Desk Set (1957)

A movie as old as some of us who work in computing, Desk Set feels much like a stage play because almost the entire production is set in the corporate research department, managed by Katharine Hepburn's character, or in her adjoining office. The movie's midsection occurs in her apartment home and attempts to provide some jealousy between the two male lead characters: Hepburn's longtime and commitment-averse boyfriend (played by Gig Young), who is on the vice-president track, and an emotionally detached computerization consultant (played by Spencer Tracy), with whom Hepburn finds civility to be a challenge because apparently he has been tasked to work behind the scenes to eliminate her department. The Spencer-Hepburn chemistry gradually manifests itself, however, esp. as the latter realizes the wisdom of the former's maxim "Never assume." Desk Set is a smart show about smart people (and normal people too). As a pre-Electronic Age showcase of social conversation and repartee, Desk Set doesn't quite make the glib grade of The Thin Man or The Rope, largely because Hepburn hams it up in some scenes and sours the salt with a tinge of schmaltz. As a nominally serious set piece for the nascent age of computerization, Desk Set ultimately fails by giving us all the pre-70s cliches -- meaninglessly blinking banks of lights and beep-boop sounds when the technology is working followed by garishly flashing lights, crashing sounds, and smoke when it is asked to perform an intern's workload -- before finally and unforgivably spelling out the finale: THE END. After my first viewing, I gave this movie 2.5 stars; following my second viewing two years later, I grudgingly award it 3.5 stars.