Desk Set (1957)
Because of their famous off-screen romance, Tracy and Hepburn make a famous and complex on-screen couple. And they did it often--this is the 8th of 9 films they shared. Here we are fresh into the color, widescreen era, not Technicolor in this case but a very nice, somewhat less sparkling looking competitor. There is a bright flat lighting to the sets that make it feel emotionally flat, not that this is a melodrama. It's a comedy, and it depends on timing and personality more than jokes or sight gags.
And it never quite clicks. There are "moments" that are funny, though I didn't laugh out loud until halfway through, in her well appointed apartment. And there are lots of stiff and even paltry stretches between the moments. If you love either actor, or both together, you'll love to watch them to see another piece to the presence they had over the years. But director Walter Lang (who is not known for a single "great" movie at all, unfortunately), pulls together a competent job. I'm not sure competent is enough in a dated period piece like this.
But for people interested in the period, though, and in the rise of the American business world internationally, and in the rise in IBM in particular (called by its full name still, International Business Machines), you'll be curious. I was. I don't think this is what you'd call an accurate depiction of a typical corporate business, but the architecture and the spaces and color schemes seem right. There is a reference to an early computer that many of you might miss, the EMERAC, which is an invention of the movie, but which is a blur of other early anagram computers ENIAC (1946) and UNIVAC (1951). IBM's own first computer was operating in 1953. The size of the computer toward the end of this plodding movie is actually pretty accurate, though the lights are fictional, sadly.
The two principle actors are a hair out of touch already with these times, miscast in the simplest terms, though that might be because they got fixed in the world's eye by their earlier movies, in black and white, which are much funnier. And warmer. Tracy in particular is a warm actor, easy going to an extreme, and Hepburn a charming one (to an extreme), and it is when they get to show their true selves that the movie works best.
Because of their famous off-screen romance, Tracy and Hepburn make a famous and complex on-screen couple. And they did it often--this is the 8th of 9 films they shared. Here we are fresh into the color, widescreen era, not Technicolor in this case but a very nice, somewhat less sparkling looking competitor. There is a bright flat lighting to the sets that make it feel emotionally flat, not that this is a melodrama. It's a comedy, and it depends on timing and personality more than jokes or sight gags.
And it never quite clicks. There are "moments" that are funny, though I didn't laugh out loud until halfway through, in her well appointed apartment. And there are lots of stiff and even paltry stretches between the moments. If you love either actor, or both together, you'll love to watch them to see another piece to the presence they had over the years. But director Walter Lang (who is not known for a single "great" movie at all, unfortunately), pulls together a competent job. I'm not sure competent is enough in a dated period piece like this.
But for people interested in the period, though, and in the rise of the American business world internationally, and in the rise in IBM in particular (called by its full name still, International Business Machines), you'll be curious. I was. I don't think this is what you'd call an accurate depiction of a typical corporate business, but the architecture and the spaces and color schemes seem right. There is a reference to an early computer that many of you might miss, the EMERAC, which is an invention of the movie, but which is a blur of other early anagram computers ENIAC (1946) and UNIVAC (1951). IBM's own first computer was operating in 1953. The size of the computer toward the end of this plodding movie is actually pretty accurate, though the lights are fictional, sadly.
The two principle actors are a hair out of touch already with these times, miscast in the simplest terms, though that might be because they got fixed in the world's eye by their earlier movies, in black and white, which are much funnier. And warmer. Tracy in particular is a warm actor, easy going to an extreme, and Hepburn a charming one (to an extreme), and it is when they get to show their true selves that the movie works best.