Desk Set *** (1957, Spencer Tracy, Katharine Hepburn, Joan Blondell, Gig Young) – Classic Movie Review 3855

Director Walter Lang’s 1957 movie of a worked-over Broadway hit play is very enjoyable even if it seems a slight disappointment from the great star team of Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn.

Tracy stars in Desk Set as Richard Sumner, a computer-savvy efficiency expert who invades starchy network department head Bunny Watson (Hepburn)’s TV company. He is an engineer who wants to computerise the research department office and the two forceful personalities clash.

The too obviously theatrical-based movie, based on a play by William Marchant, is slightly stagey and stuffy in the screenplay by Phoebe Ephron and Henry Ephron, though it deals with a very interesting and modern issue – the impact of automation on the work force.

But, when at last the dialogue offers Tracy and Hepburn something to get their teeth into, they are back on their old form, entertaining and playfully romantic. The stars are treasurable and nobody could complain about Gig Young (as Mike Cutler) and Joan Blondell (as Peg Costello) as the class co-star support act for them.

Also in the cast are Dina Merril, Neva Patterson, Sue Randall, Harry Ellerbe, Nicholas Joy, Diane Jergens, Merry Anders, Ida Moore, Richael Stephens, Sammy Ogg, Harry Evans, Jesslyn Fax, Richard Gradner, Shirley Mitchell and Renny McEvoy.

With Nicholas Joy and Merry Anders in the cast, it must have been a happy shoot.

Desk Set (also known as His Other Woman) is directed by Walter Lang, runs 103 minutes, is made and released by 20th Century Fox, is written by Phoebe Ephron and Henry Ephron, based on a play by William Marchant, is shot in colour and CinemaScope by Leon Shamroy, is produced by Henry Ephron, is scored by Cyril J Mockridge, and is designed by Lyle R Wheeler.

© Derek Winnert 2016 Classic Movie Review 3855

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