CLASSIC MOVIE REVIEW: Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy in DESK SET from STEVE HAYES

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CLASSIC MOVIE REVIEW: A holiday treat featuring the eighth pairing of Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy and their first film together in color, DESK SET (1957). The mysterious man at a big TV network proves to be computer engineer Richard Sumner (Tracy), who's been ordered to keep his special mission a secret. He meets his match in Department head Bunny Watson (Hepburn), who sets out to unmask his real purpose. Light, breezy and perfect for playing in the background while taking down the Christmas tree or curling up and watching while waiting for midnight on New Year's Eve.

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[dermotmccaul]

Steve, I'm so glad you love Desk Set, it's my fave Hepburn/Tracy movie, and not just because I'm a (now retired) librarian; in fact I used a clip from it in a presentation I did at library school (so many years ago!!!) to demonstrate the perfect phone reference technique! If I had any success at all as a librarian, I put it all down to Katharine Hepburn and this movie! All the very very best to you and Johnny and the gang for 2023.

[LouiseOC]

I love this film, my favourite of the Hepburn and Tracy movies. And so nice and unusual to see a group of women portrayed as liking each other and enjoying working together.

[STEVEHAYESTOQ]

@texzilla
How true. and he doesn't try and put her down or suppress her in any way. Whenever i watch it, it seems to me to be a lovely little duet by two seasoned pros who liked each other an awful lot. Thanks for watching!

[Nemesis]

"Desk Set" contains an absolutely marvelous little "special" moment that comes at the very end of certain scene in Hepburn's apartment. Tracy's leaving and comes back into the living room in his coat and hat, pretends to be stumbling drunk, and goes out the door. I don't know if he ad-libbed it or if he just simply got to Hepburn that deeply, but as he stumbles out Hepburn and Blondell are in very real hysterics, especially Hepburn, who's just helplessly snorting with laughter. Delicious!

[danieltobias]

Desk Set is my favorite Christmas movie. I have to watch it every December!

[djsrob]

So glad you like this! Tried to get my family into it, but they ain't biting. One of the loveliest things anybody says to anyone in any movie is Spencer/Sumner telling Bunny, "I bet you write wonderful letters..."
Love you Steve - found you via selfstyledsiren!

[orhugs]

My ringtone is her reciting the Curfew poem to Spencer !! :D The looks I get when it goes off hahahaha

[leedsdevil]

Curfew MUST not ring tonight! The Lexington/Mexican Avenue bus! So many great "bits". This is by far my favorite Tracey/Hepburn film... Thanks for bringing attention to so many classic, criminally overlooked films.

[rogercase]

My absolute favourite Hepburn performance!
You've Got Mail, written by the daughter of the couple who wrote this, feels like a sort of modern twist on the angst over modernity threatening humanity. In fact, You've Got Mail feels more like Desk Set than Shop Around the Corner.
Nevertheless, I also think Hepburn and Blondell's chemistry equaled Hepburn and Tracy's fabled chemistry! *ducks and covers*

[Toyuki]

Steve, your reviews are just too too divine--RALLY they are. Love your Kate Hepburn imitation (as well as all the others). I'm subscribing and rating 5 stars right now!

[critzeport]

One of the things I LOVE about Desk Set is that it was made in a time when Women Who Work were portrayed as unquestionably sacrificing any kind of family life to their "ambition"...to do things like fact check. You can look at The Best of Everything with Joan Crawford (and Steve, if you haven't yet, I REALLY HOPE YOU DO!!!! I'd love to see your review!) and that example of "it's too late for me" as kind of a standard "warning" to women of that time.
In Desk Set, you do feel like Hepburn is running out of time waiting for Gig Young to FINALLY "pop the question"...when the unlikely Spencer Tracy comes and saves her from eternal spinsterhood. And there's a feeling that THIS guy will be ok with her keeping her job.
That was a radical, revolutionary message for that era.

[alidabaxter]

I'm so glad you reviewed this movie. I knew nothing about it until it turned up on TV here a few years ago. I love the scene when Spencer Tracy has put his shoes in the oven in Hepburn's apartment, and any film with Joan Blondell in it would be a favourite with me - could you please possibly review just about any old film of hers?

[chrishutchinson]

I love this movie. It is one of my favorites of the Tracy and Hepburn movies. They are so good together.

[kevenpinder]

This was one of my mother's favorites. I keep trying to get my cousine to watch it, but her cap is set against Tracy and she'll have none of it. "That crazy machine fired everyone in the building." When I was in college in the 70s the school main frame went berserk and made everyone Spanish majors.

[miltsar]

Yes who was that blonde hunk above Jane and the chorus boy ?

[ebonywahine]

yes it certainly has the feel of a improvisation doesn't it as far as Hepburn and Blondell's go. I is one of my favorite bits I wait for it and laugh just as hard every time I watch it!

[michaelcain]

Loved you in TRICK. This is my favorite (and first) of her movies. ❤

[waynemacpherson]

It's the best Spencer and Kate because it doesn't have his insecure manhood, he doesn't talk down to her or humiliate her. The best scene is the rooftop quiz where she aces all the questions and shows how bright she is.

[neildickson]

My all time favorite Hepburn imitation. I've watched it enough to have an Ida Lupino "Twilight Zone" out of body experience.

[roderickfemm]

I can watch this movie over and over again. If only they would edit out the scenes with Gig Young (except the one at her apartment).