Desk Set: A Reflection on Tech, Change, and Relationships at Work Over the Holiday
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Who will lose their jobs as a result of technology use expanding in your company? Who’s dating whom? What sort of skullduggery is going on in another department and how could it impact you or someone you know?
These aren’t topics in your What’s App or Signal thread.
They’re what drives the plot of one of my favorite Hidden Gems, the Christmas-adjacent movie that I’m recommending everyone watch this month: Desk Set, from 1957, starring Katherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy (in their last comedy together).
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What Desk Set Is About – minor spoilers below
Bunny Watson (Hepburn) runs the research department at the New York City headquarters of a television network . When methods engineer efficiency expert Richard Sumner (Tracy) arrives on a mysterious mission, gossip begins to spread. Once the plan leaks that the company is installing a massive computer called EMERAC, rumors and fears start t0 swirl: Will the machine replace the staff? Office gossip, romantic entanglements, and holiday parties collide as Bunny and her team confront technology-led change and the future of work.
What Makes Desk Set a Classic
Desk Set is really a hidden gem. It’s a mystery to me why it doesn’t have legendary status like their other comedies together. I think its wit, warmth, and themes grow more relevant each year.
I define a true classic as one you can watch multiple times and still find it speaks to you. This one does, especially in our modern era of AI and accelerating automation in our lives, especially at work.
Snapshot of the Movie
- Rating: Unrated (the modern rating system didn’t begin until 1968)
- Released: December 1957
- Runtime: 103 minutes
- Studio: 20th Century Fox
- Screenplay by: Phoebe and Henry Ephron with Walter Marchant
- Source Material: Broadway play of the same name written by Marchant
- Director: Walter Lang (Oscar nominated for The King and I)
- Awards/Nominations: None
Main and Key Supporting Cast
- Katherine Hepburn (4-time Oscar winner) – Bunny Watson, Head of the Research Department at a network
- Spencer Tracy (2-time Oscar winner) – Richard Sumner, efficiency expert and creator of EMERAC, “the electronic brain.”
- Gig Young (Oscar winner) – Mike Cutler, rising executive at the network where Bunny works
- Joan Blondell – Peg Costello, Senior Research Assistant and Bunny’s confidant
- Dina Merrill – Sylvia Blair, Research Assistant
- Sue Randall – Ruthie Saylor, Research Assistant
Keep an Eye Out for These Standout Performances
The movie is full of subtly great supporting performances outside of the main cast.
Keep an eye out for Neva Patterson who plays Sumner’s assistant and the computer, EMERAC’s caretaker. You might recognize her from An Affair to Remember where she played Cary Grant’s socialite fiancée.
Critical and Popular Reception on Initial Release
The movie’s initial reception was warm but modest when it was released in December of 1957. Box office receipts were meh and the film didn’t recoup its $1.87 million budget. Critics praised Tracy and Hepburn’s chemistry but felt the film was lighter than their earlier collaborations.
Since then, it’s been reevaluated and seen as ahead of its time. I think it resonates with anyone concerned about technology’s advancement and adoption in the workplace.
Why Desk Set is Worth Watching
Desk Set is much more than a romantic comedy. It’s a film about the human side of workplace automation, wrapped in witty banter and holiday cheer (and beautiful costumes). Bunny Watson embodies the irreplaceable value of lived experience, intuition, and contextual reasoning—qualities that machines still struggle to replicate, and the value of which many businesses seem to dismiss.
Here’s Turner Classic Movies’ host, Ben Mankowitz introducing the film:
Behind the Scenes Details & Trivia
- Screenwriters Phoebe and Henry Ephron were known for Carousel, Daddy Long Legs, and Captain Newman, MD. They’re the parents of Nora Ephron, a screenwriter and director best known for When Harry Met Sally…, Sleepless in Seattle, and You’ve Got Mail.
- Costumes for Desk Set were designed by multi-Oscar winner Charles LeMaine.
- Tracy and Hepburn’s first film in color, their last comedy, and their eighth screen pairing.
- Dina Merrill’s film debut. She’s the daughter of E.F. Hutton, the financier and founder of a Wall Street firm that bore his name (eventually bought by Lehman Brothers). People of a certain age will likely remember the firm’s famous commercials.
- Gig Young (Mike Cutler) was the original choice for the Waco Kid in Blazing Saddles (Gene Wilder took over the part).
Change, Technology, Age, and Relationships
They can’t build a machine that can do our job. There are too many cross-references. ~ Bunny to Peg
Desk Set is the perfect film for this particular time period as people in a myriad of job classifications worry about the impact the latest developments in AI will have and are having on their professions, industries, and futures. The anxiety the women in the research department feel is certainly real. That huge computer in the middle of the office isn’t just a machine. It’s a symbol of disruption, change, and the fear of being displaced at work, regardless of how well you do your job.
Sumner – the efficiency expert and computer whiz — says the addition of EMERAC will mean freeing up the employee for other work (sound familiar?). He even loses his temper and accuses the CEO of breaking a promise not to fire people when a glitch in the computer in payroll fires everyone in the building, including Richard, who isn’t even an employee there.
That promise—that there will be more opportunity, not less, rings awfully hollow. Especially since the women in Research know what happened to the staff in Payroll when a computer was installed down there.
There’s a moment when EMERAC gets caught up in spitting out the stanzas to a very long poem because of a mistake made in a request. This is a moment anyone who’s worked with technology (especially AI) can relate to. We’ve had times when we haven’t posed exactly the right query (whether we realized it or not) and ended up with information that may be technically correct but not exactly what we were looking for. Bunny plays that mistake for all it’s worth, and shows the value of the human mind to understand context as well as to read between the lines to understand what the requester actually meant to ask.
The setting for the movie—a media company installing a computer to “streamline” research, seems awfully ironic considering how the continuing advancement of tech has upended entertainment and information.
The research department is all women, with Bunny and her senior assistant Peg visibly older than Sylvia and Ruthie. There’s a subplot contributing to the story involving a not-so-secret office romance between Bunny and a younger executive on the rise named Mike Cutler. He counts on Bunny’s intelligence and counsel while she waits anxiously for him to make their relationship official by inviting her to a big dance at “the country club”.
Bunny’s pining for Mike is the one thing that doesn’t fully ring true for me. But of course in that time period, women were still expected to only work until they found a husband.
There’s also the tension between MIke and Richard for Bunny’s attention. The recognition that Mike takes her and her availability for granted is one many women can relate to both in and out of the office.
Where to Watch Desk Set
The movie shows up periodically on Turner Classic Movies, especially around Christmas. When I last checked, it was also available on Roku. You can rent it on Amazon (affiliate link) or the other big streaming services, and I think it’s worth the splurge.
You can always go to JustWatch.com for the latest on where to catch it.
Choose a Drink to Match the Mood
Orange Peel & Seltzer
Spencer Tracy was an alcoholic, and by the time Desk Set was filmed, that was an open secret. So out of respect for his struggle with alcohol, we’re not going to offer a cocktail recipe. Instead, we’re going to offer a Mocktail (an alcohol-free drink) that’s easy to spike if you’re so inclined. See the notes that go with the recipe if you’d like to indulge.
Remember, don’t drink and drive, don’t drink to excess, and never offer an alcoholic beverage to someone who is committed to abstaining.
Orange Peel and Seltzer
Equipment
- Cutting Board
- Small paring knife or channel knife for the orange peel You can use a vegetable or citrus peeler
- Highball glass (or any tall glass) If you want to chill this ahead of time, fill it with ice and/or pop it in the refrigerator.
- Bar Spoon or long stirring tool
- Ice scoop or large spoon If you're feeling fancy.
- Jigger, small measuring cup, or tablespoon If you're going to spike this
Ingredients
- 6 – 8 ounces chilled seltzer or club soda You want something really fizzy
- 1 orange for the peel
- Ice at the volume you prefer
- 1/2 t 1 ounce London dry gin (optional) Only add this if you want to spike it. Don't use flavored gin.
Instructions
- Wash the orange and thoroughly dry it.1 orange
- Peel the orange using a knife or peeler, cut a wide strip of orange peel, trimming away most of the white pith.1 orange
- Fill a highball (or other tall) glass with ice to chill it.
- Pour chilled seltzer or club soda over the ice, leaving a little room at the top
- Hold the orange peel skin-side down over the glass and gently twist or pinch it to release the oils.1 orange
- Drop the peel into the glass or discard it, whichever you prefer
OPTIONAL – If you want to spike it
- Add 1/2 to 1 oz of London dry gin before the seltzer, then stir gently.1/2 t 1 ounce London dry gin (optional)
Notes
Hold the peel skin-side down over the glass and gently twist or pinch it to release the oils. You’ll see a fine mist hit the surface of the drink — that aroma is part of the experience. Drop the peel in or discard, depending on preference.
A Final Thought Before the Credits Roll
Desk Set endures, not just because of the sparkling dialogue or the comfort of watching two masters at the top of their game. It’s the way the film understands something we still struggle to articulate: that progress, when handled without care, often asks the most from the people who are least protected.
Bunny Watson isn’t afraid of learning new things. She’s afraid of being erased. Of the message that what she knows, how she thinks, and the judgment she’s built over years of experience can be replaced by something faster, cheaper, or more impressive on paper. That fear feels just as real now as it did in 1957.
And yet Desk Set isn’t cynical. It doesn’t argue against technology itself. It argues for discernment. For remembering that machines can retrieve information, but people understand meaning. That efficiency isn’t wisdom. And that progress, if it’s going to be humane, has to leave room for context, intuition, and the quiet intelligence of those who’ve been paying attention all along.
That’s why this is such a perfect film to revisit during the holidays—a season when we’re already inclined to reflect, to slow down, and to consider what (and who) we might be leaving behind as we rush toward whatever comes next.
Pour yourself something simple, settle in, and watch Desk Set again. Chances are, it will still be speaking directly to you.
