Desk Set
List Price:
Our Price: $7.15
You Save: $7.83 (52%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $4.51 (click here)
Category: DVD
See more DVD releases
Buy this DVD movie at online store in your country
Canada
Canada
DVD Cover Information
Actor: Dina Merrill, Gig Young, Joan Blondell, Katharine Hepburn, Spencer TracyBrand: Fox
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono; English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono; Spanish (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono; French (Dubbed); Spanish (Dubbed), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono
Format: Anamorphic, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 2.35:1
Running Time: 103 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2004-05-04
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: 20th Century Fox
Movie Reviews of Desk Set
Movie Review: Movie review for this that I wrote for one of my MLIS classes
Summary: 5 Stars
*** Warning - this is a total spoiler. ***
Released on May 1, 1957, Desk Set is an excellent portrayal of librarians. Bunny Watson played by Katherine Hepburn is the head librarian in the research center of a broadcasting company. She is depicted as a very intelligent and capable woman. There are three other librarians that she supervises, and they too are represented in a positive light. All are dynamic interesting people who are shown doing real reference work.
The premise of the story is that a computer is being introduced into the research department at the Federal Broadcasting Company. Spencer Tracy's character, Richard Sumnar, is to spend a few months getting a feel for the library. He wants to make sure that he designs the computer to fit the job. The company president says not to discuss this with any of the librarians. However, by lunch time Bunny knows who he is and what he does because of her outstanding reference skills. Her quick wit and intelligence quickly impress Richard.
Richard becomes a part of the library's family. Through a series of humorous events, he ends up in Bunny's apartment wearing a robe that she purchased for her boyfriend, Mike Cutler, after a rain storm. He and Bunny have a lot of fun cooking and eating dinner. Their enjoyment is interrupted, when Mike shows up. He completely misinterprets the situation. This pushes Richard and Bunny closer together, and Mike leaves for an extended business trip to Chicago.
Everything comes to its peak at the office Christmas party. There is a proposal of sorts from Mike to Bunny, but he is upset by the fact that she does not immediately drop everything to be with him. He storms off. Throughout the course of the Christmas party, Bunny and the other librarians get drunk and have fun. However, the office is sobered up quickly, when a woman from the lab, Ms. Warner, comes to rearrange the layout of the reference department. The computer is to come the next day, and the librarians are worried that they will lose their jobs.
Everybody in the office is given a pink slip, when there is a glitch in the payroll computer. The librarians believe that they have really been fired. When the computer is brought online, they decide to out reference it. Ms. Warner becomes very flustered with the hostile work environment, and she leaves the reference department. After this occurs, Richard Sumnar tells the librarians that the computer is not supposed to replace them. The goal was to free them up for more important things. Richard states that the reference department is actually supposed to expand. Once their positions are secured, Bunny is willing to use the computer as the tool it was intended to be.
Mike comes back after all of this to woo Bunny, but Richard proposes too. She chooses Richard. With this choice, the viewer has the tacit assumption that she will be able to continue to do her job. When Mike had proposed, one of the reasons that she cited as to why she could not leave with him was that she did not want to give up her job or the girls. Previously, a librarian had left the job to get married and have a family; they received a Christmas card from her. Also, all of the librarians in the reference department are single. Bunny had even mentioned to one of the Pat Castillo, another librarian, that they could "move in together and keep cats," when they get older.
The movie Desk Set shatters many librarian stereotypes. The end of the movie shows that librarians do not have to be single. In addition to this, the viewer can see that librarians are smart vibrant people who have real responsibilities. The movie shows that a librarian is so much more then somebody who puts books away. They were friendly and personable; there was no glowering anti-social behavior or extreme shyness shown. The librarians in this movie dress in neither a frumpy nor overtly sexual manner. The only glaring stereotype that the movie did not address was that of gender. All of the librarians were women, and it was expected that that would be the case. Overall, Desk Set was a very progressive movie.
Summary of Desk Set
Bunny Watson (Katharine Hepburn) heads up the research department at the Federal Broadcasting Company, a major TV network. And she does her job very well, thank you very much. Assigned by the network president to introduce computers into some of the department?s functions, Richard Sumner (Spencer Tracy) arrives at Bunny?s well-run division to observe daily activities. Unfortunately, however, Sumner is ordered to keep his mission secret. As a result, the whole staff believes they are being replaced. To make matters worse, there appears to be more than a little electricity between Bunny and Sumner, which upsets Bunny?s boyfriend Mike (Gig Young). As the tension mounts in the office, so do the laughs in this classic romantic comedy.One of the later Spencer Tracy-Katharine Hepburn matchups, this time pitting efficiency expert--sorry, that's "methods engineer"--Richard Sumner (Tracy) against TV-network research whiz Bunny Watson (Hepburn) over adding a new-fangled computer--again, sorry, that's "electronic brain"--to her department, thereby threatening her and her colleagues' livelihoods. Gig Young appears as Bunny's beau, an ambitious network executive who strings her along and becomes apoplectic at the idea that she doesn't need him. But as always, it's Hepburn and Tracy's bickering-flirting that makes this such a winning enterprise--a lunch date that turns into an interrogation and their sly repartee during a Christmas party are a couple of the movie's hilarious highlights. Interestingly, what starts out as something of a technophobic exercise--Hepburn fears for her job, and a computer goes haywire--takes an abrupt turn (perhaps the IBM product placement had something to do with that). Briskly scripted by Henry and Phoebe Ephron (Nora and Delia's parents) from a play by William Marchant. --David Kronke
Similar DVD Movies
Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream HouseTurner Home Ent; Release date: 2004-06-01; DVD
Best price: $4.80
Price in other shops:
Arsenic & Old LaceWHV; Release date: 2010-11-09; DVD
Best price: $6.27
Price in other shops:
Bringing Up BabyWHV; Release date: 2011-02-08; DVD
Best price: $6.32
Price in other shops:
HolidaySony; Release date: 2006-12-05; DVD
Best price: $6.81
Price in other shops:
Mr. Hobbs Takes a VacationFox; Release date: 2005-09-06; DVD
Best price: $7.21
Price in other shops:
Christmas in ConnecticutWarner Brothers; Release date: 2005-11-08; DVD
Best price: $3.89
Price in other shops:
Adam's RibWarner Brothers; Release date: 2000-09-19; DVD
Best price: $9.49
Price in other shops:
TCM Greatest Classic Films Collection: Romantic Comedies (Adam's Rib / Woman of the Year / The Philadelphia Story / Bringing Up Baby)NEW Line Home Video; Release date: 2009-02-03; DVD
Best price: $8.95
Price in other shops:
Tracy & Hepburn: The Signature Collection (Pat and Mike / Adam's Rib / Woman of the Year / The Spencer Tracy Legacy)Warner Brothers; Release date: 2004-10-12; Published: 2004-10-01; DVD
Best price: $9.64
Price in other shops:
Philadelphia StoryWHV; Release date: 2010-11-09; DVD
Best price: $5.43
Price in other shops: