Desk Set

Bunny Watson runs the research department of a television network. Her staff are women and their work is answering questions: every fact a programme needs comes out of this room, all of it either in their heads or in the card files. One day an engineer arrives in the building. Richard Sumner measures the room, takes notes and tells nobody what he is doing. Then it becomes clear: a computer is to be installed in the department. The women think they will lose their jobs. Walter Lang directs. Katharine Hepburn plays Bunny and Spencer Tracy plays Sumner. The source is William Marchant's play. It is one of the films Tracy and Hepburn made together, and the tempo of their talk is the real material. The computer in the film resembles the real machines of the period: the size of a room, run on punched cards and in constant need of attention. The attitude the narrative takes is not to be against the machine; the problem is not the machine but that nobody has told the staff anything. What is most interesting about it now is the question it asks: will a computer take a person's job, or part of the job. It was asked in 1957 and is still being argued. It was shot in colour for a wide screen, and the office set carries the corporate look of the period well. Who it is for: viewers who like classic Hollywood comedy and sharp dialogue. Who it is not for: little happens, the romantic strand is weak, and the film takes place largely in one setting.