Love and Silliness in the Computer Age

 

Desk Set (1957) – An efficiency expert is brought in to bring the
research department at a television network into the computer age. He
doesn’t count on the wiles of the department head, or the
challenges of the work they do.

Directed by  Walter Lang          
Starring Spencer Tracy, Katharine Hepburn, Joan
Blondell, Dina Merrill

Why I Liked It – Comedy, romance, and Tracy and
Hepburn. What more can you ask for?

Hepburn and Tracy were an amazing couple, both on
and off the screen. The on-screen chemistry is always worth watching.
As per usual, they play two smart, headstrong characters headed
towards inevitable conflict. Bunny Watson (Hepburn) is the head of
the Research Department of the Federal Broadcasting Network. She and
her staff are the biological predecessors of Google. Inside their
brains are all the cross files and interconnections for millions of
pieces of information. What they haven’t committed to memory, they
can find in short order. But the network boss wants the newest and
latest thing, and that’s a computer. He brings in Richard Sumner
(Tracy) to scope out how to do it, and then install EMERAC
(Electromagnetic Memory and Research Arithmetical Calculator). The
idea is that it will make the department more “efficient.” The
mayhem you’d expect ensues.

One challenge of working with Tracy was his
inclination to “surprise” the rest of the cast. There’s a scene
after Sumner is caught in the rain. When he goes to leave, he
disappears for a second to get his hat and returns looking
ridiculous. This is not in the script, and the reaction from Hepburn
and Blondell is real and unrehearsed.

There’s not anything profound about the story or
the movie making here. This is a fun story told by one of the great
on screen duos of all time. This is the next-to-last movie they would
make together (“Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner” is ten years
later). Tracy’s health has been in decline for a decade, but he
never slips for a second here. Both Hepburn and Tracy are worth
watching in any and every minute they are ever on screen. They are
“must see” viewing any and every time they are together.

Great actors make average material brilliant.

Rating – **** Recommended