Holiday Classics: “Desk Set” (1957)

Desk Set, the 1957 office-set romantic comedy from director Walter Lang, received a middling critical response at the time of its initial release, and while it has become much more well-received decades later, a common criticism from viewers is that it seems “dated.” It’s easy to see why people would reach that conclusion: Desk Set’s plot revolves around the research library at Midtown Manhattan’s Federal Broadcasting Network (a fictional organization whose very real exterior is 30 Rockefeller Plaza, headquarters of NBC), where a group of women led by Bunny Watson (played by Katharine Hepburn, based on real-life CBS researcher Agnes E. Law) work in an office lined with shelves of books, where they answer questions on the phone all day that range from baseball stats to the names of Santa’s reindeer to whether or not Eskimos rub noses. One day, Bunny and her team receive a visit from Richard Sumner (Spencer Tracy) an engineer and the inventor of a power early computer called EMERAC (short for Electromagnetic Memory and Research Arithmetical Calculator, or as Richard likes to call it, “Emmy”), who has come to observe their work and their office to figure out how best to place Emmy within it— and Bunny and the gang begin to fear they and their jobs will be replaced by the machine.

Sure, EMERAC is pretty outdated tech, even though it was based on two real computers that had been invented years before the film’s release: ENIAC and UNIVAC. And the makers of Desk Set clearly did their research; a title card in the film’s opening credits thanks the International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) for their assistance. Computers hadn’t yet become commonplace in the late 1950s, but the question of whether machines could replicate the ingenuity of humans— and the fear of whether or not such machines could take the place of humans— was certainly becoming more prevalent, and while tech has advanced over the years, such anxieties have never gone away.

But Desk Set, to me anyway, also doesn’t feel dated because the back-and-forth between the characters is so fun to watch. Based on a 1955 play by William Marchant, the story was adapted for the screen by Phoebe and Henry Ephron, who added a romance angle between Bunny and Richard that wasn’t present in the play. This was the eighth of nine collaborations between Hepburn and Tracy, whose real-life love affair was an open secret in Hollywood for years, and they were no strangers to such battle of the sexes narratives. Their dialogue in Desk Set is witty and easy whether they are trying to one-up each other or falling in love, and many scenes— such as one where Bunny wows an incredulous Richard with her encyclopedic knowledge as he quizzes her to see how her brain stacks up to Emmy’s— recall the verbal sparring that the Ephrons’ daughter— writer and director Nora Ephron— would imbue her films with 30-40 years later (You’ve Got Mail, with its similar subject matter of a woman fighting to keep her place of work from becoming obsolete, especially comes to mind).

Desk Set is an especially great watch at Christmastime because a key turning point in the story occurs at an office Christmas party that finds Bunny and her coworkers getting a little tipsy around the Christmas tree. There are shots of the Christmas tree in Rockefeller Center, and while most of the film takes place on interior sets, rendering such flourishes unnecessary, the cinematography— in Technicolor and Cinemascope— makes the glorious mid-century furnishings appear that much more impressive. Those coworkers include Dina Merrill at the start of her acting career as Sylvia, Sue Randall as Ruthie, and the great Joan Blondell as Peg. Blondell acted well into the 1970s, although her career as a lead peaked in the early 1930s with snappy pre-code comedies and thrillers like Footlight Parade and The Public Enemy; her experience as the wise and wise-cracking best friend serves her well opposite Hepburn here. An aside: Desk Set also continues to feel fresh thanks to its portrayal of women in the workplace; we never get the sense that any of them are going to sacrifice their career or independence for marriage. Gig Young, meanwhile, plays TV executive Mike Cutler, who has been dating Bunny for seven years but hasn’t yet proposed; dull boyfriends were Young’s specialty, and he provides a nice contrast to the more exciting Richard here. The Christmas party concludes on a somber note, with the girls at the office discovering that they are probably about to be replaced by a computer. Hepburn really works her magic when she answers the phone and, in response to a query on the other end of the linste, chokes back tears as she recites “’Twas the Night Before Christmas.” It’s a tender moment made all the more touching by one of the greatest screen actors of all time.

Desk Set is available to rent or buy on all digital platforms. Runtime: 104 minutes.