Desk Set (1957) on Netflix
Approved19571h 43mComedyRomance
Bunny Watson runs the reference library at a television network. Engineer Richard Sumner arrives to look the department over for one of his electronic brains, keeping his real purpose secret.
- Netflix4.3/5
- IMDb7.2/1010,553 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes100%
Trailer
Plot summary
The Federal Broadcasting Network in Midtown Manhattan keeps a reference library whose staff answers questions sent up by the programming, news and promotion departments. Bunny Watson is in charge of it, and for seven years she has been romantically involved with rising network executive Mike Cutler, with no marriage in sight. Richard Sumner, a methods engineer, invented EMERAC, an early electronic brain nicknamed Emmy. He is brought in to study how the library works and to judge what it would take to install one of his machines. Richard is surprised to find Bunny so capable and engaging. When the staff learn a computer is coming, they conclude that they are being replaced, and Bunny fears for her job.
Cast
Show all 20 cast
- Bill Durayas Member of the Board (uncredited)
- Harry Evansas Member of the Board (uncredited)
- Richard Gardneras Fred (uncredited)
- Charles Heardas Member of the Board (uncredited)
- Joe Lanzaas Dancer (uncredited)
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Desk Set (1957)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Desk Set was the eighth screen pairing of Hepburn and Tracy, after a five-year gap since 1952's Pat and Mike; it was their first non-MGM, first color, and first CinemaScope film together, and they made one last film together, 1967's Guess Who's Coming to Dinner.
- For the film, screenwriters Phoebe and Henry Ephron expanded Richard Sumner's role from the play and tailored his interactions with Bunny Watson to fit Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn.
- Shirley Booth, who played Bunny Watson in the play, was originally intended for the film as well, though in the play her character had only brief, somewhat hostile interactions with Richard Sumner.
- The character of Bunny Watson was based on Agnes E. Law, a real-life librarian at CBS who retired about a year before the film's release.
- The exterior shots of the Federal Broadcasting Network were actually of the RCA Building, now the Comcast Building, at 30 Rockefeller Plaza in Rockefeller Center, the headquarters of NBC.
