Desk Set

1957

 

Yes! I’ve wanted to write about this one for so long. I know I say this a lot, but I LOVE this movie!

 

You have to understand. For so many years I wanted to work in the Reference department of a massive New York broadcasting company, and I wanted Bunny Watson to be my boss. I wanted to be excellent at something interesting, surrounded by clever, fun colleagues who all like each other. I’ve grown up a little since then, but not that much. I’d still kill to work for Bunny Watson.

 

For those of you deprived individuals asking, “Who’s Bunny Watson?” I give you Katharine Hepburn at the perfect point in her career. She was forty-nine when she made this film. No longer the effervescent young thing of her early screwballs, not yet the arch dowager she’d become. She’s the Katharine Hepburn who knows who she is and likes it. She trusts herself. And in this movie, as Bunny Watson, she’s simply a joy. She’s a rare tropical fish, and you’ll know what that means when you see the movie.

 

Okay, so what’s it about? It’s about the modern American workplace (circa 1957) and how people like the girls in Reference were worried about being put out of their jobs by a computer. Ah, technology! It’s always been a love/hate relationship. We love the flashing lights and beeping noises, we hate the idea of it being better than us.

 

Let me start with some history. Before there was the Internet, there was the Reference department—a room full of books and smart women. When anyone wanted to know anything, they called the girls in Reference to find out.

 

The Reference department we’re concerned with here is part of the Federal Broadcasting Company, a fictional TV network. We meet the three women who work there as they answer the near-constantly ringing phones. “Reference Department, Miss Costello, Miss Blaire, Miss Saylor…” This is where all the single ladies work. Played by Joan Blondell, Dina Merrill, and Sue Randall, they also talk about clothes, give unsolicited dating advice, and loan each other money. Have I mentioned how much I wanted to work there?

 

Overseeing this bookish paradise is Bunny Watson (Hepburn) the best boss ever. She sweeps into the office with a breezy “Morning kids, wait till you see what I snagged at Bonwit’s.” (That’s a now-defunct department store.) She’s been shopping, yes, but she also worked until ten the night before and was over at IBM for an early meeting to look at their new computing machine. Work/life balance? Bunny Watson invented it.

 

She’s also dating her boss. I know, I know, but it wasn’t considered squicky then. The only negative about it seems to be that they’ve been seeing each other for seven years and she still isn’t sure if he’s going to ask her to the big dance. Bunny! You can do better!

 

The boss in question, Mike Cutler (Gig Young, being exactly what you want Gig Young to be), drops in to see Bunny in her office and when he goes in for a kiss she slips out of his grasp and reminds him that everyone can see therm. “Who do you think you’re kidding? Everyone knows you haven’t got a brain in your head,” he says. “The only way you keep your job is by being nice to me.” He’s kidding, and she laughs, but still. Ouch. She needs someone who’s going to admire her intelligence, not undercut it. Cue Richard Sumner.

 

Sumner (Spencer Tracey. Did I not mention this is a Hepburn and Tracey movie? In Cinemascope? And color? It totally is! Why aren’t you watching it right now?!) is a “methods engineer” which is sort of an “efficiency expert.” These days we’d call him a consultant and we’d be just as nervous about him showing up as the girls in Reference are.

 

When the big wig’s secretary calls to warn the girls that Sumner is on his way, she describes him as “Some kind of a nut, I think, or somebody very important. Probably both.” She’s right. He’s just installed a machine down in payroll, and now he’s brought his tape measure to Reference. This can’t be good.

 

The scene where Sumner interviews Bunny is often trotted out to illustrate the magic that happened between Tracy and Hepburn. With good reason. He’s gruff and businesslike as he presents her with a series of brain teasers. She’s engaged, intelligent, and completely self-possessed as she answers them. She’s used to being evaluated by men. When she gets the first question right he stares at her in surprise. “That’s correct.” She doesn’t blink an eye. “Yes, I know.”

 

That “Yes, I know” was a radical statement. She didn’t dumb herself down to make the man feel good. She didn’t apologize for surprising him with her intelligence. Have I made it clear yet that Bunny Watson was and is a role model? And, thank heaven, Sumner agrees. By the time they’re finished he’s looking at her with a sort of delighted appreciation. Yes! Remember that the next time your boss/boyfriend asks you to proofread his presentation, Bunny.

 

But Sumner is also there to ruin everything. One of the girls, Peg (Joan Blondell, in what may be my favorite Joan Blondell role ever) has found out that he’s there to install one of his EMERAC machines in Reference. (EMERAC stands for Electro-Magnetic Memory and Research Arithmetical Calculator. Weren’t computers fun?) “He’s trying to replace us all with a mechanical brain!” Peg wails. “That means the end of us all!”

 

Events unfold. Cutler goes out of town instead of taking Bunny to the dance one rainy night, and Bunny ends up caught in the rain with Sumner. She invites him up to her place to have dinner and get dry. What follows is an innocent evening of fried chicken in bathrobes. But when both Cutler and Peg show up it turns into something else. It turns into comedy perfection. If you don’t laugh out loud by the end of this scene, when both Bunny and Peg are collapsed with laughter, I really have to give up all hope for you.

 

There’s also a company Christmas party that makes me wish I could teleport back to 1957 just for the holidays. There’s something completely magical about Bunny and Peg getting squiffy on champagne together before the gang from Legal shows up with hooch and a piano. (BTW, I’ve worked a lot of different places, and the gang from Legal has yet to show up with hooch and a piano. Sigh.)

 

How will it all work out? Will Sumner’s computer be the death of Reference? Will Bunny wise up and give Cutler his marching papers? Will it all work out for these crazy kids? Watch the movie and find out!

 

Screenwriting DNA:

Phoebe and Henry Ephron wrote the script here. If their last name sounds familiar it’s because they’re Norah’s parents. And I swear you can tell. The back-and-forth between Hepburn and Tracy contains DNA for some of Norah’s best scenes. When Tracy looks at a tipsy Hepburn and says “There’s something about the way you wear that pencil in your hair that spells money” you can almost hear how Tom Hanks would say it to Meg Ryan.

 

And the award for most Katharine Hepburn line goes to…

In the scene where Cutler discovers Bunny and Sumner hanging out at her place in bathrobes, he simmers for a while before finally saying, “You know, being this civilized is ridiculous. I mean this looks fairly primitive to me. Unless of course there’s some other explanation.” Whereupon Bunny, with perfect patrician pronunciation, asks, “Other than what?” Only Katharine Hepburn could have given those three words the kind of emphasis that crystalized Bunny’s entire personality. So. Damn. Good.

 

The Clothes!

OMG the clothes in this movie. Would it be worth it to go back to a time when the “girls” were in Reference and Legal was “all men” just for the opportunity to wear the sweater sets, circle skirts, and swing coats these ladies have on? It would not. Of course not. Still, if costume designer Charles LeMaire had set out to make a case for women getting careers in Manhattan, he could not have made a more compelling argument. And I still want that red swing coat with the green lining that Hepburn wears in the Christmas party scene. Do you hear me, Charles LeMaire? I want that swing coat!

 

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