Desk Set Movie Streaming
Lundi, mai 10th, 2010 |
Desk Set Movie Streaming.
Movie Title: Desk Set Desk Set is available for streaming or downloading. |
I hesitate to write this review, since “Desk Set” is not merely my favorite Hepburn-Tracy movie, but also my favorite movie. Moreover, it includes my favorite scene in the movies, the “scene on the roof.” Hence, I ain’t objective. The roof scene, in which Tracy gives Hepburn what is essentially an I.Q. test, and Hepburn aces it, is not merely brilliant Tracy/Hepburn (told you I was biased), but a classic example of the jousting that occurs when a very smart guy meets a very smart woman. Inevitably — because this is Tracy and Hepburn — Richard Sumner admires and, eventually, falls madly in love with Bunny Watson, who dumps her long-time, self-centered, unappreciative boyfriend in order to marry him.
Everything about this film is delightful, from Tracy’s cautioning Hepburn, “Never assume!” before relating the famous “detective” problem (see title of this review), to the office jokes between the legal department and the librarians, the floating-island dessert, Tracy’s bongo drums, and the rousing climax in which, as the new library computer spews out all 87 verses of the poem, “Curfew,” instead of data about the island of Corfu (having been mis-programed by a female in god-forbid — a suit), Hepburn theatrically recites the poem, rounding off each verse with a resounding, “Curfew will not ring tonight!”
“Should Bunny Watson marry Richard Sumner?” Tracy types into his computer. “I thought that you said that it couldn’t evaluate?” asks Hepburn. “I programmed in the answer,” Tracy responds.
So have I. This is a great movie: it has humor, romance, intelligence and wit. Love it. Buy it. Most importantly — make the studio put it out in DVD.
There are many cinematic moments I cherish, but one of my favorites has to be Katharine Hepburn murdering “Night and Day” to Spencer Tracy’s bongo accompaniment in “Desk Set.” The movie–about the love and war between computer expert Tracy and TV-network fact-checker Hepburn when she fears Tracy is trying to replace her department with a massive 1950s electronic brain–is the purest froth. But it never puts a foot wrong, and retains the same inspired level of delicate amusement throughout its running length–no easy achievement with farce. (The movie’s “electronic brain” is in itself a hoot to behold for audiences in 2002!) In a way, “Desk Set” is an inversion of James Thurber’s great comic story “The Catbird Seat,” with the man instead of the woman as the efficiency expert and with love triumphing in the end (the latter a most un-Thurberish development). It’s redundant by now to praise Tracy and Hepburn, the smoothest old pros in cinematic history; suffice it to say that the superb supporting cast–including Gig Young, Joan Blondell, Dina Merrill, and the nameless old lady who dithers wordlessly through the action–is a match for them.