at ages you don't see much in these types of roles – Tracy (57), Hepburn (50), and Joan Blondell (51), who I've also been enjoying lately in her pre-Code roles from the early 1930's. I wish there were more movies like this! All three actors are a joy to watch.

fighting battles all around her - K Hepburn

[ksf-2 · 9/10 · 30 January 2005]

Fun, fast, clever script for Katherine Hepburn & Spencer Tracy. She even calls him "darling" a couple times (by accident, I think). Katherine is the head of the studio reference and research department. Suddenly, Spencer Tracy appears, measuring and asking questions. While fearing for her job, this same guy starts challenging her job-skills. The roof-top lunch scene is GREAT... Sumner (played by Tracy) gives Bunny (Hepburn) a trivia test, and she proves to be his superior in many ways! it's fun to watch him squirm as she explains how she comes up with her answers. Then there is the battle of the boyfriends as Bunny tries to make her boss/boyfriend jealous. There are some running gags, such as the little old lady that keeps walking through the office, the plant in Bunny's office, and everyone keeps calling to ask one question over and over during the office Christmas party. Lots of fun, and the typical over the top ending at the finish.

Dated but sparkling comedy

[tim-764-291856 · 7/10 · 27 November 2010]

To viewers, some 40 years after this sparkling comedy, of wit and office manners was made, it might look a little staid and trite.

However, if you imagine the pairing of Katherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy to be a bit like Jolie and Pitt today and that this female dominated office, where the film is set gets intruded by a mysterious man, who ultimately might well make them redundant. The threat of workplace computerisation, before it was even called that makes a ready scenario for a rom-com.

There are no harsh catty put-downs or threatened lawsuits but gentle, intelligent conversation that bubbles through with witty comedy and a natural chemistry between the leads that one does take for granted. People in offices that we'd not give second glance to, and who'd have unsensational but detailed and flawed lives. Naturally, the office relationship spills out into a social one and then turns romantic. As you'd expect - this is Hollywood, after all.

The technology vs common-sense comedy towards the end has been trod threadbare now, but then, would have been obvious and fresh.

Watch this 'cause you love Spencer or Katherine. Better still, together. More so, if it's in colour (as was the version I saw)

Love in the office

[TheLittleSongbird · 8/10 · 28 January 2019]

Both Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn had their fair share of great films and performances (both when in the same film together and apart), and their partnership/chemistry spanning twenty five years on and off screen is nothing short of legendary. Have never been able to get enough of seeing them together. Have also liked some of Walter Lang's other work, 'The King and I' being a personal favourite.

As far as Tracy and Hepburn's nine film collaborations go, starting with 1942's 'Woman of the Year' and finishing with 1967's 'Guess Who's Coming to Dinner' and Tracy's death, 'Desk Set' for me is one of the stronger ones if not the best. Personally put 'State of the Union', 'Guess Who's Coming to Dinner' and particularly 'Adam's Rib' above it ('Woman of the Year' is also in the top five), though consider none of the nine films less than watchable. Even their heavily problematic weakest 'The Sea of Grass', despite it not serving them (well, Tracy) or Elia Kazan particularly well. 'Desk Set' is a treat for anybody who loves Tracy and/or Hepburn as actors and who loves them as a pairing, and it's a more than respectable representation of Lang too.

'Desk Set's' story is very slight, one that occasionally drags and by the end it does feel rather stretched.

One also cannot help being reminded of how far technology has come on since the 50s, because the film's depiction of technology is, although interesting from curiosity/historical stand-point, very of the time.

Tracy and Hepburn however are on sparkling form. Tracy's subtlety works a charm, as does Hepburn's strong will. Both have great comic timing and provide bags of personality, Lang really complements them and allows them to get on with it meaning that their chemistry shines with wit and endearment. They also have a strong supporting cast, with particularly good support from feisty Joan Blondell, splendidly caddish Gig Young and perky Dina Merrill. Lang's direction is never less than solid and really gets the best out of his two stars.

Even though the story is not an exceptional one, that doesn't stop the script from ceaselessly crackling with wit and dazzling with sophistication complete with a very smart edge. The quiz and apartment/bathrobe scenes are among the funniest material they did. Mostly the pace is engaging as are the well-rounded characters. 'Desk Set' is full of charm, is easy to watch and it doesn't simplistic or over-complicated. The production values, with the first time Tracy and Hepburn are seen in colour on screen together, are stylish and lovely to look at, those glorious fashions being to die for.

Summarising, nice film with a lot of pleasures. 8/10 Bethany Cox

A bad movie, partially redeemed

[larcher-2 · 6/10 · 11 August 1999]

A bad movie, partially redeemed by Hepburn's usual offhand genius. It deals clumsily with the computerization of a TV network's research department. Nobody who is sophisticated enough to be reading this web site will quite grasp the horror with which putatively intelligent people face the installation of an exceedingly primitive 1950's parody of a computer. Nor will the caricature of ice-age office romances much amuse a contemporary audience. Both Tracy and Hepburn are too old for this romance; but Hepburn is so good that she almost makes one forget this; Tracy is just the Tracy of his last few films, bemusedly wandering through a role that seems to bore him. In fairness to Tracy, this is a role that should have bored him.

Delightful. Witty and Charming

[tr-83495 · 9/10 · 26 May 2019]

I'm not a die-hard fan of either Hepburn or Tracy like some, but this film is a true gem. The chemistry between the two rocks and the silly 1960s computer, emblematic of movie and TV computers is quite goofy and thankfully saved until the last. It's the human element between the actors that makes this film so endearing. Joan Blondell is a treasure and you watch everything she does. The girls in the office are upbeat and perky, without going into melodrama, which is a nice foil to the relatively humdrum men that inhabit Federal Broadcasting. There shouldn't be any chemistry between Hepburn, still attractive and sophisticated at 50, and Tracy, a grandfatherly type, who is nice but rather retiring -- a character who fits nicely into the background. In real life, a wallflower. There shouldn't be, but there is.

It all makes Desk Set work. It's an enjoyable and fun adventure with good performances all around. A definite gem in the morass of Hollywood madness.

A solid Hepburn movie

[phawley-251-115921 · 7/10 · 28 February 2023]

It's a solid Hepburn movie with Katherine in excellent shape at age 50. She's remarkable!

Great comedic timing, banter and clear plot. Wonderful supportive women actresses. And Joan Blondell is lovely and engaged. Gig Young is a favorite as he nails his character in a persuasive way.

1957, and we're still discussing about how tech replaces people, although now it's more about AI amd robotics.

The Hepburn Tracy connection seemed positive but not spellbinding . I didn't see her romantically with either of them, and not Tracy here...

A fun view of the 1950s office with brimming empowerment for women, alcohol and smoking.

A good solid comedy for the family.

Anyone got a hairpin?

[nellybly · 10/10 · 26 December 2005]

Got a DVD player for Christmas and "Desk Set" was one of the movies my daughter gave me along with the player. I don't think my daughter was aware of the Christmas party in the movie (I can't recall if she's seen it) but that certainly made it appropriate as a Christmas gift. :)

I got a big kick out of Tracy's exit from Hepburn's apartment. It looks like it was something done on the spur of the moment and the director let them go on (smart guy).

The commentary on the DVD left something to be desired. Dina Merrill contributes very little information about the film and mostly chit-chats about her private life and other projects she'd done with other people. In another context I wouldn't have minded but except for a few bits of trivia about her co-stars and her own part in the film, she had very little relevant to say about this movie. The other person giving commentary was *not* Neva Patterson, unless her voice changed. It was a man who *was* very informative. People have commented on how this was a filmed stage play and the looks of the sets. He explains why Cinemascope movies of the '50s have the look they do. The various technical aspects (and giving answers to questions asked of the librarians but not answered on film) he went into were fascinating. I'd much rather have had him do the entire commentary. Sorry, Ms. Merrill, and I do like you.

Using a hairpin to fix the mainframe computer (can we say "fried components"?) was a play on the old gag that a woman's hairpin would fix anything, from a broken down car to a broken doorknob (I own a book of newspaper cartoons and a 1910 cartoon has that last one) when a poor helpless male wasn't able to do the repair job. Though I don't think I'd class Tracy as very helpless.

Fun from beginning to end and, I think, one of the better Tracy/Hepburn movies.

Tracy And Hepburn Warm Up The Screen

[atlasmb · 6/10 · 29 December 2022]

Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn team up in their penultimate film together, a comedy about an efficiency expert who inserts himself into the daily workings of a television network to make a clandestine examination of its research department.

Hepburn, as Bunny Watson, the head of the department, works with Peg Costello (Joan Blondell), Sylvia Blair (Dina Merrill), and Ruthie Saylor (Sue Randall). The four women have good chemistry on screen, which is more than one can say for the Hepburn-Tracy connection. The fault for that can be laid at the feet of Tracy, whose character, Gordon Sumner, is played with indifference and aloofness. Bunny, on the other hand, is engaging, funny, and full of energy. The viewer almost hopes that she can rehab her failing relationship with corporate man Mike Cutler (Gig Young)-a "suitor" who likes to maintain their no-strings approach to dating, but still shows more interest and ardor than Gordy, the dispassionate data driver.

The script is really about the prospect of AI displacing humans in the workforce, but it also seems to have something to say about living life in the moment-a message that is lost on Sumner, who seems content with viewing rather than doing.

The depiction of the digital age that's coming, personified by the mega-computer EMERAC, is satisfactorily cartoonish and unsophisticated, which is appropriate for audiences of the 50s. For a personification that is more worrisome, check out HAL in "2001: A Space Odyssey", for example.

Average at best

[caa821 · 5/10 · 15 December 2006]

I had to watch this entire flick, visiting a group of friends. The host and hostess (and, frankly, most of the others) professed to be such great Tracy-Hepburn fans, that they all but cheered when the host/hostess insisted we all view this presentation, and then they all but drooled, collectively, in trying to top one another in its praise.

The widespread adoration of this duo and their acting talents has always been lost on me - whether viewing them together or individually. Everything I've ever seen them do has sort of melded together in my mind - as if they were performing the same shtick on, say, a weekly television program.

This story is weak, and the type of fact Hepburn dredges-up, so that her acumen can be shown as superior to the newfangled computer, are banal and very unfunny.

Tracy's character reminded me of the Jim Backus in his "Gilligan's Island" role.

At least half of an average rating for this film is due to it providing at least some nostalgia in scenery, plot and film style of the 1950's