DESK SET
US, 1957, 103 minutes, Colour.
Spencer Tracy, Katharine Hepburn, Gig Young, Joan Blondell, Dina Merrill.
Directed by Walter Lang.
Desk Set is another battle of the sexes dramatic comedy with Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn. It was their eighth film together (and their first in colour). Ten years later they were to make Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, their last film together.
The film was directed by Walter Lang, director of many bright and breezy musicals and comedies of the 1940s, especially with Betty Grable and other stars at 20th Century Fox, and comedies and musicals of the 1950s as There’s No Business Like Show Business as well as The King and I.
The film is set in a television studio and highlights the changes that were to come in the latter part of the 20th century. The issue is the computerisation of the research department. Spencer Tracy is the engineer who is surveying the studio to see how it can be computerised. Katharine Hepburn is the head of the department. She is fighting for the defence of her department and her staff – but, of course, is drawn to Spencer Tracy. There is a more sinister performance by Gig Young and a breezy one, as usual, by Joan Blondell.
1. Why was this an enjoyable comedy? The comic situations and dialogue, satire, the stars themselves, themes?
2. Was it evident the film was based on a play? How successful was it as glossy colour, cinemascope entertainment? The smart sophistication atmosphere?
3. What are the main qualities of Spencer Tracey and Katherine Hepburn as stars? The mystique about them? Their ease of acting with each other? Their comedy talents and interaction etc?
4. How enjoyable a character was Bunny? a typical American middle-aged spinster? Her devotion to work? her intelligence and capacities for reference? The spinster longing for marriage? her response to being made redundant in work? Her relationship with Cutler, with Sumner, with the girls in the office? The humorous situations
in which she found herself? The intelligence encounter with Cutler? The reality of her choices being made clear, her hesitancy with Cutler, her ease with Sumner? How appropriate was the happy ending for her?
5. How enjoyable a character was Sumner? the eccentricity, the puzzle about him? his war background, his invention capacity, intelligence and skill, a bachelor? The fact that he turned out to be good at the end and not trying to get rid of jobs? Was the happy romantic ending appropriate for him?
6. How enjoyable was the picture of office life? Was it real or glossily presented? The references, the capacity for memory? The charm of office life? Yet the fear of being taken over by machines?
7. How real was the theme of machines taking over people's jobs? The reality of the computer? The nature of the threat? People feeling redundant, the rivalry to a machine? The capacity of the machine for doing work?
8. How enjoyable was the character Bliss Marriner? Was her inhumanity too exaggerated? Her love for the machine? Her incapacity for spelling? The humour of the machine turning on her?
9. How well did the film present the pros and cons of computers? The human element making mistakes, taking more time? The human element able to cope with the machine? The necessity of the humans giving a little at regards machines? was the film fair in its presentation of both sides?
10. How enjoyable were the supporting cast? Cutler as a conventional romantic hero in love with his work? Conventional triangle situations? Peg as the good-hearted secretary type?
11. How enjoyable are such smart sophisticated comedies? Why do they appeal? The gloss yet with a touch of reality?
