Desk Set (1957)

Sorry, this movie sucks

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

I'm a young male that decided to watch this movie at random. This seems to be geared towards older ladies. Now I typically enjoy older movies, but this film just did not seem to age very well. It did have a few memorable scenes so I don't regret watching it, but I wouldn't recommend this movie however.

. . . the Fox Company blows the lid off the coming crock-pot terrorist bombing of virtually every American job site by Venal Corporate Fat Cats laughing all the way to their banks. The handwriting's on the wall in this whistle-blowing 1957 cautionary tale, and it amounts to a Death Sentence for at least HALF of the U.S. Work Force. When Demonic Pre-Schoolers such as Scott Walker, Steve Bannon, Grover Norquist, Karl Rove, and Paul Ryan were shown this flick by their Devil Nannies, they all rubbed their throbbing "666" birthmarks in nefarious unison at the DESK SET's single mention of Union Protection, and these precocious Toddler Imps vowed to eradicate the one single hope of We Normal Honest Average Patriotic Working Blue Collar Loyal Americans once they grew up. Of course, there's NO mention of Mexico in DESK SET, because ALL of our stolen jobs ACTUALLY were swiped by the Job-Killing Corporate Suits' robots and automation. Red State schools "teach" nothing but Fake "Facts" and Lies, but Fox sets the record straight BEFORE THE FACT with DESK SET. Now that the Oligarchical Red Commie KGB has allowed U.S. Billionaires to steal what little power they previously lacked, DESK SET shows that all of us non-Billionaires are totally doomed!

"Bunny Watson" (Katharine Hepburn) is a supervisor for the Reference Section of a large television studio in New York City. She supervises three female employees and all of them are essentially required to have extremely good memories and knowledge of how to obtain data utilizing the least amount of time. Then one day a gentleman named "Richard Sumner" (Spencer Tracy) appears in their section and eventually announces that he is an efficiency expert hired by the boss in order to speed up data recovery. It is then discovered that he is the maker of a super computer and the speculation from other offices is that he is there to replace some—if not all—of the people in the Reference Section. However, Bunny Watson doesn't believe that any computer can replace them and isn't really too concerned. Not only that, but after investing seven years with her boyfriend named "Mike Cutler" (Gig Young) and with still no hint of marriage from him, she has other concerns on her mind. Little does she realize that her life is about to drastically change. Now rather than reveal any more of this movie I will just say that for the year it was produced (1957) the story itself seemed well ahead of its time. Yet even though the acting was pretty good I must confess that the comedy was rather mild and the overall movie seemed a bit dated. Even so, it was still somewhat entertaining and for that reason I have rated it as slightly above average.

When I list my favorite film for each year, this is always on my list for 1957. I know I'm supposed to say "Twelve Angry Men" or "Bridge over the River Kwai", but I just find this film to be better. Hepburn and Tracy star in a very odd romantic comedy in which the leading man is a computer designer and the leading lady is head of the reference department at a major television network. Change the fear of automation that Tracy's computer brings to the fear of outsourcing and you have something very modern indeed. It is interesting to see the fear of being replaced by something cheaper existed for employees even 60 years ago. It's also interesting to see that Hepburn's character as well as her employees are all smart women who, in the 1950's, cannot hope to aspire to something greater than looking up information for the rest of the company. The romantic comedy is smart and very adult, and it's a shame more people haven't seen it. There really is romance after the age of 35, something you'd never know by watching the films of today.I am going to do what I seldom do when I write reviews - mention the commentary track on the DVD. It is a real disappointment There are two people commenting - film historian John Lee and actress Dina Merrill who costarred in the film. John Lee seems to be reading his remarks and talks more about film history in general than the film specifically. Ms. Merrill talks about her personal experiences with the cast. I was really hoping for some extra or commentary about research departments as they existed in the 1950's or even something about the early electronic brains, such as the one that Tracy's character brings into the network research department. You get none of that. There is one other extra about fashions, but that is it. Usually commentary and extras on Fox classic films has been much better than this.One funny item - Dina Merrell mentioned that she tried to make small talk with Joan Blondell by talking to her about meeting her ex-husband Dick Powell. Joan was not amused, and Dina was puzzled by this response? I'm telling you all of this so that if you see the DVD has commentary that you don't get TOO excited.