“Desk Set:” An Oldie but Terrific Christmas Movie Must-See

It’s not full of truth and meaning like “It’s A Wonderful Life” and Bing Crosby and Bob Hope are nowhere to be found in it, as in “White Christmas” or “Holiday Inn.” I always confuse those two and I thoroughly endorse watching them – but if you’re going to take my advice on a stylish (for 1954, the details are delicious) on just one more holiday movie (“Love Actually” was my number one suggestion) make it Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy in “Desk Set.”

I must have started watching it in the seventies with my sister – sometimes we watch it together over the phone and feed the lines ahead of time, anticipating them. It’s funny, very, very witty and a real slice-of-the-era – for us cyberfiends, you get to see the largest computer (probably the first put on film) whose intended purpose was to “help free the worker for less routine tasks.) Like using White-Out, or carbon paper, or in this case of “Desk Set” a set of engaging characters including Dina Merrill, Gig Young and a feisty Joan Blondell all work for the Federal Broadcasting Company—the film opens with a long, tall shot of 30 Rock.

The marvelously pre-feminist Kate Hepburn leads her brainy girls (none is as brainy as she of course and she does that so well – she was actually educated at Bryn Mawr) as the network’s reference department.

It’s very ancient “Will and Grace” or “Friends” – written by Henry and Phoebe Ephron, who were prolifically sensational like their daughter Nora.

It’s will-they/won’t-they romance, lots of champagne and there isn’t a truly serious moment – some scenes between Hepburn and Tracy are simply classics. In another shot, in Hepburn’s amazing apartment (in 1954 they talk about how giving away apartments is liking giving away diamonds!) Joan Blondell, Tracy and Hepburn crack themselves (Hepburn “snorts”) up and it is a priceless take a lesser director (this was Walter Lang’s brilliant work) might have said, “let’s reshoot.”

The Christmas-ness in this movie is everywhere – office parties, the way no one gets anything done AT ALL during the week before Christmas, the gifts are Hepburn and Tracy’s chemistry and the ensemble work that was achieved well before its time and a kinder, gentler Corporate America. The fur flies, the wit stuns, the air crackles with chestnuts roasting on an open fire—it’s worth just under two hours of your time just to see how post-war America was positioning itself to introduce computers (as big as a room) to Americans. Very very interesting from that point of view. Because I have not found anything since that movie until “Sneakers” and the rest of that genre, pre “The Net.” Poor Sandra Bullock.

The music is sophisticated but you’ll probably find it stilted; listen past it. The script is absolutely enchanting. A holiday gem that’s vintage and very worth passing onto another few generations.

I promise –you’ll think it’s witty at worst, unless you’re a die hard Die Hard type, in which this movie will not touch you. It won’t do more than entertain and warm your hard; rent it. It’s truly a classic.